The Double Life

There is Yin and Yang in life. The gentle and the aggressive. The relaxed and the excitable. And that's life in Club Med - contrasts of such magnitude that it tears you inside just deciding on where to spend your next fleeting moment.

The cushioned deckchair, with the morning sun, gentle easterly breeze and the rolling waves beckon an hour of serenity and meditation, and yet the catamaran calls out for an exciting adventure taming the South China Sea using the wind and sail.

And as always, the restless spirit wins. And the trapeze.. it has given me newfound respect for circus performers. The act of climbing 3 storeys high to stand on a plank as wide as the palm of your hands is enough to make your testoterones take cover in your testicles. And then leaning forward to reach out for the trapeze.. the amount of faith we must have in God and the Club GO who's holding your belt in order you do not fall 20 feet into the Net (it's a hard net!!) . And yet, many of us did it.

The first time was scary becauseI didn't know what to expect. The second time was worse. As I was ascending the narrow ladder up 30 feet, I thought "Am I crazy to be doing this again?" And as I leaned forward to reach the trapeze, I thought "I must have a death wish. I'm going to tempt fate again." Then the Club GO kicks at my ankles and I fall off the plank, swinging while holding onto a horizontal bar suspended on two parallel ropes. When you're swinging, you don't think about the fear. So I'm swinging and then I have to lift my legs and curl them around the bar and let my hands go. Trapeze swinging is an elegant, harmonious act, but I was as graceful as an hippo.

It was scary, but I did it several times. The third and fourth time was just as hard, but they became less scary. And that's just me. If I am afraid of something that I shouldn't be afraid of, then I'll do it over and over until the fear goes away. It always does, and it did. And so true the saying "That which does not kill you, makes you stronger" But that's another story.

Today's blog is about conflicting contrasts that envelop our lives. We all make decisions every day but some of us find that we will always look back and wonder about the other road not taken. And then sometimes, we go down one path and then come back to go down the other. And sometimes it's the same and sometimes it's not. Happy are those who are decisive and do not wonder. And to those who feel that you're always not sure.. here's a poem about the experience Club Med had for me:

How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.

And that's just where the trouble lies;
There is a Restless Me that cries
For chancy risks and changing scene,
For arctic blue and tropic green,
For deserts with their mystic spell,
For lusty fun and raising Hell

But shackled to that Restless Me
My Other Self rebelliously
Resists the frantic urge to move.
It seeks the old familiar groove
That habits make. It finds content

With hearth and home dear prisonment,
With candlelight and well loved books
And treasured loot in dusty nooks,
With puttering and garden things
And dreaming while a cricket sings
And all the while the Restless One
Insists on more exciting fun
It wants to go with every tide,
No matter where, just for the ride.
Like yowling cats the two selves brawl
Until I have no peace at all.

One eye turns to the forward track,
The other eye looks sadly back,
I'm getting wall-eyed from the strain,
(It's tough to have an idle brain)
But One says "Stay" and One says "Go"
And One says "Yes," and One says "no,"
And One Self wants a home and wife
And One Self craves the drifter's life.

The Restless Fellow always wins
I wish my folks had made me twins.

- Don Blanding