sometimes you just need to get away from it all

Remember how I have a blog?

No?

Me neither.

But I do. This post is proof positive. And I'm back again.

So--I went to Cancun a few weeks ago. I loved pretty much everything about it.

I loved that turquoise water.

I loved getting a deep tissue massage just because I could.

I really, really loved lounging in the hammock on my deck watching that turquoise water.

I loved waking up early and watching the sun rise over that water:

I loved that I got to enjoy that water for 7 days straight with this chica:

I loved the enormous platters of fresh fruit in the mornings.

I loved my henna tattoo:

I loved my tan:

(it's gone now--but I did have one)

I loved swimming in a cenote and snorkeling

(note to self: develop underwater camera film) and visiting ancient ruins:

I loved these breathtakingly beautiful Mayan babes with their handkerchiefs for a dollar:

I loved reading my books as the sunshine and ocean breeze kissed my skin.

I loved buying trinkets and dishes and beautifully sewn muu-muus just as a good tourist should:

I loved all things lime. Virgin lime daiquiris, lime sorbet, lime in my diet cocola.

I loved the magnificent people watching made so much easier behind sunglasses.

And, OH, how I loved my room:

So you see, it was a very lovable trip. We left happy to have been there:

But I'm also forgetting things.

Like the obnoxiously drunk adolescents whose permissive parents clearly don't understand the dangers of alcohol poisoning.

Or how bartering and bargaining got old.

Or the cocky taxi driver who tried to screw us over.

Or Miguel, one of the entertainers, who physically flirted with me to the point of awkwardness.

(When in a bathing suit, the perimeter of one's personal space grows exponentially.

Let it be officially stated for all.)

I may never forget the funky milk and yogurt.

Or other food concoctions gone awry. Sorry.

But, truth is, I really, really loved my trip.

It was practically perfect in every way.

I should go back sometime soon.

If only for this:

Or this:

(we had a full moon!)

And definitely for this:

But only if she gets to come too:

Oh Cancun, how I miss you!

The Worst Part About Vacations?

Coming back from them.

I'm suffering whiplash trying to adjust back from vacation mode. Forgive me.

By the time you read this

I'll be headed here with all the single ladies (or, at the very least, with some of my very favorites).



I'll try not to leave my heart. No promises, however.

Themes on a Vacation

I have several hundred pictures from the big vacation. I've been debating how to organize all of this while avoiding one giant bore-fest of a post and not taking it to the extreme of only posting about the vacation for weeks on end. But it is my blog; and my posterity (if they ever get here) may appreciate it one day. Plus, I might like to look back and remind myself of one of my favorite vacations so far.

So I'm going thematic. Today's theme: Art. The Chicago Institute of Art (July 3rd) and the Kansas City Art Festival (June 28th). Totally out of order, but I hope that this way you get a sense of my vacation. And really, chronological isn't always my thinking style.

So, I've always, always, always, always wanted to go to all of The Big Art Museums of the World. The Met, Louvre, The Guggenheim. The Art Institute of Chicago was my first taste of this goal and it did not disappoint. Mostly because I got to see a couple of originals that I've only dreamed about.

1. Georges Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Thank Ferris Buehler. Thank the Steven Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George. I've always wanted to see this in person and it is magnificent.



2. Georgie O'Keefe's Sky Above Clouds IV, 1965



This doesn't do its size justice. Maybe this will give you an idea:



Joan Didion has an essay about O'Keefe and she references this painting. To see it in person was simply moving for my geeky self. The essay begins,

I recall an August afternoon in Chicago in 1973 when I took my daughter, then seven, to see what Georgia O'Keefe had done with where she had been. One of the vast O'Keeffe 'Sky Above Clouds' canvases floated over the back stairs in the Chicago Art Institute that day, dominating what seemed to be several stories of empty light, and my daughter looked at it once, ran to the landing, and kept on looking. "Who drew it," she whispered after a while. I told her. "I need to talk to her," she said finally.

My daughter was making, that day in Chicago, an entirely unconscious but quite basic assumption about people and the work they do. She was assuming that the glory she saw in the work reflected a glory in its maker, that the painting was the painter as the poem is the poet, that every choice one made alone -- every word chosen or rejected, every brush stroke laid or not laid down -- betrayed one's character. Style is character.

O'Keefe is forever intertwined in this Didion essay for me. Seeing this painting taking up "several stories of empty light" made me understand, once again, how art begets art.

Away we go with images, images, and more images coupled with a bit of travelogue.









Next in the thematic post: the Kansas City Arts Festival. On Sunday, June 28th, before driving across Missouri into Nauvoo, we spent the morning driving into Kansas City and tracking down something fun to do. We bumped right into this arts festival which included interesting goods to look at, excellent people watching, a delicious lunch at a brewery, and the cutest little frozen yogurt bar I've ever seen. Some highlights:



That took way too long to create. More vacation posts to come (slowly but surely).