2001 - Bolting to the Pacific and China; Last Gasp to Heal. An Epic Trip that Didn’t Work Out as Hoped, but Did; Linda's Steady Course Out
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Paul with his commuting-to-Connecticut lifestyle, and despite in that year being close to if not a primary caregiver, lamented that he hadn’t given Alia the focus and the individual attention and trips that he had with Noah. He recognized this would be the last gasp, a chance to refocus on each other and the things that mattered, or to realize that they’d run their race.
Maybe Linda did, too.
The focus on the upcoming epic adventure enlivened and uplifted them. In earlier years they laughed about a dream of going around the world when they were 50, just before the kids were grown up. It looked like a journey of a lifetime that might provide the energy and opportunities she and they needed. Now it was upon them and proved way different than that youthful fantasy.
Renouncing almost all their belongings including cars, 80% of what they’d accumulated and owned, they kept only a bit of basic furniture partially stored with brother Peter in Harpers Ferry, some with Tom in Conifer. The rest they let go, gone, like leaden weights releasing their feet, freeing their spirit. Two cross-country rent-a-truck trips to stash stuff at brother’s and friends, and off they went.
How liberating, not anchored to a bundle of stuff and a house. How exhilarating.
How unnerving!
A brief recap follows.
Enough to numb the mind: names, names and names, all exotic and mysterious, perhaps best serving as a poetic narration of musical notes and syllables more than specific experiences. Perhaps that is how it becomes as years pile over originally raw and vivid experiences – a multi-hued continuum, perceptible as a fused or coalesced entirety, details and specifics vague, lost, or somehow not at all relevant anymore.
Pearl Harbor and Hawaii’s Hana “She-Ents”; A volcano and a cow-eye; Ancient mariners and stone money in Yap; the drowned Polynesian city of Nan-Madol; Mushroom islands and snorkeling in a cloud of stingless jellyfish; Spirit Dog and getting desert-island stranded; Palau and the Marianas Trench – Blue Corner vortices and soaring: Linda did them all.
Dear All (from Linda)
Finally catching my breath in order to start the unwind…finishing up school while preparing for this major adventure left me sleepless and stressed…our first week in Hawaii was equally stressed and sleepless as we adjusted to jet lag and labored to finish up unfinished loose ends in FL…and then we arrived in Micronesia …my oh my…the energy here is so relaxed and the people as so unbelievably friendly that one cannot help but be transformed. Couple that with an aqua blue surf and emerald green patches of ocean , white sandy beaches with palm trees dripping with coconuts, papaya trees and warm humid breezes and a backdrop of lush jungle mountains…one cannot help but shed the stress and remember what life is supposed to be for…I understand how the poets, musicians, artists and playwrights get there inspiration from places like this…it just permeates the air.
Our crew arrived a bit dissolved looking at the Kosrae airport (you don’t see ground until actual touchdown)…. Expecting to rent a car there we were informed that all the cars on the island were rented out…that’s when the Kosrean passengers who were on the plane with us and those who were just at the airport started offering us rides . Paul and the kids and I rode with one guy who grew up here all his life…his father was from Calif. here visiting the island on business when the Japanese invaded and he became interred here…married a native and remained…Sarah (our good friend and “nanny “) rode with Officer Rex from the local police force and all our baggage was transported in the back of the truck of Jacob and Lorena, whom we later found out that Jacob was the ex president of Micronesia, they were returning from a meeting at the United Nations……
It is the rainy season now and torrential downpours blow thru often…and blow back out as fast as they come…they drink the rainwater here…we have been collecting about 2 gallons per shower. It is thought that this area was settled during the beginning of the first millennium by Malay-Polynesian seafarers.. hence Neolithic archaeological ruins are here which we haven’t gotten to explore yet…, marine parks where you can canoe in dugouts and waterfalls with pools…met an American woman on the beach this morning who has been living here for 2 yrs…am hooking up with her tonight to get the scoop on places to see here…Spent the day yesterday just driving around (the hotel got us a rental) and getting a feel for the island….Our car looks just like my old toyota that I sold before we left except the steering wheel is on the right…major disorientation…yet they still drive on the right side of the road….speed limit around the island is 25 mph…Paul remarked that it’s like driving a little go-cart around a track..
Walking on the beach with Jared this afternoon was stopped by a friendly man to talk…he lives in a beach shanty with his wife and 6 kids and 2 grandkids…he then proceeds to call his young son out who shimmies up the coconut tree and proceeds to drop down 5 coconuts for me…Dominico, the man, then shucks them and sends them home with me…I am so impressed with the kindness of this island
Alia started her home schooling yesterday…Paul is an awesome teacher… they studied longitude and latitude, the international date line (which we crossed between here and Hawaii) and are now delving into the Micronesian culture…Sarah is giving her art lessons along the way and P.E. yesterday was a lesson in playing pool (geometry and physics of course)… Have to admit it is a challenge traveling with Jared and making sure he is kept busy…haven’t quite found what to do with him on this rainy day but he enjoys watching Alia on the computer…He is really digging just being with us
Last we heard from Noah before we left the States was that he was extremely busy with his computer project…feels like a role reversal… the kid is now caught up in the corporate hustle bustle while the parents are out tripping around the world …
FEELS GOOD !!!!!
Overcoming an element of claustrophobia and her fear of flying, Linda came up with a strategy to envision Krishna under one wing, Buddha under another, Jesus upholding the nose, and a bubble of protection around her and Alia and the family when she flew.
Linda also learned to scuba, a “hotel course“ in the pool, well chaperoned and safe. But she then took to open water excursions, one to the manta ray feeding station in Yap, another into the Blue Hole and the Blue Corner into the Marianas Trench off the German Channel in Palau. More than “not her cup of tea”, these were things that initially engendered in her major resistance and fear, and her own self-condemnation over the years that she couldn’t or wouldn’t do it.
Then by golly, she did.
As much as anything, this direct confrontation with some of her primal if reasonable fears and then overcoming them is testimonial to her will, character, and spirit.
What a woman. What a soul.
Meeting in China, Linda and her acupuncture fellow-student Jeet buckled down to a most intense clinical clerkship. Faculty provided a translator for her husband’s own research fellowship, and he spent his days with Chinese medical journal translation and document reproduction chores. They also force-fit their translator into being their travel guide. Mr. Yi.
“Big Sarah” accompanied them on their travel, a reliable babysitter in Conifer now dedicated to assisting with Jared, and to a lesser extent, with Alia. Sarah also freed them to undertake touring the vast countryside to a degree they would not have thought possible.
Backpacking up Huangshan’s Yellow Mountain, 3000 feet of toehold stone “stairs” akin to the Moki steps of their US Southwest indigenous cliff dwellers, they hid in the minimal brush up top to camp. Hordes of Chinese tourists who stayed at mountain-top hotels emerged at dawn to bellow en’ masse like a wounded monster to greet the sun and exercise their Chi.
Traveling on buses as lower middle-class Chinese, they fended off crowds who strove to be helpful by pulling the maps out of their hands. Staying at “Confucius-ville” with mold as thick as a shag carpet on the walls and ceiling, only a thin sheet of drywall separated them from an empty disco that nonetheless thundered out electronic music till 4 AM. Across the country in trains, rolling into Beijing and Wuhan, flying Chinese Airlines, they explored so much of that vast country, some of what were the most beautiful spots by report and reputation.
Noah visited them with his at-that-time sweetheart, and they booked a 10-day voyage of the Yangtze. The locks to the largest dam in the world just having been shut, they realized that everything they saw would soon be submerged forever, adding an edge of appreciation, as if they needed it.
In a smaller excursion boat, they motored up the Little Three Rivers Gorge with its aquamarine waters and white cliffs, cave crypts high on the cliff 3000 years old. Their small excursion boat stopped on a rocky river shoal where vendors set up to cook for the tourists. In hotel restaurants Back in the cities live snakes lizards coiled in glass cages for customers to order, and on one riverbank, a de-boned candied shining red hog’s head awaited tourists! Here, , they savored the absolutely most delicious and fresh meal they could remember in China.
Back on the river boat, every hour in their cabin the speaker overhead would blare out a tourist tip in high-volume Chinese, but at all hours of the day and night. Noah’s pen knife silenced the speaker, and they could at least sleep at night.
Traveling the Silk Road into Mongolia, visiting Buddhist Temples and the Hall of Arhats, hiking trails to find Taoist twisted rock sculptures and contorted trees, Gymnasts and the Forbidden City in Beijing: Linda did it all, experienced so much.
Linda’s husband relied on a big last payment from a government contract he finished, but instead got screwed. In backwater rural China, they started running out of funds. No check coming in and foreclosure on the horizon, the marriage-rescue basically failing, Linda hardened in her resistance to reconciliation, counseling, discussion, even continued travel together. She had tasted what freedom might be like for her, and was not going back, no matter what she left behind.
But they did have to go back, back to the US and what remained of their home, careers, and their marriage. As they returned, thinking they’d reclaim their Florida home, Paul and Alia drove through Conifer. No way. No way Florida called them, and they decided to move back to their original family home on the mountain. With some resistance, but then not much, Linda agreed.
Linda saw she had a livelihood and a future possibly without Paul. Paul knew that their love persisted but was being starved, like a hearty plant withering from lack of water and sun, but with them because of a lack of forgiveness.
The trip did not save their relationship, at least obviously or immediately. But it did deepen their sense of commitment to each other, appreciation for the parts of each other that were most worthy of admiration and appreciation. But it did not make flashpoints, irritations, or open wounds any less.
But what a time together then, and for the rest of their lives.
When they returned from China and moved back to Colorado, however, Linda essentially launched on a life of her own. Judgments, distance and dissing, hypersensitivity from open wounds merely brushed against; after all they’d tried and done, the negatives continued to overwhelm the remaining positives. Paul felt that in order to save the marriage and their still somewhere-there love, they needed to separate, hopefully dedicate to healing and counseling. Maybe they’d get the message, realize what they were losing, what they were sacrificing.
It was not to be. Not for Linda. She had her marching tune composed and underway and decided after a dozen counseling sessions, “F-it, just do the divorce”.