"" Writer's Wanderings: Take Time to Watch The Clouds

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Take Time to Watch The Clouds

If you haven't already guessed from my recent posts, we spent the holidays on a 21 day cruise through the Southern and Eastern Caribbean. It was a been-there-done-that-many-times-over cruise but every cruise is just a little different thanks to the people you meet and often just the way the weather or even your health goes.

This cruise we ran into more rain than I ever remember encountering in the Caribbean short of hurricane season. It wasn't stormy just rainy, drizzly, misty. If not for the heat, I would have thought we were in Seattle on a few days.

Half way through the cruise, not only did I lose the filling in my front lower tooth, I also came down with a terrific sinus infection. I try to carry a Z-Pac antibiotic with me for those occasions but I wasn't due to see my doctor until after the cruise and the old Z-Pac was used a while ago. Now, I know you're asking why I didn't go to the doctor on board ship. Well, hindsight I probably should have but the last time I saw someone else, they gave me an antibiotic that made me sick. I elected to tough it out with Tylenol and Sudafed.

All of this caused me to really appreciate that I didn't have to do anything: cook, clean, or launder but I had set myself a goal of writing each day. My blog posts were all scheduled well into our cruise time so there was no pressure there. I did manage to make my writing goal many days but as I gave into the sinus infection, I was just too tired.

When we hit the beach on one of the stops, I stretched out a towel, doubled the sunblock and laid down. Of course about then, the clouds rolled in. I opened my eyes and peered through my new sunglasses (did I mention my old ones broke on the cruise too?). The clouds swirled above me. Some bleached white and others a bit grayed with the thought of rain. Two of the Caribbean sea birds (I think they're called Frigate Birds) soared high above me, two small dots in the sky, gliding back and forth across the puffy clouds.

I asked myself when was the last time I had taken time to just watch the clouds. No reading. No picture taking, No composing a blog post. No wondering which character did in which character. I gave myself permission to just lay there and watch the clouds. It was wonderful. I promise there will be more cloud watching in my future.

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