I'm On a Tropical Island and I Can't Feel My Hamstrings
I never wrote about my vacation because I returned from vacation and was immediately promoted at the Mysterious Workplace. The more I write at work, the less I write here. I only have so much writing in me, and right now it's all going to Skype security problems, Syrian malware, and Pakistan blocking Twitter. I will skip the traditional recitation of the things I have not written about. We will proceed directly to the tropical island.
I have never been to a tropical island, not even on family vacations to Hawaii. I'm not the kind of person who spends their precious PTO sprawled on a beach. I have nothing in particular against the sun or warm weather or clear blue oceans, but when I need to decide how I'm going to spend free days, days when I do not check my email or write blog posts about international freedom of expression, I visit cities. I do not pack a bikini and fly to the Dominican Republic to train aerial circus arts in a little tourist town by the beach for ten days.
All of the cliches about tropical islands are true of the little corner of Hispanola near Puerto Plata that I've seen--impossibly blue skies, lukewarm ocean water, miles of white beaches, the kind of lush vegetation that peels paint, the jungle that strives to reclaim everything. For the first few days it rains. For the first few days, we are eaten alive by mosquitoes. I wake up impossibly early in the morning and train harder than I ever have in my life. At 8:15, there is an exercise class on the beach. Then I try to get something to eat. Then my morning aerials class. Then lunch. Then my afternoon aerials class. Then an hour of stretching. Then a couple of hours of lying in the sun or passed out on my bed until dinner. It hurts to walk because my hamstrings are so sore. I roll my calves around on a tennis ball. I go running on the beach. I go hiking in the jungle, where I cannot look up because it has just rained and I am going to slip on roots and rocks. I see an enormous millipede.
What does the jungle look like? Mud. Rocks. Goat shit. Rocks at the bottom of the river am I wading across. Our guide asks if I'm a dancer. I tell him we're all dancers, but we dance several feet up in the air. On the ground, we're useless. I swim under waterfalls and cut my hands on rocks. Rocks are sharp.
What's the special? my classmate asks the waiter--20 years old, blond, permanently stoned. There are two photos of him surfing an enormous wave on the wall behind the bar.
"It is warm," he says. "The sun is shining. Everything is special."
Our instructors are carved out of marble. They run down the beach in the morning. They do handstands in the afternoon. In between classes, they touch their toes to their heads and do oversplits. After five or six hours of training every day, even they start to ache. I feel a little better, knowing that they're human. My classmates are people whose bodies are their livelihoods--Crossfit trainers and yoga instructors. My classmates are lawyers and architects, engineers and journalists who train until they're exhausted because it's the only time they stop thinking about work. I examine my body for exciting new bruises and strange abrasions. I take a dozen ibuprofen every day. I walk around in a bikini because I am never more than a block away from the beach. By the end of the week, my metabolism is spinning so fast that a shot of rum gets me drunk.
I try to imagine a world in which I am not Carmen San Diego, a world in which it is my job to train full-time. I try to imagine being the kind of person who can only eat very small meals and wakes up very early in the morning to go running. I pretend I could be a person who does not drink and goes to bed early. For a couple of days, when the worst of the pain has subsided, I enjoy the illusion I could do this indefinitely.
And isn't that what a vacation is supposed to do? Isn't it pretty to think so?
I have never been to a tropical island, not even on family vacations to Hawaii. I'm not the kind of person who spends their precious PTO sprawled on a beach. I have nothing in particular against the sun or warm weather or clear blue oceans, but when I need to decide how I'm going to spend free days, days when I do not check my email or write blog posts about international freedom of expression, I visit cities. I do not pack a bikini and fly to the Dominican Republic to train aerial circus arts in a little tourist town by the beach for ten days.
All of the cliches about tropical islands are true of the little corner of Hispanola near Puerto Plata that I've seen--impossibly blue skies, lukewarm ocean water, miles of white beaches, the kind of lush vegetation that peels paint, the jungle that strives to reclaim everything. For the first few days it rains. For the first few days, we are eaten alive by mosquitoes. I wake up impossibly early in the morning and train harder than I ever have in my life. At 8:15, there is an exercise class on the beach. Then I try to get something to eat. Then my morning aerials class. Then lunch. Then my afternoon aerials class. Then an hour of stretching. Then a couple of hours of lying in the sun or passed out on my bed until dinner. It hurts to walk because my hamstrings are so sore. I roll my calves around on a tennis ball. I go running on the beach. I go hiking in the jungle, where I cannot look up because it has just rained and I am going to slip on roots and rocks. I see an enormous millipede.
What does the jungle look like? Mud. Rocks. Goat shit. Rocks at the bottom of the river am I wading across. Our guide asks if I'm a dancer. I tell him we're all dancers, but we dance several feet up in the air. On the ground, we're useless. I swim under waterfalls and cut my hands on rocks. Rocks are sharp.
What's the special? my classmate asks the waiter--20 years old, blond, permanently stoned. There are two photos of him surfing an enormous wave on the wall behind the bar.
"It is warm," he says. "The sun is shining. Everything is special."
Our instructors are carved out of marble. They run down the beach in the morning. They do handstands in the afternoon. In between classes, they touch their toes to their heads and do oversplits. After five or six hours of training every day, even they start to ache. I feel a little better, knowing that they're human. My classmates are people whose bodies are their livelihoods--Crossfit trainers and yoga instructors. My classmates are lawyers and architects, engineers and journalists who train until they're exhausted because it's the only time they stop thinking about work. I examine my body for exciting new bruises and strange abrasions. I take a dozen ibuprofen every day. I walk around in a bikini because I am never more than a block away from the beach. By the end of the week, my metabolism is spinning so fast that a shot of rum gets me drunk.
I try to imagine a world in which I am not Carmen San Diego, a world in which it is my job to train full-time. I try to imagine being the kind of person who can only eat very small meals and wakes up very early in the morning to go running. I pretend I could be a person who does not drink and goes to bed early. For a couple of days, when the worst of the pain has subsided, I enjoy the illusion I could do this indefinitely.
And isn't that what a vacation is supposed to do? Isn't it pretty to think so?