A study on the effect of travel when applied to heartache

The saying goes something like, "the only zen you find at the top of a mountain is the zen you brought with you".  Well, the only heartbreak you find on the beach in Troncones, Mexico is the heartbreak you brought with you.  Five days ago I sat holding back tears on my flight out of humboldt county, CA headed for Mexico, wondering if physical distance could also bring the emotional distance I so desperately needed.  An entire year had gone by while I passionately, pathetically, pined away for a man who did not want me.  From our first, and only, date the year before our feelings had set out in opposite directions.  Needless to say, it didn't work out.  That didn't stop either of us from using each other on whatever physical or emotional whim we needed to carry out, careless of the emotional repercussions.  I tend to drag these hopeless situations out and at the stroke of midnight this past new years eve I accepted defeat.  There in the middle of a dive bar in San Francisco, surrounded by celebration, I felt my heart crack right down to my glittering heels.

  
I knew I couldn't spend the rest of winter in the small Humboldt community.  Constantly running into my unrequited love.  No.  I had to get out. 
     Troncones has been the glimmer of hope that always pops into my mind when I need; escape, recovery, peace from my grief.  A friend had taken me there a few years ago, just after I watched my mother slip away, finally overcome by the cancer that had ravaged her gentle body and soul.  In a too-scared-to-feel/emotionally exhausted daze, I was whisked off to Mexico.  After several days in Troncones I was still waking up from my horrific dreams in which I would find my mother after frantically searching in some dark and evil location, her huddled up in a ball, face painted white like an aboriginal.  We would reunite in tearful embraces, I'd be so relieved to see her again.... only to wake up, remember I would not in fact be seeing her again.  Ever.  Reality would come crashing back in like the waves out at the point, sometimes pulling me under and spitting me out disoriented, other times just a quick cold slap in the face.  However, I discovered that Troncones is a place of peace.  Maybe it's the consistency, the unending patience and space of the ocean that makes it such a place of healing.  After a meal in town my friend and I had walked back along the beach under a thick blanket of stars mirrored in the sand by phosphorous as we left sparkling footprints behind us and watched the waves glitter as they rolled in.  By the end of my two week stay in Troncones the dreams had subsided and I was feeling solid enough to return and face the world. 
     So as I sunk down into my chair on new year's eve, trying not to resent all of the happy lovers as they kissed their way into the future, I got on my iphone.  By 12:05 am of 2011 I had booked a flight for that very same week.  Back to my place of refuge, and I would not return for a month.  The next morning I considered my rash, slightly intoxicated decision.  A month, alone, heartbroken... did I make a mistake?  Was I exiling myself to sit on the beach unable to escape my aching thoughts?  Either way, the trip was booked.  I looked into staying in the same hotel as my past visit, I also looked into staying at the yoga retreat where I had done some wonderful classes but both were quite expensive and I had already spent too much on spur of the moment airfare.  I settled at last on a little surf hostel quite a ways down the single dirt road that runs through town.  It was inexpensive, eco-friendly and had loads of positive reviews.  Days later I was on a plane at 5:30am, under prepared, wondering if I had made the right decision and still aching in my chest whenever my thoughts reverted towards what I was running from.
After landing in Ixtapa I didn't even have to make the 15 minute trip to Zihua before the incomparable feeling of "I'm going to be ok" hit me.  I walked out of the airport parking lot, past the tourists waiting to spend 700 pesos for a taxi ride to town, out to where the white collectivo full of airport employees picked me up.  Off to Zihua, for 10 pesos.  It was on this collectivo full of Mexicans that the "I'm going to be ok" feeling washed over me.  I sat smiling, beaming at all of them and they looked back at me and glanced at each other like, "what a crazy gringa..."
     I've been in Troncones for a week and the feeling hasn't left me.  I spend the mornings jumping onto my surfboard trying to get into the peaceful groove of the ocean, only to tumble off, put on spin cycle, swallow gulps of saltwater and get spit back out to the surface.  It's divine.  My muscles ache and I hit the beach with trepidation each day but I'm enjoying the process.  Next week I'll start up yoga classes on the shaded wooden platform set over the sand.  I'm staying with surfers and wandering souls that are always up for adventure or will sit quietly next to me while I read "Gone with the Wind" for hours on end.  Peace and solitude are never more than moments away.  The beach hardly has anyone on it and the town in sparsely populated by locals, Americans that have become locals, and a small spattering of tourists.

I've been hanging around a south-african surfer with a dreamy accent and adonis-like figure.  He's off for Acapulco tomorrow so that scenery will no longer be around to admire, but it is a hostel after all and a constant turn over of surfer boys to entertain me, to turn my eyes to this moment and to future possibilities.
One thing I am certain of, down to the core of my being,
I'm going to be just fine :)