I wasn’t going to worry about their situation, as our next challenge was Harvey and his wife Alice. As we drove to Cancun to pick them up at the airport that January, I kept wondering what they would be like. Harvey, and likely Alice also, had lived their whole lives in the same small community as Carol, so I braced myself for more cracks about the number of Mexicans, showing distaste for the area, and not liking our open-air palapa.

After my class reunion, I told my husband Jonny about the invitations I’d extended to practically the whole class to visit us in Mexico. He just laughed and said, “Well, babe, you can get yourself, or us in this case, into some pretty good predicaments. I hope they don’t all come at once.”

Words could not express the awe I felt

While kayaking down the river

After three days of rain, clouds and cold

Which seemed would last forever,

Until, that morn, the sun broke free

From that cloudy, rainy misery

And shared its warmth, no clouds to see,

Breaking through Spring fever.

At a recent class reunion in Kansas, when a group of old friends gathered, chatting about our lives since we’d last met, our families, new interests, hobbies, and jobs — or lack of because of retirement — the usual ‘catch-ups’, I mentioned that we live in Mexico during the winter months. Most were interested in that concept and asked lots of questions about where we stay and what we do while there for such a long period of time. Some even seemed interested in possibly doing the same thing. Yet there were a couple of friends who looked at me as if I had just sprouted a tail, from the flummoxed looks on their faces.

When I was young, my father, who was a rising star in the company he worked for, was transferred to Georgia for a couple of years to train for a management position. I was devastated for having to be jerked out of my school away from my beloved, long-time friends, and so I spent the majority of the trip driving from Utah, my birth state, to this far away alien destination, pouting. I couldn’t believe we were doing this. But then there were a lot of things I ‘couldn’t believe’ when it came to my father’s decisions, and my own ‘welcome-to-the-real-world’ realizations.

A scream pierced that quiet night as I ran from the church in search of my beloved Maria. She was to meet me after mass for a clandestine night alone, away from our families — even though we knew it was wrong — because we were deeply in love and tried to find every opportunity to be together. But she did not show up at our meeting place after waiting and waiting.

This Piano Man is tall and fit

His strides are long and slow

But when he sits upon the seat

In front of a grand piano

His fingers begin moving with great dexterity

whether he plays slow or fast

His music captures me

He had never lifted a hand to punish me for anything in my life up to that point. He would let me know his disapproval when it was needed, and I might be grounded for doing something I should have known better not to do, but he never spanked me. At least not until after the church interfered.

As I began stroking, the moans came naturally as I raised my head up and back. The strokes felt so damned good — near cathartic — until I noticed the shower curtain move. I stopped my hand and looked more closely, hoping I had imagined the moving curtain. But then I saw masculine fingers grasp the fabric and plastic barrier to pull aside cautiously.

Nobody, to my knowledge, ever said that birth of anything was easy: birth of a nation, birth of spring, childbirth, for example, and so, from the weather we’d been seeing on the days prior to the first day of spring this year, it was no surprise that this birth was to be a difficult one.

When the lights flickered out, I saw the evil smile on the face staring in from the other side of the window, and my heart lurched when I realized I hadn’t locked the doors.

My heart was pounding as I dashed to the kitchen door and twisted the deadbolt in place and then quickly ran into the living room to the front door and secured that lock.

Alligator species, we were eager to see.

Would they be hidden,

Or would they just be

Out in the open, in water or on grass

A good chance they’d not be just scratching their ass.

There were three of us excited to have tickets for the world-renowned World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana: my companion and me and a good friend from New Orleans. Our friend had told us a lot about this place, and for my companion, who is an avid reader about that era in our nation’s history, his excitement was palpable.

I loved.

An unplanned happening

Of my heart, soul and being.

I didn’t mean for it to happen;

It was something just for fun.

But it happened,

Slowly,

Gradually,

Fully.

Being an early riser, not having a clue what time the sun would decide to pop up, that first morning I went out with time enough not to miss a single minute of its arrival. After I got dressed and eased quietly out the door, I was surprised that it was still dark. No sign of possible daylight as I walked across the street to the beach.

What is a palapero? One might ask.

A builder of palapas honed for the task.

But what is a palapa, they then say.

An open-sided dwelling in which to play.

A roof that is thatched with dried palm leaves

Or grasses that are bundled in small, dried sheaves.

One of the men walked over to us. “Cállete!” he yelled, sticking the barrel of the rifle in our faces and then moving it and the stock to beckon us to start walking. He took us over to where Cecil was standing with the Federale’s gun pointed at him and bound the three of us together. The two women were further away tied to a tree, which made me really angry to see. I needed to figure out a way to get us out of this mess.

“Likely, if the Federales are really part of the whole trafficking cartel, we can easily spot that fact by how they respond to the men coming out of the cave. If they turn out to be on their side, then I can try to disengage them with my taser and your shovel, the flare gun, and so on. They are good weapons if used right and in a timely manner. We don’t want to be stupid and put ourselves in the line of fire, but if we sneak up on them when they are preoccupied, then I think we can do some damage until the other help arrives.” Cecil told them.

From my window I did see,

Movements, peeking erratic-ally.

Who is looking in at me?

Someone that should not be?

I feared to seek

The one to sneak

and take a peek

To be a freak

Or too meek

To meet one as chic

As I am thought to be.

I nodded my acceptance of his order. "Just bring back my wife and stay safe doing it," I pleaded as they turned and left to make their way to the bottom of the earth's rocky opening.

I waited only about fifteen minutes when I heard stomping feet and bodies charging through the underbrush behind me voices that sounded like cursing. The Federales had arrived.