My Heart Belongs to the Caribbean....

Ok. Well not really…my heart belongs to Jesus Christ, who entrusted part of it to my earthly husband, Charlie Kaufman…but after that…my heart belongs to the Caribbean.

I have on many occasions said “I am a flower that blooms in the sun.” Never has there been a truer statement than on our trip to Cancun two weeks ago. What a beautiful place. Man, the Mayans totally knew how to pick a location. I have seen God’s glory played out in breathtaking locales before, but something about the whole area around Cancun resonated with me.

We arrived on a Sunday afternoon after a 12 hour day of traveling, but even that couldn’t dampen the wonder and excitement that I felt surrounded by water the color of, well…the color of the Caribbean…Have you ever been there? Been to a place that had colors that could only be described by that place? It is like trying to describe what a tree looks like to a blind man. Anyway, I haven’t the words…so I will include pictures.

The people….ah, the Mexican people. I fell in love with the people. With the language. With the accent of a natural born Mexican speaking my own home language. Beautiful. With the intellect and wit. With the cultural, spiritual and historical knowledge. I know I was in a resort city and that there must be places where everyone is not this way, but it truly doesn’t matter. I fell in love with Cancun. I have decided that there are words that are much easier to say in Spanish than in English, and thus, I brought home my own version of Spanglish (simply because I have a VERY limited Spanish vocabulary) that I hope doesn’t offend any native born speakers, but it honestly is a sign of adoration.

And the food….I miss the homemade pork tacos and hand milled masa tortillas and empanadas…I don’t miss the extra ten pounds I gained, but es no matter. I enjoyed every bite.

I think my biggest take away from the whole experience was the art of a joyful spirit. I am still working on this one. But the single biggest impact this trip had on me was the beauty of the joyful spirit the people around me had. Right down to the woman whose job it was to squigee the marble when it rained to keep it dry (it rained a lot while we were there- perhaps you heard of Hurricane Ida?) This was an endless job and she did it all the while with a joyful spirit. A spirit of gratitude. A person once told me that they had “never met a bitter person that was thankful or a thankful person that was bitter.” How true is this?

So as we enter into Thanksgiving week. Let’s do this: let’s seek out the wonder and awe in our everyday lives. The drudgery…the mundane…the squigee on the marble….I am thankful that I have a dishwasher…and dishes to put in said dishwasher…and food to make said dishes dirty so that I can put them in said dishwasher….wow…I am full….of gratitude. Lord, my cup runneth over…and all I can say is, “Thank you!”