Amusings

When the plane landed in Palm Springs, my ear really hurt.  It’s strange that the ear pain coincided with a plane ride.  And, for a while, I thought that the two things were related.  But, as I think it turns out, there was more to this story.

***

My daughter and I were heading to Joshua Tree, California for a week’s vacation with friends over the New Year’s holiday.  They had rented a house out in the middle of nowhere… With a pool and hot tub… That promised evenings of perfect stargazing under the desert sky.

With our baggage retrieved and the rental car secured, we headed out of Palm Springs… And an hour into the desert.  California is an interesting place… Where eccentricities abound.  As we drove the winding desert roads through the mountains… I repeatedly passed road signs with a helicopter on them… Warning us that our speed was being monitored.  What?  At one point, I even hunched forward in the driver’s seat to get a better look at the sky overhead.  Were we being watched from overhead?!

We were the first to arrive in Joshua Tree… Our flight landed a couple of hours before our friends’ flight was scheduled to arrive.  So, we headed to Walmart to get some essentials for our stay.  Upon arriving at Walmart, I shut the car off… And the car immediately started dinging like I had left the lights on and threatened to drain the battery.  The reason?  My daughter was in the backseat.  And, as this happened every time I shut off the car, I began to think that California doesn’t trust me to remove my daughter from the backseat of the car.

Coffee… Bread… Peanut butter and jelly… Seltzer beverages… An air mattress… And a cartload of other things.

Well, Walmart was a treat… If you’ve never googled ‘the people of Walmart’… Do yourself a favor… And run, don’t walk, to your nearest internet browser.  Walmart, in general, offers a healthy variety of material for people-watching… But, this one had to top the charts.

Man buns and people with questionable gender and apparel choices abounded.  When I lived in New Orleans, I met an interesting cross section of the population… Take Stephanie, for instance.  Stephanie was a guy… A handyman by trade… A weathered fifty-something handyman who sported a man bun and wore lipstick to work… And, other than that, dressed and acted like a run-of-the-mill guy.  

The Walmart in Joshua Tree was populated almost solely by Stephanies… Weathered guys with man buns and a dash of lipstick.   I couldn’t tell if the man bun and lipstick combo was now a heterosexual trend I had missed out on… I may or may not choose to participate in this trend, but I like to be hip to what the kids are into these days.  With the essentials gathered, we headed toward the house.

Man, my ear hurt!

Our friends arrived at the house shortly after we did.  And among the greetings and hugs and settling in, I mentioned my ear problem to one of them.  He took a look at my ear.  And he said it looked like my ear canal was seeping a liquid as evidenced by the crust left behind.  His unprofessional diagnosis was a burst ear drum caused by changes in cabin pressure during my incoming flight.

It seemed like a logical explanation for the ear pain.  We were all exhausted from travel and bedtime came early that night.

***

The next day was December 31st… New Year’s Eve.  The day started out how most vacation days should… In search of unique local eats.  We ended up at a barbecue joint up in the surrounding mountains.  My meal came… And it wasn’t as large of a portion as I assumed it would be… And I was okay with that.  Since we had arrived, I hardly had an appetite.  I nibbled at the food… Eating only a nominal amount.

After we finished eating, our friends decided to do some hiking on the trails nearby in Joshua Tree National Park.  My daughter and I headed back to the house to relax for a bit.

Suddenly… I was overcome with an overwhelming urge to write a letter.  This strong desire came from out of nowhere and seemed to be of an imperative nature.  I can’t remember if I brought my laptop on this trip… Maybe I was thinking of this as an actual vacation… And decided to try and disconnect.  Because… I dreamed up this letter… Wrote it… And emailed it in PDF format to the recipient… All from my phone… While sitting on the arm of a couch… While my daughter played in the next room.

It was a beautiful letter… It was very much a confessional letter… And I hoped it would be an inspirational letter… Written on the eve of a calendar change… With the promise of 365 days of brand new possibilities… And hope. (Story)

That evening… The kids went to bed… And the adults retired to the hot tub under the stars.  And, I have to say… Those couple of hours in the hot tub were the highlight of the vacation.  Aided by seltzers and wispy clouds, we followed constellations as they moved across the expansive sky.  Our conversations delved into… The mystical… The spiritual… And into the emotional.  It was beautiful to reconnect with my friends.