As expected, I was a little worse for wear at the end of the travel day but was well medicated. And it was a bonus to be able to take a train from Cancun to Izamal, rather than a circuitous bus route. My Airbnb host had messaged me asking my arrival time and letting me know that it was easier to navigate to the casita by car. I responded that I didn’t have a car but my train got in at 7:45pm and I would take a taxi from the train station. She said it was better to take a bus to the center and a taxi from there. My alarm had gone off at 2:45am, my head was hurting and I was taking it one careful step at a time. It was dark when I exited the train and walked onto the deserted platform.

“Might you be Arlene?” a compact, kindly looking grey haired woman asked me.

“I am! Oh thank you, thank you so much!” I responded surprised and delighted as I all but fell into her arms with gratitude.

“It’s ok, I come down to the station every day anyway to feed the stray dogs”, she said.

We caught a bus and she spoke with the driver who took us to within a ten minute walk of her property and was apparently where a taxi would have dropped me off. She said most taxis don’t go down her dirt road as it is out of the town limits. Who knew! The night was black and as we walked I imagined trying to find the address on that that dark road alone. Grim! I’m happy to report that my Devine sentinels are still on the job. In this case, her name was Deborah.

Deborah, originally from B.C., and her Japanese husband have lived in the Yucatán for the last five years. They retired here, built their home, and two little cottage casitas, on a large gated property and spend their time rescuing dogs and cats. I was looking forward to seeing everything in the daylight and it did not disappoint. My little casita is independently gated and surrounded by serene gardens with a Japanese flavor. My hosts live unobtrusively next door. There are also other secluded gated properties on the road making it less isolated than I imagined but that’s ok. My cute casita is quiet and private and I am safe and settled.

Almost six weeks after the tobogganing incident my brain is still scrambled. It doesn’t like fast movement, bright lights, loud voices and noise and if I am not consciously focused on a task, it no longer exists. Take for instance a pot on the stove. If I’m not staring directly at it, my mind, followed by my body, wanders off until the smell of burnt whatever alerts me. I lose words all the time (more than usual) and still feel like I’m in a rubber life raft riding the waves on the open sea when I’m on my feet for ridiculously short periods of time. But my ribs no longer bring tears to my eyes if I need to cough or sneeze and I’ll take that win!

The concussion symptoms have grown old but funny as it sounds, the days I have spent sequestered at home have not. With no choice I have leaned into a slower pace as I sort through papers, organize shelves and purge junk. Things I normally don’t take the time to do and my house and mental health are better for it. Around the same time as the toboggan fall, I was working through some emotional adjustments and the organizing and purging cleared my headspace so I could process better. I have never been one to buy new things very often, I have mostly pieced together a life with bits and scraps and sorting through the stuff reminded me that life is a rotation of change and adjustment from the time we exit the womb until we draw our last breath. The ability to accept ‘what is’ is essential for well-being, and so, with all the grace I can muster, that’s what I’m doing. My daughter Sabrina said I should journal. I think I will.

But it’s time for a revised healing plan. I have rented a private little casita on a dirt road off the beaten track in the Mexican Yucatan for a month. I know the ‘getting there’ part with my broken head will be grim. Between the airport with its loud announcements, the plane to Cancun, a four hour bus ride to Merida, followed by another bus to Izamal, and a 30 minute walk out of town to my casita, I will be done in. Just writing it makes me wither inside, but once there, I think the warmth and sunshine will do wonders for me. My son Colin will drive me to the airport in the wee hours this Sunday morning. 

At the moment there are raging fires across central and southern Chile about 500 miles south of Santiago. Thousands of acres of forest and hundreds of homes have been destroyed and people have died. My original plan to fly into Santiago and start riding my bike south from there would have put me in exactly that region. Who knows why events unfold as they do, but my dear friend Sue said she thanks God for my broken ribs.

I will be laying low in Mexico as my goal is to heal. Walking to town to get groceries will likely be my most exciting outing. Spending time in a lovely little casita simply reading and writing will be a new experience for me. It’s a far cry from adventures around every corner like my other winter forays into parts unknown but I am looking forward to it regardless. And I will still post… even if the posts put you to sleep. Here’s to good nights rest for all and restored health. 

“Will you slide down the hill with me Gram? Cuz you didn’t last time.” My four-year old granddaughter Cade (who has the memory of an elephant) looked up at me. We had just arrived to Conlin farm, our local toboggan hill in Perth. She spoke true. Last year I would run down the hill and help her drag the toboggan back up but not once did I sit my butt on the sled.

I was in my twenties the last time I went hurtling down a hill on a wooden death trap. I wiped out, cracked my tailbone and it was six months before I could sit without pain. And that wasn’t the first time I had hurt myself tobogganing. It amazes me when I see people speeding down a hill, swerving and steering, gliding to a stop, unharmed and happy, almost in the parking lot. My daughter-in-law Sharlee is one of those people, she and the kids are like poetry in motion on the hill. I’m kind of in awe.

I can do this, I thought. People love tobogganing, I was being paranoid. So I sat myself down on another wooden instrument of agony with Cade in front of me. Sharlee plunked my 15-month old grandson Huck on my lap, who was delighted, and down we went. It happened fast as these things do. You have probably already figured out that, of course, it didn’t end well. It’s a blur for me, all I remember is pain, but Cade says we rolled and rolled and rolled. Fortunately, the kids were both ok but my relic of a body was not. I was pretty sure I had broken a rib but after a few days it was clear there was also something wrong with my head. I had constant brain fog, headache, nausea and dizziness. At my daughter Sabrina’s insistence, I went to the hospital where X-rays confirmed the broken rib and the doctor confirmed a concussion.

So here I am, packed and ready for my bike trip to Chile. My brother Rob and I had gotten my bike road-worthy, he gave me a crash course on the mechanics, the bike box for the flight is waiting in my garage, but when the Santiago-bound plane leaves tomorrow, I won’t be on it. Between my dizzy head and my busted rib I can’t ride or carry a pack. Initially, I was super down-hearted that my winter was not going to look the way I thought it would. My visions of coasting down the mountains of Patagonia would not happen. It took me a couple of days to make my peace with it and then I decided that, for whatever reason, I just wasn’t meant to go on this trip. Maybe I would have crashed my bike or skidded off a cliff (making my toboggan shenanigans look like a winter picnic). Who knows. In any case, I’m grounded for now. Sabrina says I’m starting 2026 from a place with only room to improve. I like that idea. Maybe when my head is straight I’ll go for a few weeks to an Airbnb in Mexico to rest and write. I like that idea too. Until then, Happy New Year. Stay warm, stay safe and only go tobogganing if you are good at it.