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This place we are staying is very family-oriented and we are actually some of the few USA'ers staying here. There are families of grandparents, children, grandchildren. They swim and snorkel and they kiss and slap backs and this morning an abuela brought out three giant containers of home made cookies and put them on the table for the family and I thought of her, baking those cookies and then bringing them here. She was wearing her bathing suit, a white hat, her granddaughters had legs like colts. They sit at the table for hours, gathering and going off to swim, coming back to sit and talk some more.

There was a woman here for two days whom I never saw with anyone else. She had very long hair and was thin as a knife and she would lay on one of the beach beds and read or just smoke and stare off into the space and every hour or so she would get up and climb down the ladder into the sea and immerse herself and then climb back up and wring her hair and begin it all again. What is her story?

There are children as young as Owen and they play happily from pool to hot tub, always someone to watch them. I saw two brothers play together without incident in the sand this morning for at least an hour, coating themselves and each other with sand like sugar and then building a sand castle with the help of a bucket and shovel.

Families love the hot tub and it is almost always in use, the perfect place to watch the sunset.
The waiters wear black pants and white shirts and the main guy seems to be Victor who is actually from Canada and he works like a dog and has a funny sense of humor.
"I'm sorry the water isn't blue," he will say sadly.
"Or green," I answer.

We walked to town again last night after spending all day here, snorkeling and laying in the shade and reading. For some reason, the walk took about one quarter of the time it had taken the night before. Or so it seemed. I had no idea why. I wasn't really hungry but we found a place for supper and I had some pasta with tomato sauce and fresh cheese and it was good and we watched fire dancers with drummers in the square- not Mexican at all, but Gringos and I thought about what it would be like to be traveling entertainers, spreading fire and drumbeats throughout the continents, passing the hat, trusting on faith. When they are grandparents, they will look back in wonder, thinking, "I did that. I was a beautiful girl who twirled fire, who danced in fire while the drums beat under tropical moons and huge-eyed children watched me, holding the hands of their parents."
It will be something. It is something.

My god. The water is just so blue. It is something I cannot get tired of. I could just watch it all day and yesterday I did when I wasn't in it. Which is better?
I do not have to know. I can choose both.

Today we will walk to town, figure out something to rent to get us around. Sigh. I do not enjoy that part of the trip. Too much bargaining and joking and words.

I have bought two new dish towels. They were in the same grocery store at the exact same place on the exact same shelf as they have always been. They are really mop cloths and they cost about a dollar and they are heavy cotton and last me for years and years. I will bring home a stack of them. The rum was in the same place too and we bought some of that. The rum will not make it home.

I think of home and it's a concept like life on another planet, perhaps.

Oh, the water is blue. And it is green and it is turquoise and it is violet and it is colors we have no words for. Why should we? The water in our country doesn't come in these colors so no need to try and describe them.

My fruit plate this morning had bananas, papaya, watermelon, cantaloupe and orange. I had juevos mexicana with tomatoes and onions and peppers chopped fine and some black beans.

Here I am.

The cruise ships are in this morning but as long as I stay right here, I do not have to even think about them. I can look at them and enjoy the sight of boats as big as continents. At night when they sail away, they are beautiful, like lighted cities floating silently by. They hold a million people but that, too, is just a concept. They come and they go.
I am here.

I am so glad.