Home From Carlsbad California

out to the lagoon

I’m finally back with you, feeling guilty and remiss. But a day (or 10) with my sister Janet is an expanding balloon that never pops. Her Spanish flavoured Carlsbad, Californian home is a hop, skip and jump from the beautiful 600 acre Batiquitos salt water lagoon in Carlsbad, California, 30 minutes north of San Diego. A few weekends ago I slung my camera over my shoulder, set out for the lagoon and found a huge snowy egret sitting on her nest high in a tree.  

an amazing tree

I was alone that weekend because Janet was giving a conference opening keynote speech in Minneapolis. But, before flying out she gave me a package of local maps, her library card, a one week membership for a woman’s fitness spa, her bicycle, the keys to her car, directions to major shopping areas and the local coffee shop. She didn’t miss a thing.

by the lagoon trail

Before I arrived, she’d found a set of bedroom furniture on Craig’s List, painted it in funky colours, lugged it upstairs and put it together. Amazing. On the footboard she’d painted, “hermana” (sister). Touching. As I looked around the bedroom, I imagined dresser drawers and paint sprawled across the backyard. In the en suite bathroom there was a large red rose, fresh from the garden.  

I thought that it’s not what we say; it’s what we do that makes the difference. On the dresser top, I spotted a small box containing folded pieces of paper. I knew what to expect. This would be our fun for the next 10 days. Janet looked exited. 

So what had my energetic, imaginative sister dreamed up this time? What could trump a full on weekend sailing course in San Diego Bay ten years ago navigating the waters around a US Navy warship and a gazillion other boats of all shapes and sizes, or a three day weekend flight in her plane to a north western Mexico medical clinic four years ago? 

Well as I sifted though the pieces of paper, I realized, a lot of things taken together could trump those other experiences -- a stroll around Art Walk in San Diego, a scavenger hunt in Encinitas, carving in soapstone, participating in Earth Day, visiting museums in Balboa Park, playing tennis, walking the lagoon and Mission trails,  writing a Lapp sister memoirs (in a weekend?), seeing a play at the La Jolla Playhouse, camping at Julian, going on a photo shoot, taking an Apple One to One class, attending an evening cooking class, designing a book about doors from photos I’d taken in Mexico, reading magazines at the Carlsbad Library, viewing Titanic 3D at Cineopolis, making chocolate bars (Janet has a chocolate business), taking a Spanish class, joining Yoga and Pilates fitness classes, having a spa treatment and kayaking in Mission Bay. 

Unbelievable. On top of crossing most of the above off the list, I went boogie boarding for the first time, riding the waves in my sister’s scuba diving suit. And as an added special bonus,  our daughter Susan, her husband, Alan, and our grandchildren, Max and Kai arrived at Janet's from Nelson for a one week visit at the end of their camping and hiking road trip in the States. 

After I getting home on April 30th I had left eye surgery. All went well. I’m glad to be back with you.

More photos to follow --

Next blog   Flight to Al Fuerte

Upcoming   Return to Nepal

   

Namche -- Finally

The road to Namche

Many years ago, I drove with friends to Bethlehem, Israel. I still remember the shiver of excitement I felt then as we approached the city. In my mind’s eye, I saw story book images of the manger, the baby, the straw and the donkeys. When our car arrived at the town limits I looked up wide eyed and saw a red brick factory with a sign. It read, “Bethlehem Tobacco Works.” Gads.

A year later, Bob and our children, Brian, Mark and Susan, drove up the west coast of Turkey, alongside the Adriatic Sea all the way to Homer’s Troy. I’d loved the stories of the wooden horse and accounts of Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of this ancient, mythical city. By the time we arrived there in our 1971 Volkswagen hippie van, I was clutching our guide book and beyond excited. Our kids, having seen gazillion archeological sites were bored to tears.

We jumped from the van and I ran ahead to the site and had another huge letdown. Troy is mounds of green grass with small signs showing the level of civilization beneath. I think there were thirteen levels in all. Oh sure there was an amphitheatre – but mostly Troy is a confusion of hills and rubble. Heck, I wanted to see the wooden horse.   

Many years later as I puffed up the last of our three hour gruelling climb to Namche, I felt relief and pride too that we’d finally arrived at this old fabled trading post on the slopes of a crescent shaped mountain where altitude becomes a danger. The village is at 11,283 (3440 meters) and so Rajendra had arranged two nights there to acclimatize.

Buddhist stupa

A women walking towards the stupa

A djopko walking up steep village steps

Signs of civilization

What we didn’t know was in Namche we wouldn’t get sick. But Rajendra would. How do trekkers manage in the Himalaya when their guide gets sick? 

In the photos you’ll see the crescent shaped mountain, steep streets where you skirt around animals and a stupa, a small Buddhist monument perched on a hill. 

On April 18th, I'm flying to San Diego to visit my sister. So we'll press the pause button on Nepal for a couple of weeks. I'll be wide eyed in SD and blog photos and stories from there.

 See you there!

Mystical and Complicated Kathmandu

On the trail to Namche Bazaar, Rajendra said, “Dashain was hard this year.” 
“What happened?” I asked.


“Well,” Rajendra said, “My parents live in a small village a long walk from Kathmandu. Two weeks ago, a snow-leopard killed their four goats. It was night time and they were sleeping. They heard the goats bleating and went outside. By the moon’s light, they saw three animals on the ground bleeding in a pen behind their house. The leopard was tearing into the fourth. When it heard my parent’s cries, it bounded over the pen’s fence. Rajendra shook his head. They were my family’s wealth and as the oldest son, I had to buy a goat for them.”

“Why did you have to buy a goat?” I asked. 


“Well, all Hindus must sacrifice a goat at Dashain.” he said. I thought of the children playing in the courtyard during the goat sacrifice, of how ragged their clothing was, that I hadn’t seen one toy in the city since arriving, not one child with even one toy. I wondered how these families could afford a goat.


Sensing my thoughts, Rajendra looked down at his hands. “Often poor families join together and purchase a goat. It’s a sign of status if families can sacrifice their own goat. That’s why I had to purchase a goat for my family -- so they could keep their status in our small village,”  he said. 


Here in Nepal, a status symbol is having a goat to sacrifice. Wow, I thought. Nepal is complicated. Kathmandu is too.  For me Nepal had been an ancient mystical country, shrouded in history, the steepest land in the world with the highest most exotic mountains. I saw Kathmandu as a place of the Gods nestled in a sacred valley. Until I landed in Kathmandu. What you see and feel there is crazy chaos – streets so choc a bloc with cars you can’t breathe or move and when they cars do it’s sometimes around cows chewing their cuds in the middle of the road.


And you feel religion. Especially during the festival of Dashain. Nepal is mostly Hindu along with Buddhism – especially in the Everest region, and also small numbers of Christians and Muslims. They all live peacefully together.  In the photos you’ll see gods decorated with red powder and flowers. You’ll see priests and temples. 


The photo below shows the Hindu lingam representing the endlass nature of the god Shiva. Some see the lingam as a symbol of the male phallus. I saw these odd little statues all over the place and finally asked Rajendra about them. “They are little gods,” he said.

The Hindu Lingam

This is a statue of the bull Nandi facing a temple. It is the Lord Shiva’s vehicle and guards the temple door. He also represents sexual energy and controlled power.

Nandi

                                  Temples and Priests

On our second day in Kathmandu, Rajendra said,  "We're going to see a temple." But he didn't mention that we were going to see the crematorium by the Bagmati River.

We passed by the temple with the Shiva bull and kept on walking. Soon we were at the river. I looked across to the banks on the other side. The banks were lined with stone steps and hundreds of people receiving blessings for their dead relatives. (in the photo below, look down to the left of the monkey.) If you look closely, you can see an orange flame. The square boxes hold the bodies. It's difficult to see the bodies burning. I didn't want to approach out of respect. 

Our customs here are so different. We would never (at least I don't know that we would) be witness to the cremation of our relatives.

The Crematorium

"What is happening here?" I asked Rajendra. He said that according to the Nepalese Hindu tradition, the dead body must be dipped three times into the Bagmati river before cremation. The chief mourner, who usually is the first son, lights the funeral pyre and takes a holy river-water bath after the cremation. 

Families of the Dead Receiving Blessings
by the Banks of the Bagmati River

Shrines and Gods of Kathmandu

A fierce-some God

 Many Gods take the form of animals. So for visitors these "Gods" look frightening and odd. But people worship these representations.  

The three flat sculptures here are actually Hindu shrines.
You can see flowers and shades of red powder placed daily by worshipers.

  

Although Kathmandu is mostly Hindu, here you can see
Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Flags

Kids playing a game

A priest maybe?

Procession

A bull lying in the middle of the street

An ancient entrance

A bright shrine

Workers in Kathmandu

As I thought back to Kathmandu, I also remembered that we were in the midst of a Maoist insurgency, that my insurance company wouldn't guarantee helicopter evacuation from the mountains because there was a travel advisory on the country. Yikes.

Upcoming  blog posts  “In the midst of the Maoist Uprising”

                                            "Our porter Chhiring Sherpa"

The Goat Slaughter

Happy Easter 2012!

I left you on a small plateau climbing the grunt to Namche.  If you love walking and hiking especially on trails where you can gaze at the patterns of clouds and trees, where you can let your mind wander back to people and places in your life, then you know how wonderful it is to daydream.  When your mind travels into another world beyond the here and now, you are, as they say, “living in the moment.” It’s the stuff of meditation without the agony of trying.

When you struggle to breathe, when you will your body to move as I did on those rocky steps, you are also in the moment because you don’t have the energy to think. But from time to time on that climb I thought back to our two days in Kathmandu, to that magical, spiritual and turbulent ancient city that so enthralled, excited and revolted me. We were just beginning to get over the jet lag of nineteen hours of flying and the goat slaughter we saw sent us spinning.

It was a balmy day in early October, 2003. We were sitting at a table on the third floor balcony of the Durbur Square Restaurant in Bhaktapur, the medieval capital of the Kathmandu Valley. Water curled down our glasses of imported beer onto a red and white checkered tablecloth. I was beyond tired at this point, having spent the last couple of nights willing sleep to come.

We looked across to the Royal Palace. Pigeons flew overhead landing on the palace’s ornate wooden carvings, leaving their calling cards to the already thickly decorated exterior. I looked around, remembering that in this old durbar court, the Nepali princes of old Bhaktapur were crowned.

I imagined the pageantry, the music and the throngs of people. Wendy said, “Don’t look down.” She was clenching her napkin. I stood and peered down over the old railing. The railing shifted under my weight. A few people were milling around a rusted van decorated with colourful streamers. On the ground in front of the van, someone had placed a bronze tray with yellow flowers and a bowl of brilliant red powder. Behind the tray sat a priest. A man was leading a goat on a leash into the square. I was transfixed at the following scene as it unfolded.

preparing the car for the blessing

With the nod of his head, the man pulled a knife from his trousers and slit the goat’s throat. He grasped the gyrating animal and ran lopsidedly around the van, pumping the goat’s neck. Blood splattered a wild abstract design on the sides of the van and the old cobblestone courtyard. I felt sick. I didn’t want to look; but stared at the same time.

I grabbed my Nikon and tried to focus with shaking hands, not as much from disgust, as wanting to record this display. We had come here for a quiet lunch during a tour of the city. It was only our second full day in Kathmandu and as luck would have it, the ninth day of the fifteen-day Hindu festival of Dashain, a celebration marking the triumph of the gods over wicked demons.

As I read later, on this bloody and colourful day, sacrifices are given to all vehicles such as cars, airplanes and trucks for protection against accidents during the year. In a courtyard, somewhere else in the city, we missed the slaughter of hundreds of black buffaloes. When the killing ended, the area would have been filled ankle deep with blood.

After circling the van, the man positioned his still dripping knife and with a flick of his wrist lopped off the goat’s head, placing it on the bronze tray. He quickly severed the tail and rammed it into goat’s mouth. I felt like an impostor to this exhibition, recoiling even as my shutter clicked.

Children played tag in the courtyard. This was a day of worship and the scene our grotesque initiation to Kathmandu, a picture unimaginable at home. I turned around to find our guide, Rajendra.  He was chatting with our guide at a nearby table. Our eyes met.

 He must have noticed my revulsion because he shrugged his shoulders. He said, “Yesterday was the eighth day of Dashain and last night was the dark night when hundreds of goats, sheep and buffaloes are sacrificed at the mother goddess temples. Most families sacrificed a goat yesterday, as well. We can visit one of the temples if you want.”

The priest blessing the car

The afternath

My inners turned. City slickers aren’t used to such remarkable shows of blood and gore and I wondered why Rajenda hadn’t prepared us. Wendy toyed with her Dahl Baht. I took a few more gulps of beer and peered over the railing again. The priest was blessing the car and its owners before walking away, his white robe transformed into giddy abstraction by the blood of the hapless goat.

The priest leaving the scene

Goats for slaughter on their way south
 from Tibet to Kathmandu

The waiter removed our untouched plates. I looked out onto the square, to the bloody car, to the women passively looking down at the street, to the priest walking off after blessing the car. I remembered the mystical photographs of bronze gods in Power Places of Kathmandu. Those photos were taken here in the Kathmandu Valley, I remember thinking.

I think it was the gruelling trail that threw me back to that scene. As we climbed higher, my memories of Kathmandu changed along with the blue sky and the anticipation that at some point, no matter in what shape, we’d arrive in Namche.

Women passively watching

Upcoming posts

Meeting Swiss diplomats in Namche

Our porter Chirring Sherpa

Rajendra is sick 

The Climb to Namche

Dizzying suspension bridge over the Dudl Kosi  (milk river)

I looked up from my dusty boots on the crooked rock stairs but couldn’t see more than forty feet up ahead. My progress was dogged. No mental preparation on the Bruce Trail or in Nelson British Columbia’s Kootenay Mountains could have prepared me for this grunt to Namche. The problem was the lack of oxygen at altitude.

What’s it like? It’s like every cell in your body has slugged out. You’re not panting but you don’t get enough oxygen to move. I was using a gait called the ‘rest step’ where you lock your downhill leg and swing the uphill leg forward, pause and then shift your weight to the uphill leg. It’s like an exaggerated goosestep and without it, I’d have been a goner. The idea is that you don’t lose momentum and energy by stopping and starting. Slow and steady wins the race as they say.

I wanted to take photos so everyone would gasp at the trail -- so I could brag about the climb later. But life is humbling. I couldn’t see the way ahead because the trail curled around corners so you couldn’t tell where you were going -- which was probably a good thing. Even if I had decided to break my rule of not stopping, I was too tuckered to drag my Nikon from its pack on my chest.

Partway up, sensing that I was alone, I turned and way back down saw our guide Rajendra slinging Wendy’s pack onto his back. Oh, oh. Alcatel got me to Nepal. But working in Paris meant that Wendy had no hills to train on and walking the streets of Paris for eight hours on Saturday and Sunday doesn’t cut it. When I suggested that she climb the Eiffel Tower, Wendy said, “Don’t worry. My body has memory,” referring to her years of climbing Mt. Washington, skiing and cycling marathons. But after all my preparation, I couldn’t imagine how she’d finish the trek without training on hills. Besides, Wendy’s Achilles tendon had flared up before leaving Paris. Trouble ahead.

A little further beyond we found a small plateau and took a planned rest. There were a few trekkers hanging out there. A South Korean economist wandered over to talk. He said, “I’m 73 and so proud to be doing this.” Then he looked at Wendy leaning over on her hiking poles. “You’re old like me.” he said. She shot him a daggered look.

The trek from Lukla to Everest

Lukla is on the bottom right. Namche Bazaar is north of  Lukla on the left.

Before Climbing to Namche Bazaar

I’m jumping ahead of myself by taking you up the long, steep ascent to Namche before telling you the story of how I got to Nepal in the first place. That climb to the trading town was an aspiration or a symbol of the whole trek, of its challenges and of its accomplishments. So I want to take you back to January 2002 when my long-time friend, Wendy, phoned from Ottawa to ask if I’d go to Everest Base Camp with her.

Honestly, at the time, the idea seemed nutty -- frivolous. The Himalaya? Base Camp? Nepal? I couldn’t imagine why anyone did that kind of far out stuff. Actually, the thought frightened me too. The cold, the mountains, the six weeks away from home, the expense, my age -- could I do something so strenuous at almost 65, the altitude (We’ve all read stories of people dying en route to Base Camp.) I couldn’t think of even one reason why I’d want to travel there.

So I said to Wendy,” I’ll think about it.” And she waited. She phoned again. I talked with Bob. Then a couple of weeks, sensing my hesitation, Wendy, who was working at Alcatel’s Paris headquarters and accumulating a lot of airline points, offered to give me enough points for a first class return ticket to Bangkok. Her generous offer changed my whole perspective because Bob agreed to help with the financial part too. Finally, I saw an amazing opportunity to understand a part of the world I knew next to nothing about.

More honesty here. Six years ago I signed up for a post graduate creative writing course through Humber College. My mentor, Canadian writer and musician, Paul Quarrington, helped me write the first six chapters of Finding Nepal. I dipped back into other adventures that had given me the courage to consider Nepal. I described the training and finally the trek.

Because I used the journey from Lukla to Everest Base Camp as the structure, that is I followed the literal journey, I got bogged down with the book. It became predictable. It lacked tension and grip. During the period of writing, Coach Q prodded me to write more about myself, to add more flesh to the bones. So the book had also started to become an exploration of my hidden life, the part of me I didn’t want talk about, the part I hadn’t signed up for! He wanted me to be authentic. Real. Honest. Heck.

I was a reluctant horse that wanted to stay in the barn and hide. The book became a real gremlin that I had to put into a box under lock and key. Now here I am with you these six years later ready to open the box. I have no idea where I’m going with the story. But I know you are patient. I promise myself and you that I will see this journey through.

I’m including a photo of the eye of the Reclining Buddha taken in Thailand before the trek. I had this photo with me in 2006 while writing. In fact I wrote at night in hotel rooms after a six hour day of flying in CFUXY while en route to B.C., after having earned my Radio Operator’s License and Student Pilot Permit. The experiences were intense. I have the photo in front of me now. It represented(s) for me the story of the Golden Buddha. Here is that story.

            ................................................

More than three hundred years ago, the Burmese army planned an attack on Thailand or Siam as it was called then. The Siamese monks at the time worshipped a golden Buddha shrine. It weighed two and a half tons. It was pure gold.

To protect it from the invading Burmese army, the monks covered the Golden Buddha with twelve inches of clay knowing that the warriors would think it worthless. But the Thai monks were slaughtered in the invasion and so the Golden Buddha remained a secret.

In 1957, a group of Tibetan monks were told that a new highway was being built in the area of the clay statue, that it would have to be moved. Later, during the lifting operation the shrine began to crack. It was much heavier than the monks and the engineers had expected. So, it was lowered onto the ground and covered with tarps for protection against an impending storm.

However, during a night time flashlight inspection, a glint caught the head monk’s eye. He found a chisel and hammer and began to chip away at a crack. As it widened, he was shocked to see the gold. By lantern, all the monks worked at the Buddha and eventually stood in awe at the miracle in front of them.

                                              ................................................

For many and for me, the Golden Buddha represents the hidden self, the parts of us we chose to hide, our untold tales. In my blog stories, you’ll find photos of Kathmandu’s sacred power places, indescribable mountains, Hindu and Buddhist statues (While the Sherpa people of the Everest region follow Tibetan Buddhism, Nepal is mostly Hindu.), terraced rice fields in vivid shades of green and you’ll see the people that so amazed me with their happiness despite poverty. I’m glad you are on the journey with me.

Finding Nepal

Bridge Crossing

It’s one of those odd things – but even though I fly a plane, I’m still spooked by heights.  So when Wendy, (my Ottawa friend and trekking partner) and I saw the bridge off in the distance, I thought the Tibetan prayer flags were actually pieces of the bridge flying off into the air. Our guide, Rajendra, said, “We’ll be crossing the Dudh Kosi river on that one. It’s one of highest bridges in the Everest region (or Sagarmatha as the Nepalese call it)).” I remember thinking, I’d crawl across.

But that was before I knew that the bridge was full of holes stuffed with rocks by Yak herders, before I realized that the lumbering Yaks left their traces on the bridge, that the bridge swung in the air and that you could see the ground through the holes that weren’t stuffed. It was six months before Bob bought the 1958 Cessna 172 and nine months before I freaked out in the cockpit somewhere over the Prairies. But that is a much later story.

By the time Wendy and I had reached the bridge, we’d seen the Golden Buddha in Thailand, visited ancient cities within Kathmandu and landed in Lukla,  a tiny village east of Kathmandu, onto one of the scariest runways in the world. Maybe you have landed on some odd ones. But this one is the be all end all because you land at the edge of a steep cliff and taxi uphill to stop dead in front of barbed wire and a concrete building. You can imagine where my heart was at the end of that flight. I was already wondering what the take off would be like. But that also is another story.

Next post    “The climb to Namche Bazaar”   (I’ll post maps for the Mexico trip and for the Everest trek as soon as I can figure out the software.)

Back to Nepal

Garden earth around the house is warm and bulbs are popping up. I’m counting the blankets around the house in case we have to protect them from frost. Hard to believe – but for the last few days we’ve been X country skiing in Haliburton – falling and sinking into the deep soft snow and skiing over rivers running across the trails. But skiing nonetheless.

This next week, I’m returning to Nepal and my experiences trekking to Everest Base Camp in the Solu Khumbu region, northeast of Kathmandu and just south of Tibet. I have many photos (taken with a non digital Nikon SLR using Fuji Velvia slide film and scanned onto CDs) of the mountains, the people, their customs and religions to show you.

While a trek like this isn’t for everyone, doing something beyond your comfort zone – whatever it is, will give you a feeling of excitement, heightened awareness (I mentioned awareness in an earlier blog post) and confidence from taking the risk to do something new.

In the map below, my friend Wendy and I flew from Kathmandu (lower left corner) to Lukla where you see the airplane on the right, then trekked north though a number of small villages to Gokyo (upper -- right of centre) then back down to around Tengboche and north to the top of Kala Pattar (a small mountain, upper right) for the best view of Everest.

I don’t want to simply recreate the trek in chronological order because I think that would be boring. I’ll attach a better map so you can see the route, though. I want to frame the experience so you’ll understand many facets of Nepal and have a sense of trekking there, to be surrounded by 8 000 + meter mountains – the highest in the world. I’ll also include experiences and photos from the Annapurna region to the west of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal – which is more accessible for those who want to see the towering giants in a shorter period of time.

The six chapters I've written for Finding Nepal have been collecting dust for six years. Now finally with the help of this blog and you, I'm dipping back in.

See you in Nepal!

Spring Light

We are skiing here at The Domain of Killien in Haliburton and already the light has a spring hue and lift. The road we crossed yesterday to access the trail was a coursing river.

After the stifling heat of Cancun, after climbing pyramid steps and stumbling through a jungle, how strange, how home it feels to be skiing again -- to feel the crunch of snow, because at end of January when we left for Mexico, we had only a dusting. Where did the winter go?

It was the spring light on translucent birch bark that caught my eye today.

Under the Same Moon

We’ve been home only four days, running around with the silliness of everyday life. One of my thoughts while we were in Mexico detached from the CBC news, The National, magazines and newspapers (Well I have to confess that I snuck a peek at Globe and Mail headlines a few times) was that we are absolutely too wired here. My resolution when back home was to stop listening to the news during the day and to stop watching the National at night. I’ll paint instead.

Some people – especially in Mexico City, are attached to their devices – but in most of the places we visited we didn’t people walking down the street chatting into phones. They are with their friends talking and laughing and actually – yes actually physically talking and looking into their friends’ eyes. On a GO train before leaving home, I saw five young guys sit down and start to text each other. No kidding. Their mouths seemed to be in good shape. But their fingers were doing the communicating. What kind of world is that?

Jean Jacques Rousseau said once that if society did not keep moral pace with technological advances, it would become a madhouse. I know, you might be thinking – well, Lynda, you are using an Ipad and you use email more than the phone. True. But I also see my friends and actually talk with them.

   

Another thing I noticed in Mexico was that I was paying attention all the time -- totally engaged with the people, the old buildings, the narrow sidewalks and in people’s conversations. Not easy in another language because you can do two things at once when listening in English -- and so I often didn’t notice a car hurtling toward me until Bob yanked me out of the way.

What do scientists say – that we use only 20% of our brain’s capacity? In Mexico, I swear I was using about 40%. One day in Oaxaca toward the end of our two and a half weeks there, I noticed that the buildings on the familiar route we walked were becoming commonplace. It struck me that I’d stopped paying attention the way I had before.

So I’m going to attach a photo or two to each blog. I'll call Wide Eyed – referring to the opening of the camera lens and to my eyes that have seen something new and different.

Spring Melt

Snow Drops in March

We’re off to the Domain of Killien in Haliburton with friends for a few days now. I hope to post a blog while there.

See you soon,

Lynda

PS  We’re all under the same moon in this world. We all have the same hopes, wishes desires for our families, for a roof over our head and food to eat. We all want respect and we all need love. The moon shot is taken while lying in a Cancun hammock the night before we left.