A Journal

A journal sits in a wood bowl on the table next to the kitchen. I don’t notice until our last day, our last meal because we’ve always eaten outside. In the short time we have left in the palapa, I open the book and meander through the musings and memories of previous guests. 

From the guests who’ve stayed in March and April, I see a pattern. They write: “We woke up to the sound of humpback whales, hurried to the deck and watched giant tails emerge and whales breaching.” Others saw dolphins and seals. One guest loved the iguanas perched on the rocks. Others wrote memories of bonfires on the beach. Alfonso’s cooking. The hike to Chimo. Others came to heal, to explore, to relax from their normally harried lives. 

But there was one guest…

One guest who wrote there wasn’t enough toilet paper.

The holes in the roof let in too much rain.

The town of Chimo was a ___hole.

I wish I’d never read his negativity. Never looked through his lens, because it is a fact: Mexico isn’t for everyone.

Sanitation is a problem.

Donkey droppings are another.

And certainly the internet or the AT&T phone service is iffy…

And those crabs in the bathroom.

Mexico isn’t for everyone, but the same could be said for just about everything. 

So,

Let me be the person who doesn’t complain about the screaming baby but has compassion for the parents.

Let me be the person who steps over the rotten fish in the road and looks up to the swaying palm.

Let me be the person who sees the canceled flight as a chance to see the city and not scream at the airline personnel.

Let me be the person who forgives the cruel remark and instead hears the words as they should have been delivered.

Let me see how hard the child has practiced and not the mistakes he makes.

Let me accept life as it is but always search for the better, the beauty, the sublime.

Let me see that in having nothing, I may still have everything.