From Here: Porto Montenegro - The plunge.

From here: Porto Montenegro

Poolside at Tara

I could begin with the journey to here. But instead, I'm going to begin with the view from here.

Lavender catches my eye from a stone planter across the pool. The pool has tight surface ripples from the breeze blowing from my right and I have no clue what direction that actually is, but in my world it feels like North. The pool water looks more slick than normal water, like mercury, because of the shimmering iridescent tiles that line it. Beyond this, there is the new Regent Hotel Porto Montenegro. It is a sun kissed yellow with balconies hosting potted topiaries and skinny cypress trees. This layer introduces the next and it is the masts of sailboats situated in the marina. Water comes after. The sea water of Boka Kotor. This bay crawls from the Adriatic through the mountains and has been the cause of many medieval villages that remain and charm the eye today. The sea water stretches to a series of mountains. Bulging earth folding and pleating like a braid until they become faint from distance. The clouds mimic their design and I'm left to wonder where the mountains end and where the clouds begin. This, between blinks. I see such harmony from my eyes today.

I hear the children coming to play in the pool and their parents speaking a language unknown to me. I hear words and don't understand them and as frustrating as this is, it can be a nice general tone to include in the moment but not be distracted out of it by thinking their thoughts instead of my own. Because I like my thoughts, especially while sensing this new perspective. There is a bird to hear and occasional voice from the street one level down from this rooftop. But these are sounds and not noise to me.

The sun feels hot but lacks the intensity I felt from it in Georgia. My skin is warm, not burning and in my head I ask for healing light. When I close my eyes, I see something similar to those dark iridescent tiles that make the pool, only more dimension and less gloss. Closing my eyes surrenders my body to feeling. This breeze is like candy. It is just enough to circulate and cool and not rustle.

Three lavender leaves became mine. I picked them and stuck them to my nose to breathe and rubbed my wrists with them, my perfume. Other than this lavender, my favorite single scent, my nose smells an open air. There is nothing to smell in the air, just the fresh vacancy of pollution or strong odor. This was a wish and I appreciate this moment of receiving pure air. I know it climbed a rock wall, rolled over a mountain top and dived down to tinker with sea water waves and now, it is landing on my nose, giving my lungs all that it gathered along the way.

It took a little while to settle into a clarity since my journey. The momentum of doing and completing and not forgetting- and all of that fast- is finally drifting away. I know things will be different and that I will be comparing the things I discover with what I know from home. But, I want to have no limiting expectations of whether one is better than the other. For my tastes, I will recognize what I like best, but I always speak for myself only. I try to, anyway.

The pool water invited me in for a soft dip. As I propped against the edge, noticing the difference between my skin below and above the water, I decided to enjoy so thoroughly what might come. To enjoy aspects of me on both sides of a divider makes me whole. I don't know what will be in the days ahead, but I made a gesture of receiving the brilliance of the possibilities. And then, I plunged. The thoughts vanished under water. The mental chatter gave way to excitement of nothing being set. I was wet, under water, hair weightlessly swarming my head, body limp, like in utero, except my lungs held that pure air. I held this moment. For not so long, because I can't hold my breath very long, but still- I held it as close as anything could be to me. 

             I'm here. I'm in the plunge.