Winter in Baja Day 17: How sweet it is to be alive

Adolfo Lopez Mateos //

I hid inside the camper this morning preparing blog posts.  Luckily everyone was gathered right outside our camper so I could overhear the conversation and not feel like I was totally missing out. The topics among this group are so good it’s hard to pull myself away.

After coffee was enjoyed, everyone made use of our outdoor kitchen preparing breakfast tacos and quesadillas.  A table full of salsas, cheeses, tortillas and veggies becoming a common site at our camps.

Getting out on the water was what we were all most looking forward to today.  The mangrove-lined lagoon we’re parked on the edge of is so protected it could easily be mistaken for a lake. Though the tides and distant roar of the ocean a reminder that big water isn’t far away.

While paddling slowly I became separated from the group and fell in to a bit of a trance.  The sky seemed bluer, the clouds closer, the breeze more connected to my body, the birds and the mangroves and the water more alive.  My senses were heightened to a level I’d never experienced and I realized I felt more awake, more present, than ever before.  And I can only attribute this feeling to one thing.

Seven months ago my brother died.  For nearly every day since then I’ve felt more pain, heartache, and confusion than my entire 42 years of life.  I have contemplated and confronted the reality of death daily.  I became a raw nerve.  And since last May, all that seemed to touch those raw nerve-endings was pain.  My pain, as well as the collective pain of so many people in this world, was all I could think about.  But today, sitting on a paddleboard in a lagoon on the Pacific Ocean, I experienced the other side of the pain for the first time.  A deep, palpable, profound sense of being alive.  I’d never felt anything like it.  Walking hand in hand with grief has been extremely difficult, but in this moment I felt like the grief was my portal to experiencing my existence in a way I never had before. I finally felt a long-awaited sensation of peace, not necessarily with losing my brother, but with the fact that life often doesn’t make any sense. I savored every second knowing this feeling was likely something I wouldn’t be able to hold on to.

We all reconvened back on land for lunch.  With the rest of the day’s light and warmth we decided to take showers.  I lost track of how many days it had been since my last real shower and so getting clean felt extremely rejuvenating.  Mark’s new shower setup providing us with hot and pressured water that was as good as any house could provide.

Dinner conversation among the group centered around life in the US compared to other countries, as well as our shared dream of driving the Pan-American highway to South America.  Back inside our camper for the night, Mark & I began dissecting the realities of bringing a dream as massive as the Pan-Am to life.  A bit overwhelmed, we went to sleep promising to keep the conversation going.