flying_into_sunrise lostgirl so the journey begins.... 100613 ... lostgirl at six this morning, the inky predawn sky surrounded me and commanded me to take notice. like an endless indigo cashmere cloak, it was surprisingly warm, comforting even, softened at the edges by the sliver of light that prefaces the sun's grand entrance to the new day. immediately i felt the promise of change. (but then again when you consider that yesterday was the kind of day that contained some of those jolting, alarming moments....actually many of them; each one awakening and redefining in and of itself....suffice to say that a better tomorrow was nearly a guarantee.) there is nothing quite like air travel in my opinion. its flying! artificial and mechanical, but good enough for non-winged beings to lift off the ground and soar....starting with heavy acceleration to provide the air flow and loft, then climbing, ascending higher and higher to culminate with the cruise, so far above it all, at 33000 feet, only to fall slowly back to earth, landing some 600 miles later with enough reverse thrust to stop in the intended location. its all very controlled, very planned, very exact. It reminds me of just what a small and out of control speck of dust i am in the grand universal scheme of things. i shake my head in disbelief at reality sometimes. and so, the giant steel bird took off towards the east, carrying me, along with the other bleary-eyed specks of dust, to our new destination. flying directly into the rising sun, i soundly slept and i dreamt peacefully, (of flying!) waking just as wheels connected with runway once again. "welcome to Hilton Head!" the flight attendant said. and now the journey begins. 100613 ... hsg are_you_dreaming 100613 ... lostgirl indeed! after such a crazy travel day, exhausted sleep produced some beautiful dreams. and as i reluctantly crossed from that world into now, the rising sun was inching carefully but deliberately above the horizon. when nature's alarm clock awakened me, i opened my eyes and beheld the greatest view south carolina has to offer....the atlantic ocean at sunrise. vast and calm is this great grey blue capped with white, her endless waves and gently crashing surf; the unending in and out....always reminding me to breathe. 100614 ... lostgirl all we did yesterday was laugh. my mom and dad live in what we call "camp for old people." it's a retirement community for folks 55 and above, filled with homes that look similar to each other, and with a group or club for everything under the sun. a person with the desire to fit in later in life can live in sun city and make friends. my parents are great, but holy crap are they set in their ways. they get up at the same time every day, they eat at eight, noon and five, they walk three days a week, etc... marc immediately worked his magic on nana by rearranging her nicknacks. she asked him what he was doing, and he told her, "nana, change is good." (he's 5!) the big boys coaxed their pap to take them for rides on his candy apple red Honda scooter, while they took video with every intention of posting to YouTube. we made fun of the saturn rental car with no power and also of the poor quality music on the radio, and as we pulled into the beach resort, mike turned up the volume to blast organ style church music for the benefit of the security guard. my sister in law started talking and she hasn't stopped yet, my brother and i hashed over some old times while he drank wine (from a box) out of a coffee cup. mom gave me the much anticipated "you're too skinny" speech, mike and matt played rock, paper scissors for the pullout couch, and on and on it goes. this is family, and there is no replacing them....they are all priceless. but the best thing of all was the memory created. it was my mother yesterday, that impressed me most. despite her quick judgement and temper, she really has such a heart of gold. erica and mike both recently celebrated their 16th birthdays, and their nana, living out of state, missed them both. but she made up for that in volumes with the gift she gave them. she put together photo books that chronicled their lives as they relate to their grandparents. slanted scrapbooks to be sure, but knowing they won't be here forever, she wanted those happy times and memories of them preserved.... life is a scrapbook, and it's definitely too short to create memories not worthy of inclusion. 100614 ... lostgirl in a rare moment of solitude, i pod plays a song i love...frozen ocean. ironically enough i am also reading how running on ice invites a fall...karmic_knots are everywhere. i see them and i feel healing within reach. now dipping my toes tentatively into the ocean, i only feel its warmth. 100614 ... lostgirl out for dinner at a nice restaurant called the boat house with ten people can either be great, or it can be challenging. or it can just be both. when the age range of the party spans from five to seventy three, with four teenagers in the middle, the balance tips moderately to the challenging side. it is 92 degrees, and the first choice for immediate seating is outside. the oldest and the youngest are starved and sour, and more than willing to brave the steam bath that jeff is referring to as "wet-nuclear heat." we, the middle aged siblings, are craving air conditioning like no one ever did, and the teenagers just want everyone to get along, miraculously devoid of opinions for the first time in their lives. as my dry stretch of detox turns the corner of day three, i am now getting curious stares when i "just say no" to an offer of a cocktail. its starting to be like a game in and of itself to not drink. i am beginning to more clearly see how i have been using alcohol to "handle" social situations that make me squirmy. it's not anything new, i have just never paid attention to the abuse factor. tonight was one of those situations where a buzz would've taken the edge off, for sure, but each of these rough roads is going to make me stronger, i can already feel the changes taking place. in any case, the minor family freak out (we ate at 7:30!!!! people who eat at 5 get all the way cranky by 7:30, but hell yes we were cool!) combined with the lack of personal chemical relaxation, was supremely overshadowed by the fun conversation, the entertaining reggae band (along with marc dancing) and the homemade lemonade. but most important was the un-freaking believable ceviche i devoured tonight. my oh my...fresh cobia, mahi mahi and shrimp with avocados, red and yellow peppers tossed with fresh avocado and cilantro, all brought together with the lime juice used to "cook" the fish....dare I say the best ever? oh yeah.....for sure....it was really that good. 100614 ... lostgirl for the first time in two years, marc has been granted permission to swim in the ocean by his doctor. this child loves water more than most kids, and on every trip to the ocean, begs to swim in it. it usually requires an imaginative litany as to why he cannot...but this time i don't say no, and he is thrilled. the reason is not because he is all better, though that would be terrific, but has much more to do with the fact that he is scheduled for a procedure right after we return that will eradicate any "undesirables" that might get into his ears from ocean swimming. so today, he went for it with whole heart and soul, absent of all fear, with his wide smile mimicking the crescent of the horizon as he jumped over the waves. he told his brothers and cousins that the waves were his friends coming to visit him; that they had missed him. "look at them! they just keep coming and coming...isn't the ocean great?" and so, the two big brothers and the two girl cousins, all teenagers, abandoned their coolness temporarily to be five again, and started jumping with him, giggling and carrying on, splashing like crazy, calling the biggest ones 'party waves.' we watched from a distance, openmouthed in awe, all of us, at this priceless moment.... with smiling_hearts. 100615 ... lostgirl i've come to the conclusion that it is just plain hard to watch your parents get old. i am continuously amazed that they are so set in their ways that they cannot alter their routine, even for a week. i guess it is what it is, but i asked my boys to give me the secret code 'hilton head' if, when i am 70 plus, it happens that i don't spend time with them and their kids so i can play tennis with my friends. but on the plus side, as frustrated as i am, I still haven't had a drink! on to the blessings of the day...jeff bought marc a kite, and you'd have thought he bought him a new car. he was so excited to fly it, and thankfully the inferno cooperated today and compromised the heat with a small breeze that made flying it possible. he got in flight all by himself, and funny enough, only wanted "the men" around him....so my dad and brother heard all the imaginative storytelling and passed it on. he said his kite was iron man, the space shuttle, batman, superman, a straight up alien ship, a bird, a plane, and whatever else they might've missed. his smile lit his face like a beacon. he has had so many firsts on this trip, and just continuously makes everyone crack up. then adding to the excitement, was matt doing front flips off the lifeguard stand onto the sand. he does this to drive my mother bat shit, and it is working. she rides matt as hard as me for some reason, and he is so strong willed (and similar to her) that he provokes her continuously. she gets furious when he eats before meals or snacks on junk food. he tells her he wants to get diabetes to be like her....that's matt, sarcastic and fourteen. this afternoon, pap took a nap with marc and gave my frantic watchful eye a break. so mike and i decided to take a swim in the surf, along with the rest of port royal plantation. (there were more people swimming in the ocean than i have ever seen on any beach anywhere....it really is that stinking hot.....) so we were about waist high in the warm waves, talking about his new 'friend' that seems to have more to her than "friend" when i suddenly saw a FIN (!!!) 30 feet away, and advancing toward us. i guess I gasped... i have seen sharks before, but not in the surf...although this fish had no menacing aura. we stood still and didn't panic like the others doing the horror dance trying to run across the water to get away. then, the next thing we knew, his huge tail flopped out of the water! imagine, a crazy show off dolphin, seven feet long, swimming right next to us! and then he just kept on going, turning north and cruising up the coast, popping out every so often to wreak more havoc. he must've been playing a game, because the water cleared quickly, people moving away faster than dominoes falling....he made our day. 100616 ... lostgirl another day gone, and tomorrow will mark the end of the adventure. we can honestly say we are ready to go home. the fire alarm went off again for the tenth time today. poor little marc is terrified of alarms that have a high frequency. he has titanium in both ears, and for some reason this type of noise "hurts his metals," he says. we have now figured out that leaving the door open for more than a minute will set it off. granted, it has been in the high nineties, but really, that heat should not qualify for a fire. i'm planning to use this inconvenience to bargain for a late checkout, since we have an evening flight tomorrow.... ironically enough, we'll be flying_into_sunset. tonight we had another fantastic meal, at frankie bones. we had a private dining room since we had such a big party, making us feel like vip's. it was nice because marc could be his loud self without a few dozen "shhhhhh's". i am actually tired of eating, though it's a decent good thing my appetite has returned. and still no drinks! (yay me!) incidentally, the resort bar had free martinis poolside today and i didn't indulge. tonight's choice was a steak, gorgonzola, caramelized red onion flatbread drizzled with a port wine reduction.....oh my, what a culinary explosion of taste. this will be duplicated in my kitchen at home for sure. everyone enjoyed a great meal and a great day, and just when a sense of normalcy is perceived, my parents got up and left, like someone was threatening them within an inch of their lives if they didn't get home by 8 pm. once again, i shake my head in disbelief. we left the restaurant in a flourish, with marc cruising through the revolving door four times at high speed. there was quite a waiting crowd outside, and by the time i caught up to him, he was standing in a circle of people chatting them up. marc is not one to walk up to strangers, let alone talk to them, so i was naturally perplexed as to who he could have been talking to within the sixty seconds he had managed to get ahead of me. so i called to him, and he turned around looking at me with slight annoyance, as if i had interrupted him. he held up his left index finger indicating i should wait a second, and actually did say, "i'm right here mom, just talking to mike's friend brittney." and there he was, with mike's ex girlfriend brittney and her family. imagine the coincidence of that. next on the agenda, shopping! we got into the saturn, and went to coligny for souvenirs. it's a family tradition to let the kids pick out a memento of the trip. the stuff keeps getting more and more expensive though. mike bought sunglasses, that i made him pay for half of, for matt, a set of quartz bookends from the hippie rock store, and marc, ever easy to please, 15 marbles for a buck! then we lost the car, took a half hour to wander in the dark to find it, and found ourselves smack in front of piggly wiggly. since it apparently now cool to sport a piggly wiggly tee shirt, and we don't have these stores at home, we ventured inside to procure them. what a racket...$18 for a grocery store chain tee shirt bearing a picture of a giant pig. i'm not going to try to understand this, or the fact that beth asked me to pick one up for my brother, the physician....hmmmmm. yeah, everyone needs one of these. at long last, we headed back, and i reported that it is still 87 degrees at 9:20 pm. and for the hundredth time, we reminded each other that we love winter for a reason. (i did get a killer tan though.) we made it back to port royal, seemingly by braille. the reason I don't so much care for hilton head as a vacation spot is that it is so difficult to get around. they are super conscious of preservation of the environment and protecting the wildlife around here that it is nearly extreme. there are no signs above eight feet tall, and what signs there are, all look the same. wal mart is brown and white, and so is target, and so is walgreens and so is wendy's. street signs are very obscure, and there are no lights! sure, the sea turtles are protected, but darkness is the sacrifice.... it's all kind of a metaphor of my universe right now....continuously lost in the challenging, puzzle-like maze, all of it further complicated by darkness. i wanna go home.... 100617 ... lostgirl the thunderstorm on this last morning, with_love_from_mother_nature is an ominous signal that it is nearly time to move on. 100618 ... lostgirl today, was a perfect weather day. the storm raged for over an hour this morning, but mother nature let loose her frustration, then rewarded hilton head by slicing the humidity in half, just in time for us to roll. we did get a few hours of beach time in today though, before chowing the traditional giuseppe's pizza for lunch as we celebrated father's day and jeff's birthday, trying to cram half a year into the last few hours. okay, so talk about ominous signs, how about this one....we left for the airport, which is only five minutes away, and i needed to fill up the saturn prior to returning it. so we stopped at the gas station on the way, pulled up to the pump, and i started filling, no differently than i have ever filled a gas tank in the thousand years i have been driving, mind you. i locked the pump in place, then turned away for a second to replace my credit card in my wallet, when the pump's handle developed a hateful personality as well as animated life to act on aforementioned hate. it quite literally leaped out of the tank hole, still gushing gasoline, and spewed gas all over my feet! holy jesus, it scared the shit out of me as well as the poor old dude in the car behind me who jumped into the air like someone stuck him in the rear end with a push pin. i really wanted to cry and all could do was laugh hysterically. and boy, oh boy do i stink now.... there is nothing like getting doused with gasoline, especially prior to flying. and as i now sit in the lounge waiting for the flight to be called, (there is only one gate at this airport) the boys watch skiing and boarding videos on the computer from winter, while i wonder if i smell like a terrorist. 100618 ... lostgirl we quite literally ran through the charlotte airport, and made the connection to home just as the door to the plane was closing. lucky for me, marc had spilled an entire cup of apple juice on me, so on top of smelling like gasoline, i also looked like i’d peed my pants! never in my life have i laughed so hard on a plane trip, though i wistfully lament the days when we were travelers bearing a qs tail. life is so different now. the charlotte to home leg of the trip granted us middle and window seats across the aisle from each other. mike got the super heavy dude that was “oozing into his seat.” and i got the chatty ex-ballerina from the New York ballet with the giant bottle of neurontin that told me the story of her nearly fatal auto accident and subsequent coma followed by her four year battle to walk and talk again. as we were flying_into_sunset, i realized that no matter how big my issues seem, how mountainous my trek feels, how i sometimes drown in thoughts and dreams of what could be or what might have been...that things could be so much worse, really. her story will make it to my writing, for sure, but for now, i’m just glad to be back to real life, to be back at home... 100619 what's it to you? who go blather from