Sketching a Twisty Path on the Globe

Lacking time and postage to send out wee little Valentine’s cards, I’ll make this a giant one.  Truthfully, Valentine’s Day isn’t something I give too much thought or energy to.  I’m a much bigger fan of the little spontaneous, creative shows of love that shrug at calendars.  But, after an extremely rare weekend “out on the town” with opportunities to observe the mating rituals of Kiwis, I felt inspired today to think more about LUHV.  [I can’t say “love” without hearing my sister mimic the Southern belles who pronounce it with 3 syllables.]

Both nights this weekend I watched bold women pinch asses on the dance floor (tourism should pay me for that comment too), smelled the clouds of perfume and cologne, and listened to my companions reminisce about love no longer and the search for love that lingers.  I did realize though that as a 35 year old who’s currently in relationship resuscitation, what’s in my head is only written in pencil, waiting with an eraser for more experience.   So, as I sat groggy and immobile today, I had fun browsing through quotes from those who apparently had enough experience or confidence to write in ink.   Some made me think of my parents.  Others of friends.   Relationship mistakes.  Relationship highlights.  The W questions of life.  A few are down below.

So, kisses blown and virtual chocolate shared, happy Valentine’s Day today but may love be a permanent pest.

CARTER HEYWARD:
We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God. Love does not just happen. We are not love machines, puppets on the strings of a deity called “love.” Love is a choice — not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile. Love is a conversion to humanity — a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life, rather than as an alien in the world or as a deity above the world, aloof and apart from human flesh.

DENIS WAITLEY
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.

ELIE WIESEL
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

HH THE DALAI LAMA
When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. And there are ways in which we can consciously work to develop feelings of love and kindness…. What is important is that we each make a sincere effort to take our responsibility for each other and for the natural environment we live in seriously.

WOODY ALLEN
To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting this down.

RUMI
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN, JR.  
Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man all wrapped up in himself.

KATHARINE HEPBURN
Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

I’d written a blog that said I wasn’t going to blog anymore.  My life is too normal, too put-out-the-trash everyday.  But, during the delay between write to release, I realized that it doesn’t have to do with having extraordinary tales.  It simply has to do with laziness.  I like feeling connected with the people I love on the other hemisphere.  For right now, that means being a cyber geek, even though I’d truthfully much prefer sitting over a mocha, a microbrew, a chocolate dessert to tell stories and get my greedy fix of theirs.  At least I know that if you are sick of Cindy Twisting and Typing Ceaselessly Around the Globe, you can click the X.  : )  I’m also secretly hoping that a tourist company will eventually give me money for plugging their attractions.  And then let me do more for free.  : ) 

Two days ago I hit one of the biggest tourist spots in New Zealand: the Waitomo Caves. Missed on my previous trips, a co-worker suggested it for our holiday weekend and gave me the job of reviewing the tour options.  As a poor listener who really couldn’t take another cave trip with droning facts about how many years of drip drip are behind the stalag-a-titey-miteys, I advocated for “The Black Abyss.” This is an “adventure tour” with a lot of impressive gear requirements–neoprene, webbing, little clicky gadgets, mental defense against phobias, and, of course, a chubby black innertube.  After a quick abseiling (aka rappelling) lesson while we sweated in wetsuits in a paddock, we lowered ourselves 37 metres through a narrow neck into the Ruakuri Cave.    A zoomy little zipline in the dark, and we were at the start of our path, a hill of innertubes waiting.  Wetsuits thick, but water colder, as we sat with our legs swinging over the water, I thought I might be crazy to do this and concede to blue lips for 3 hours.  But, true to Kiwi style, we were served hot coffee, tea, and biscuits on our perch and eventually gained gumption for leaping into the eel-inhabited water. 

What followed I will forever remember as one of the strangest, most entrancing traverses of my life.  Flapping slowly on our tubes, we floated under high, low, narrow, and wide cave walls dotted with thousands and thousands of little lights.  Glow worms.  Little magical maggots who cast out fine threads to catch their food then shit out a bright shine to attract attention.  Getting that graphic information didn’t spoil a bit how absolutely hypnotic it was to see them clustered around the cave in abstract constellations. 

I don’t really think I “snapped out of it” for the rest of the trip—even while staggering down the “Passageway of Drunkenness,” or climbing up the waterfalls to the cave’s exit.  I have so many mental “happy places” where I can dispatch my mind whenever needed that I could divide into different categories:  “so peaceful almost pulseless,” “stifle a snicker silly” “no place like home,” and beauty scenes of every brand and breed.  This memory definitely qualifies as a “happy place”–my bum poking into cold water while my eyes find dragons and ladies in tutus drawn in the lights.  It’s an image that may help me fall asleep faster, tune out long checkout lines, or maybe see pretty patterns in the stacks of charts on my desk.  OK, I’ll have to work on the last one.    

It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us.”  John Ruskin

Photos posted.