The time quickly approaches. My 40th birthday is only one month plus two days away. I have always promised myself that I would go away when the day came, I just never really knew where.I had a place in mind, but for the time being, that didn't work out. It let me focus my attention on another place that I have wanted to visit for a long time. Zihuatanejo. That normally draws the line Morgan Freeman's character always used in The Shawshank Redeption, "Zi-what?" Zihuatanejo is the Mexican fishing village where the Tim Robbins character always wanted to open a small hotel. It is also the former haunt of two very famous globetrotters, Ernest Hemingway, and Zane Grey.
They had been drawn by stories of the one that got away no doubt told by other of their kind as they sat around a fire drinking their bourbon. Zihua/Ixtapa is a mecca of Marlin and Sailfish angling, and yes, I do plan to take part.It has been a long time since I have taken a trip where I didn't really have to do anything. Beach, beer, boat, that's about it. The packing will be far easier than New York. Shorts, a couple of shirts, flip flops, an Eric Clapton autobiography I have been saving, and my ipod. Pretty simple. Long lazy days in the hammock are cleansing for the soul.
I have been thinking a lot about my 40th. Even having dreams tied directly into incidents of my youth. I really don't like the number, and I definitely don't like the fact, but it is something I'm going to have to learn to live with.
Those who read this blog know the fond memories I have of my adventures as a boy. But the later years were also filled with a lot of dark moments, and I plan to say goodbye to them as if they were the sun sinking into the sea. A new chapter has already begun, and everyday words are spilling out on the page, and like a book I can't put down I look forward to what tomorrow will bring.
I'm glad the plans are done. Now my only fear is that I will come back looking like Hemingway himself. Fortunately, I'm keeping my grays in check, one pull at a time.
4 comments:
Promise me you won't kill any marlin. Turning 40's enough karma for one year.
I'm strictly a catch and release type.
Today's 40 is yesterday's 30--or at least, that's what I tell myself. It blows my mind that I'm 44; a mother of a man (my eldest son is 23), growing up 2 other humans. The 80's were a century ago, albums, rotary phones, HASH jeans are now just comical relics from our youth.
The year I turned 40 (2004) is the year I left my second husband--my password on monster.ca was 'free and forty'. I think the problem our generation has about growing older is that we have an image of what 40 is supposed to look like ie. our parents, their friends etc. and we're so far removed from that image (I think my mom was born old) Turning 40 doesn't have to be an ominous event. Embrace it. Remember, life begins at 40.
But, then again, I'll be telling you 10 years from now that life begins at 50.
Forty was a piece of cake...the big Five-O stung a bit...
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