Chocas Mar

This place is a paradise. Coconut-ridden palms scrape the skyline, thatch-roof cabins with wrap-around verandas and a 15-second walk to the crystal clear Indian Ocean and practically deserted beach.

What a stark contrast to our current home. Only two hours drive away, yet a complete world of difference. There, you wake up to roosters crowing, the hollow and often chilling call to prayer, and fumes of burning charcoal infiltrating your house as the neighbors prepare their morning meal. If you look out our window, you will see a young girl hand-washing clothes on an old piece of broken cement, and the guards washing cars on what’s left of our sidewalk due to the city’s unfinished attempt to repair underground water pipes. After four months without running water, it’s hard to complain, even if the front of our house looks like a warzone. Venders will already be banging on the metal gates before you can get out of your pajamas, and the poorest of poor will be searching through the trash heaps on the sides of the road for any thing still edible or useful.

But back here, in my hammock, with nothing to hear but the ocean’s waves and comfortable afternoon breeze, I am invited to write. I am leaving soon and I know I need to capture this memory for another, less enjoyable day.

In less than 24 hours, we will be back on the road again, headed for home. A temporary home, still, in my mind. One of noise, work, challenges, traffic, routine and relationships. And as I look on anticipating our return, I realize even that will be short-lived. Because within 8 more weeks, we will board a plane and return to our real home. The one I am reminded of so vividly in this place. A place we have miss for almost two years. It calls to me here like it always did there, although now I hear it clearer. “Come rest,” it says. “Enjoy the earth, the sand, the sun. Feel your freedom.” And I’m thankful, refreshed, awake. And excited!

We all have our places that bring us back to center, don’t we? Some people find it in the mountains, or the desert, or in a song or a scent that brings on a good memory. Others in a garden, or a workshop, or on an open road... We come, sometimes not even aware of our need for rejuvenation, and leave incomparably renewed.

I know that two days will always seem too short for me, but at least it is enough to give me time to catch my breath before I head back to the real world again, that much more, ready, aware and open. So I thank God for these pieces of paradise that allow us to breathe deeper into life when it has just started to move to fast, or worse, suffocate us.

I find myself constantly taking parts of this place with me and recreate the beach at home…I already have collected enough shells to start my own private beach. I just want this place to grow on me, be with me. Alas, I have to accept that, like this tan, my time and the results of it will inevitably fade away. Before long I will be searching the calendar for another date to get back.

In the time between, He speaks.

“The Lord is my Shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me besides quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.”
Psalm 23:1-3

And again,

“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Mark 6:31