Two for Guajataca

Adventure in our senior years whistled come. We traded the windswept prairie all white with snow for lush tropical forest with papaya, banana and mango.

Familiar comfort, people, Midwesterners like ourselves, the same accent, all the things we liked, and didn’t like about ourselves, don’t discard lightly. The waitresses at the Silver Dollar Restaurant poured our coffee as we got out of the car. “What’ll it be, the usual?” Tidbits shared with a smile or a nod. These everyday moments cling, texturizing my life. We won’t say we were bored, no, never.

My God, to think about, running off someplace totally strange, well not totally, but close enough to cause friends to wonder what the hell possessed us. Life as a respected dog trainer with a kennel and all that gave me great pleasure for many years. A tractor, a bobcat, a few buildings filled with guy toys; what man isn’t happy in spite of himself?

Kirt and I are well balanced. My life has been running away from or to something, screaming; screaming what depends on the day or year. Conservative Kirt mastered the “what if” cautious approach early in our marriage. I know how to get something to work and he tells me why it won’t, or shouldn’t.  I hate it when he makes good points.

For more than a decade we talked about retiring to New Orleans, where we have friends and family. I love New Orleans, thank you Grandma! The very first time we landed in San Juan Kirt exclaimed, “This is where I’m going to retire. I’m going to live here!” My other half heard from and noted without more thought than of pigs flying. On Sundays my grandmother and I walked the streets surrounding St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans looking in shop windows. She asked me questions about school, my friends, what I thought about this or that. What I thought; what a concept! How much would you want to re-visit that? Come on, that’s home for me.

Always listen when the quiet man speaks. Kirt usually supports me doing whatever I want, so when he has an opinion I honor it. We went to look at property. Bienvenidos a Lago Guajataca.