Where Have I Been?MY

I'm baaack! Oh my it's been so long. I have only one reason for being absent, work. From the time my plane hit the ground in Edmonton to the time it took off again it was all work. Crazy work. So get a cup of tea/coffee/wine whatever you fancy and let me spin you a tale.

I noticed the last month that I was in Mexico last winter that I wasn't feeling right up to snuff, something was off, not off enough to go to a doctor. Sometimes a nagging head ache which I blamed on my swimming goggles (I learned how to swim and boogie board), sometimes just not very energetic, sometimes a fever, sometimes constipated (yeah in Mexico, that's really off) and yet sometimes not. It was cold in Chihuahua, thought maybe I'd caught a flu bug. Day before I left Mexico I was covered in a very fine rash, then I knew something was up, but no time to go see a doctor, I would wait until I got home......this was my big mistake.

It took 2 weeks to get in to see the doctor, by then I had done my own research and had diagnosed myself as having Dengue fever, doctors hate it when you diagnose yourself. During the course of 3 more weeks I had 3 doctors, all of which had to goggle Dengue fever. After a blood test it was confirmed that I did indeed, to their surprise (not mine) have Dengue fever. Now they don't know what to do with me, except monitor my blood to make sure I am not bleeding to death internally. Meanwhile i am working  my ass off breathing life back into a frozen and dead golf course after a brutal winter. Working long hours. Not to bore you with all my whining, let's just say I slowly and quietly suffered for about 4 months, I dragged myself to work and back each day. Everything around me suffered as well, my yard, my beautiful garden, and my house. Here is the surprising part, I didn't care. I didn't care to work in my garden or my greenhouse.

 It was clearly time for a change, a big change, one that I had been thinking of for awhile but just wasn't ready for. I no longer needed a big house, a big yard, a big garden, I need to simplify my life. To hurry this along for you, I bought the prefect little 19 ft holiday trailer (a glamper), I searched online and held out for the prefect one (this took all summer) and it's a beauty, a 1974 Squire, bought from the original owners. It was love at first sight. I sold/donated most of my "stuff", aside from a small chest stored in a friend's shed full of some "worldly treasures" my life now fits into my little 19ft glamper. I am so proud of myself that I managed to do this without buying a shed or rent a storage unit and it was easier than I thought. The more I got rid of the more freeing it felt and the more I wanted to get rid of. I had to totally clean my house which was very cleansing and therapeutic. I learned so much about myself.

I was living in the past, mourning my broken marriage and my child growing up and moving out. I couldn't believe it. I was not mourning my x-husband....gosh no, I was mourning the marriage, I hadn't moved on from being married and having a child to raise to being single, to living alone. I hadn't embraced being single.  Single people don't have a deep freeze full of food, single people don't have 30 jars of salsa or 25 jars of tomatoes sauce or 30 jars of jam in the pantry. They don't have boxes of teddy bears in the shed, or old hockey equipment for a 7 year old. they don't have dishes in the cupboard for 20 people, they don't have 20 containers of pumpkin sauce in the freezer (nobody does) and they don't have a 3 bedroom house with 2 bathroom and a huge "rec room". When I say this was easy I don't mean that I didn't cry, oh I cried buckets of tears as I came across all kinds of treasures. All kinds of tears. Things were dealt with though, dealt with so that I no longer need to hang on to a house full of crap. I Learned that I don't have to hang on to a box of my child's teddy bears, getting rid of them does not mean I am a bad mother, I learned that I don't have to keep living in this house, my child is not coming back to sleep in her old room, I can move, I can leave, and I don't have to hang on to her stuff anymore, stuff that she doesn't even want. Single people do not store other people's stuff, other people store their stuff.

It was a hard summer, it was a summer of tears, nostalgic tears, tears of work frustrations, tears of fear of change, ghost tears of the past, tears of pain from the present, tears of tiredness,  and the cleansing tears of finally letting go, and lets not forget tears of guilt, guilt for not being able to keep up with everything.

And if all that wasn't enough, I also quit my job (gasp), I finished the season and then resigned. I spent 9 years at that golf course, leaving that beautiful place brought a few buckets of tears too. I won't bore you with my reasons for leaving. Member....this space is never to be about work. It was also just time.

So, come spring time I will searching for a new golf course and a place to park my home on wheels. Right now it is safely stored at a friend's farm.  Stick around, life is about to get very very interesting. I am finally really single and totally free. Free of baggage.  So.......I booked a ticket to Turkey and Jordan and Mexico. Yup, that's quite a trip. Stick around and I will tell you all about it.

 But first, I spent some time with my kids. My first grandchild almost makes me cry every time I see him, he is the exact imagine of my daughter at his age. Not only does he look like her, he acts like her, talks like her and this may sound weird, when I touch him or carry him he feels like her, he has her bones structure and carries his weight just like her. My second grandson has her nose and her smile but he is built differently, he will decide who he is and by the looks of him, will beat his own drum and make up his own songs as he goes. These 2 little darlings melt my heart.

So, now, hang on, right after Halloween we're going to Turkey.....I hear they have good food there. 

My new home, everything I own fits in here. 

I did discover paddle boarding, bought a board and had time to put it in the water 3 times, enough to know it will be a new hobby. In looking for a new job and a place to park my new home I will be making sure there is a body of water close to paddle. 

This little man has stolen my heart. 

Did you ever see a cuter face

This guy can't stop smiling, he is adorable like his big brother

Hanging out after a hard summer, relaxing. 

Halloween, this little man shares his grandma"s love of all things green....including John Deeres

Seeing as I will not be back to this golf course I figured it was fitting to add some last golf shots......to us turfies, we call it "golf porn". While this space is never supposed to be about work, a part of my job is who I am.

Stick around, we"re going to Turkey

I call it My Loop Trip

As some of you may know I have family roots in the state of Chihuahua, both my parents and both my grandparents (on both sides of the family) were all born there, I am the first generation born in Canada. My mother's whole family moved to Canada when she was a young girl, so she does not have too many memories of Mexico but my father didn't come to Canada until he was a young man, and he came alone. To this day I still have aunts, uncles and many many cousins still living in the state of Chihuahua, scattered from Cuauhtemoc to Saladas.
This was my 4th visit, once as a child with my parents when I was 8, once with my daughter when she was 11, and once with my daughter and my mother, and now alone.

My loop trip

I have done it a few different ways, I've flown there from Canada and then taken the train from Chihuahua through the Copper Canyons to Los Mochis and then a bus to Mazatlan, or I have flown to Mazatlan and taken a bus to Los mochis and then the train through the canyons to Cuauhtemoc. This trip was always combined with a trip to Mazatlan. This time I took a bus from Mazatlan to Cuauhtemoc and then took the train to Los Mochis and then a bus back to Mazatlan. That has put me on planes, trains, buses, boats and cars this winter.....sounds like a movie.

The bus from Mazatlan to Cuauhtemoc is a 17 hour ride, In Chihuahua city you do a bus switch, this is where I was a dumb ass and missed my bus. Let me splain the bus system to you. When you buy your ticket there is a bus number on the ticket, then you go outside where many many bus lines pull up to drop off people and reload and hit the road (quickly), so you find your bus that has a number that matches your ticket, if your bus is not there yet you ask one of the "bus directors" that are standing around and being ever so helpful. Here is the problem with "ever so helpful". Mexican men take the whole "macho" thing to a whole new level than American men. If you ask them something that they do not know the answer to they will still give you an answer, they will make stuff up, not because they are deceitful or mean or because they get kicks out of sending you on a wild goose chase, they just want to help, seriously....it's really very sweet, they want to help you so bad that they make stuff up, they can't just say "I don't know", this is not a personnel thing it is a cultural thing. For the most part you can get around this by learning how to ask things (different story). So, I let my guard down (14 hours on a bus can do that to you) and messed up. Was told to wait "here" for my bus, when in fact my bus had already left, but I wasn't alone. Another Mexican couple asked the same guy (I overheard this) and they were told to wait "here" as well....see, not personal and confirmation that it wasn't my Spanish that had failed here......that is always a huge probability too.

So what now? Wait 3 hours for the next bus? Not in Mexico, once it was determined that we had been given false information......yes we both tattled on the guy, another bus was pulled out of the parking lot and we got a private bus trip to Cuauhtemoc. Seriously. Not sure if this would have happened if the Mexican couple had not been there as well, but I do know this would never have happened in Canada regardless of why you missed the bus.

The reason for taking the bus up was to see the new road to Durango and the world's highest suspension bridge but as it turned out we passed through in the dark, which I knew, but passing during the day met arriving too early in the morning (or too late at night) for my family to pick me up at the other end. My destination is not Cuauhtemoc but a small town called Rubio. However I did see the bridge because it is lit up nicely, I just didn't get pictures so I stole these off the internet. It is beautiful at night too, well worth the trip. It's like seeing the Eiffel tower at night, it's beautiful during the day but almost magical at night, as is this bridge. Had this been a sightseeing trip I would have made  the trip in 2 or 3 days but it wasn't, I was in a hurry to get there. I had left this trip to the very end of my stay in Mexico and was in a hurry to get back to the Island to spend my last days there. This happens to me very year, once I get settled on the Island I don't want to leave, I want to travel around and see things but I just can't leave. I've stayed too long, become too attached (different story).

The world's highest suspension bridge, It is in the Guinness Book of records

She's a beauty

My cousin picked me up at the bus station in Cuauhtemoc and drove me to Rubio giving us time to catch  up. Oh, the weather.....ugh! Cold, windy, dry dry air.....shockingly dry for me coming from a high humidity area, so dry it burns the nose, makes your skin crinkle and itch and ages you as soon as you cross the Sinaloa-Chihuahua border, your insides dry up too. If feels like everything in your intestines shrivels up and sticks to the sides and won't come out.....you get the picture. Reminded me of Philips Seymour Hoffman's line in Cold Mountain "if they open my gut up right now they would find turds stacked up like little black twigs". ... yeah, enough about that, It's dry. The wind howls and blows, luckily they all built their houses like the smart little pig....of bricks, houses made of sticks would have blown away. I think there are only two crooked tress in Chihuahua that are taller than me (but not wider) this is because the German people have a tendency to clear all the land without leaving a single tree, they work up the land right up to the back of the house, up to the side of the shops, garages, and barns, never leaving even a single row of trees. Unlike in Sinaloa, in Chihuahua they can only have one crop a year because of cold winters, during the winter months the land is worked up, all you can see for miles and miles is black dirt......and then the wind comes. I used to think it was dirty and dusty on Stone Island......not, I will never complain of dust on the Island again.

Now, Imagine a wind blowing through here.....close your eyes

Nothing to stop the wind

Apple orchids 

Land is worked up right to the house, see the mountains in the background, you can't get away from them

How lonely, how cold, how brown.......the mountains are beautiful though, never

It was so cold I wore all my clothes I had brought with me at once, a pair of fleece lined leggings saved my life, and I went out and bought some socks, I came without socks, what was I thinking? My past visits had never been in the winter. When I tell you what the temperature was my Canadian friends will snort and laugh,  but remember no heat in the homes, or in stores or in the restaurants except for little electric or propane powered portable heaters that they are all too cheap for to crank on high, there is just enough heat to keep you alive. The temperature went from a -3C overnight to 16C (that was the high) during the day and a 150mph wind (that's a "feels like" guess).....don't forget, stick dry air, and remember where I had come from, 33C with 90% humidly. You get the idea....carrying on now.

The mountains of Chihuahua have a way of romancing me, they court my heart, they make me feel like I am the star in a movie, and old old movie, it's old, but right away I know I have seen it before, I don't think it's a good movie, I think it's a sad movie, I don't think I would like to watch it never mind be in it, but for some reason I know my lines well making me feel like I am meant to be in it, I fit, I remember it like it like it was filmed yesterday........but I can just feel it, I get drawn in. I know it's not my story but it rouses me when I see the mountains. The story that belongs to my father, most of which he took with him when he passed away, but the mountains stayed behind and since they don't talk I can only wonder what the rest of the story is. ......and I ask my aunts and uncles to tell me stories of how they survived this desert like land and squeezed a decent living out of the dry rocky countryside with their hands. I dig through their old pictures and try to imagine what if.....what if I hadn't been born in Canada, what if I had been born here, am I privileged for having grown up in Canada or did I miss out on something. I feel I missed out. Those mountains always bring these questions.

They pull at me, every time I look up, there they are, pleading with me, telling me I belong here, my roots are here, part of me says I should be here, then I quickly look away, shiver from the wind, squint my eyes to keep the dust out. Never. 

Then later I forget and I am awed once again by the mountains and I imagine myself with a little square plot of land, a little brick house, a little chicken coop and some sheep or goats in a white fence, a little apple orchid, making a living selling eggs, butter, apples, apple pie and knitted mittens, scarves and wool socks, speaking German/Spanish, braiding my hair (that would become dreadlocks), snorting Vaseline up my nose, I can almost see it when I am focused on the those mountains....... thank goodness when I look away I remember it's not my story or my movie.

I cruise around in my aunts car and visit cousins after cousins, I pet calves, cows, little wee kittens, I go from fabric store to fabric store (didn't even buy any), I attend a Spanish/German church, I eat progies & sausage, noodle soup, tacos and beans, pie, and good old fashion German Hones broden. I see cowboys, little boys in overalls, cowboy boots and belt buckles of all sizes and kinds. Lots of the cowboys here wear the cowboy gear, whereas in Sinaloa the cowboys are barefoot or in flip flops (unless they are going dancing) It's more of a "wild west" like look here, the rough terrain and the dress, the vehicles, there seems to be more "attitude" as opposed to the relaxed "ahhh manana, manana" ways of Sinaloa, these people are more driven by making money, no laying in hammocks at 4:00 pm here, not sure I even saw hammocks.

 The farmers are indeed big farmers, not content to just harvest enough to feed themselves, they are after big crops, filling semi trucks after semi trucks of corn. All you see is corn, unlike Sinaloa where we have a variety of crops, everything from tomatoes, chilis, onions, lemons, mangos, papaya, etc, colorful crops. Along with the big farms here you see big farm equipment, nice shiny green farm equipment, and a John Deere dealership on every corner (across from the fabric store) unlike Sinaloa where we see tractors that are held together by twine, string, tape and Gods grace, tractors that were bought from Tio Jose's nephew carlos's wife's brother Rigo.....not from a shiny John Deere dealership. I've never even seen a new farm equipment dealership in Sinaloa. Chihuahua is real farm country,  I even saw hay bales, I have never seen hay bales in Sinaloa.

My mother's family came from Rubio  (right here) which is very very much farm country, and very straight and staunch German, my father's family came from Pedroneles, more ranch like and more Mexican, although they were German, it seemed my grandfather didn't like to go with the flow, he liked things a bit more messier than the straight, manicured, orderly German farm thus not ever really fitting in with his German neighbors so they opted to live in a more Mexican populated area, more ranch like, less orderly, where the chickens aren't penned and the goats run wild, the clothes line hangs low with the sheets brushing against the chicken poop on the ground, the cowboy rides his horse to the front door and walks into the house with his shitty boots. The ranch cowboy drinks beer on Friday night, howls at the moon and dances around a fire, his gun is a show piece, and his shirts have colorful flowers embroidered on the shoulder pieces, and his cowboy boots are pointed. He lives high on the hog when he has money  and lowly when he doesn't.

The farm cowboy has a nice little chicken coop, all animals are fenced in with nice red barns, the clothes line flies high, there is a walk way leading to the house and a porch where you leave your square toed cowboy boots, he has no time for dancing and howling at the moon is just for fools and coyotes, he hides his gun until it is time to slaughter a pig, his plain shirts are freshly ironed under his overhauls. He manages his money so he can live simply all the time. He hides his beer and drinks in secret.(haha, I made that up....maybe)

These two places exist here not far from each other but ever so different, my father came from one and my mother from the other, same...only different. Me....I'm a mix, sometimes I am tore between the 2 worlds. Sometimes I like things orderly and straight and sometimes I like them more mixed up, but, I always howl at the moon (when I'm alone), and I am not hiding a gun or beer, but I would love embroidered flowers on my shirts and I prefer flip flops over cowboys boots.....guess I am not a cowboy at all. Just don't look at the mountains of Chihuahua, turn the other way, south to Sinaloa.

My great grandmothers house, as it stands today, empty, abandoned. A new roof and one could move in. Never

Ready to seed, waiting for spring

2 different worlds can sometimes only be 1 hr and 45 minutes apart

From Cuauhtemoc  I take the train to Los Mochis, I am tired from laying in my bed shivering at nights and am still carrying my little black sticks with me, all in all not feeling overly great, I am thinking I will sleep the whole way, I have taken this same train through the same Copper Canyons 2 times before, I have seen it all, (so I think) I will sleep and when I get to Mochis I will jump on a night bus and head home. Not. Did not sleep a wink, the view from the big windows is amazing all the way. It was very noticeable when we crossed the border to Sinaloa, almost immediately it got greener and more colorful, more tropical, lush and full. Since I didn't sleep I decided against getting on a night bus and got a room in Mochis and had a good warm night's sleep and a relaxing morning with coffee and sunshine and Chilaquiles with beans for breakfast. Oh it was so warm. I never realized how much I love Sinaloa (now that the Chihuahua mountains are out of sight and can't woo me).

Copper Canyons

Canyons

starting to get greener and more trees

but yet still a little too brown for me

 I left my little black sticks behind and got on a bus to go home to Mazatlan. On the 6 hour bus ride through Sinaloa I fell in love over and over and over again. I love Sinaloa. I love that the corn was standing 7 feet tall with the second crop in the next field just starting, I love the rows and rows of tomatoes plants with shiny red tomatoes, I love the chili trucks on the road, loaded to the top, I love the messy ranches, but most of all I like the trees, big bushy trees, everywhere, and the flowers and the colorful houses and the laundry hanging on the ground, the kids running around barefoot, the trees, oh the beautiful trees. Just when I thought I couldn't be more in love with sinaloa.....there it was, behind green field of tomatoes, the ocean, the ocean, the reason I don't have to snort Vaseline anymore, the reason my skin feels younger the reason for the salty taste when I lick my lips, the reason my hair goes wild and will not be tamed. 

And then BAM! Sinaloa, the corn is high

Tomatoes

See the trees in the background

See how the land is not worked up on the right

trees, and water

Soft mountains in the back, and trees

Farmland and mountain

Mountains behind farm land on one side of the road....

The ocean behind farmland on the other side of the road....the best of all worlds

We have mountains in Sinaloa too, they just look softer and aren't so demanding on you (me) as the ones in Chihuahua, they don't try to steal you away, they are what they are, they complete the landscape. They don't have to romance me, I'm already in love with them. Sinaloa be still my heart.

Home.....where the horse run wild. Stone Island

Just to clarify, my mother's family packed up and moved to Canada when she was 8 so she didn;t really grow up in Rubio but she did grow up in a German farm community in Northern Alberta, where the wash line flies high, where there is a walk way leading to the house, a porch where you take your boots............

Shrimp... According To Bubba Gump

There is something so romantic about a shrimp boat. Maybe it's the Forest Gump movie, maybe it's because my idea of romance isn't very conventional, maybe it's the unknown that makes it romantic. Whatever it is, I have always wanted to get on board a shrimper. Shrimp season has just ended and there are about 100 shrimp boats docked/parked at the port. Since I have friends in high places I met up with them and we wandered around the port, and wandered, looking, looking, and peering into windows, wandered, pretending to be some kind of gringo boat inspectors, until we came across a gentleman that looked friendly (not that they didn't all look friendly) and we were invited on board. 
Although they all look like great big barrels of rust and are covered in pelican poop, the tour did not disappoint, they are beautiful mystic boats, and oh the stories they could tell I am sure could entertain us for a long time. Remember we are seeing these ships at their worst, they have just come in from being at sea for 6 months and from now until September they will get a servicing, a cleaning, and any repairs that are needed. There was plenty of action on the port, mechanics, welders, and other men that looked like they were doing important things. There is a whole world on this street, shops, stores, lame dogs, cats keeping the place rat free, kids running around, women carrying pots of food and wearing aprons, little restaurants, men laying in hammocks, men working, men sitting under a tree telling romantic shrimp stories I am sure. 
Shrimp boats are all parked in very snug, you can't tell where one ends and another begins, clearly the first one in is the last one out. As far as you can see....a mass of boats, each one with their own story. A story I would love to write, if I knew it. Which makes it so romantic to me. 

 Now I understand that they do not allow women on board, which is very evident, but I couldn't help but imagine how just a little help from a women with a sewing machine could spiff these rigs up a bit, imagine a few yards of red and white gingham fabric and some patterned wall paper, some red and  white stripped upholstery, not to mention a good scrubbing...which I am sure they will get now that they are parked. I didn't take a picture of the bathroom because I really didn't think you could all handle that, the bathroom was proof that there has never ever been a women on board. 

I love her.....I want one

This brings me to my favorite scene from forest gump