Our first night on the boat was in Cabo San Lucas.  We left Sioux Falls in -20 wind chill and arrived in Mexico’s lovely 80 degree “dry heat”!  (It really is a dry heat–and dusty, too!)

We’ve been to other lovely weather locations and have often heard “welcome to paradise,” or “it’s another day in paradise.”  But, in reality what is paradise?  Is it the ability to be anonymous and to do outrageous things you wouldn’t do at home like at the Mango bar that hosts a variety of “girls gone wild” opportunities?  But the memories will fade or be posted on Facebook for all to see.  It that paradise?

Or is it weather related?  Our family and friends back home are in the cold of winter “enjoying” a balmy 25 degrees and sun and wishing they could be in 80 degree weather and sunny.  But the winter will soon pass and the summer will return, and we’ll be wishing for air conditioning in the 100 degree swelter.  Paradise cannot be dependent upon only weather.

One of the saddest lines I know of is from Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” about his life growing up in the South with his best friend,a much older female cousin who looks forward to “fruitcake weather.”  The line from his story comes at the end after he has been sent away to military school and is no longer able to experience the joy and innocence of days gone by.  He states, “Home is where my friend is, and there I never go.”    Is “home” paradise?  For some it is, but for others it is not a place of safety and refuge.  So, the place of home is not always paradise.

When Adam and Eve were commanded to leave the garden–paradise–were they leaving a place?  Or, were they leaving a sense of safety and unconditional love. Perhaps paradise is really about relationships–when you know you are loved and accepted without condition.  Perhaps paradise is a sense of safety in the soul rather than being in a certain place.  For me, today we are in a place that is peaceful and calming and warm–a “place” of paradise if you’re freezing when you step outside, but without my family and friends (except for Thane,  Nancy and Jeff who are great to be with) my paradise is not quite complete.  There is peace and safety in my soul, but the relationships I enjoy and rely on are a part of my version of paradise.  This is an adventure, to be sure, but the realization of the importance of the relationships at home and the “sacredness of the every day” have become much clearer to me.  To change Capote’s text a bit, “Home is where my family and friends are, and there I intend to go again.”

Thanks for the encouragement of many to do this and for the opportunity to be a bit esoteric.  I love you all.  You are an inextricable part of my paradise.