The Part About Tulum

Today I was reading a post in Emily Magazine in which Emily considers the question of why ppl blog and then goes on to describe a rather harrowing experience near Tulum, where she was recently on vacation and witnessed a young child get hit by a car.
Reading the post, I was reminded of a trip Stephen and I took to the 'Maya Riviera' in the winter of 2003, or almost seven years ago. We have always found it difficult as a 'gay cpl' to travel on 'chill-out vacays,' because while we are generally reluctant to go to a resort that caters to non-heterosexuals (cue club music), we are even more reluctant to book a trip to places (resorts or otherwise) that cater to non-homosexuals, i.e., 99.9 percent of the populated world. Consequently, we tend (or tended, since this was during an era -- long since passed, RIP -- when we had money to do this sort of thing) to book houses in the middle of nowhere, which is what we did in Mexico, where we stayed about 20 miles north of Tulum in a ridiculously large mansion on a private bay. 
In many respects, the house was perfect; it offered 'world-class' snorkeling just outside our back door, it was large and airy and walking distance from a quirky hotel filled with ex-pats and foreigners, including a boozy, wrinkled woman who I immediately recognized was from Pittsburgh based on her strong accent. There was a even a fresh-water 'cenote' nearby, one of the inland, freshwater caves where you can also go snorkeling.
It's difficult to say whether at the time we were cognizant of what in retrospect of a disturbance often seems like signs that something was 'wrong'; whether it was the armed guards who patrolled the beaches at night carrying machine guns, the silent gardener and housekeeper who would materialize to tend the property, the extreme if not unexpected poverty in evidence as we drove to Coba, the ruins of city that had once, at the height of the Maya Empire, been as large as the city of Los Angeles, and which is now buried under the voracious jungle, or even the desolate feeling I would get swimming out to the reef, perhaps 800-1000 yards offshore, looking back to see Stephen (who is not a strong swimmer) sitting on the shore, no bigger than a dot, or -- if he had gone inside to nap -- nobody at all.
What is certain is that I spent most of the week working on (but not backing up) the manuscript to a novel I had started perhaps a year or so earlier, a novel based on opera and 9/11 and some other things that had been churning through my mind at the time. What's also certain is that on the last night of our trip, Stephen and I were watching a DVD on my laptop, and after going downstairs for not more than five minutes or so to get a drink, we returned to the bedroom to find the computer gone, along with my backpack and a few other things (thankfully not our passports, although they were in plain view because we had taken them out to pack).
There is nothing quite like being the victim of a crime in a remote part of a foreign country to understand the meaning of futility; our immediate impulse was to run outside, as though we were going to chase down whoever stole the goods, but then it dawned on us that a more rational response was to stay in and lock the windows and doors; after all, we were unarmed and the last thing we wanted was a confrontation with someone who was. But then we felt trapped, uncertain if the robbers might come back for more, given that they had obviously been watching us for at least several hours, and perhaps several days before that.
After a sleepless night, we returned home, feeling both lucky to have visited such a beautiful and haunted part of the world and unlucky to have been victims of a crime (but again lucky that it had not been 'worse.') The only thing I lost that was irreplaceable was a week's worth of work on the novel, which I like to think in retrospect was a blessing; the truth is, it probably didn't matter because I subsequently revised the story into something very different and a week of lost work was only a small percentage of the time that went into it). In any event, back in the city, I told my friends about it, who as expected expressed their condolences and shared their own stories about traveling abroad (or not traveling) and the similar types of mishaps that had befallen them.
It's probably true, as I think about it now, that most of the people I considered friends at the time have since disappeared from my life, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this post. Part of me wishes that I had been blogging at the time, so that I could go back to search for clues, not so much about the trip to Tulum, but the subsequent fractures that would lead to the permanent end of so many relationships I had once valued.
Blogging, it seems to me (and I speak only for myself, obv), is just another way to tell our stories, with the hope to understand where we have been and -- with any luck -- tell us where we are going next.

Comments

[zahira]

hello Mattew. I followed the link you posted on your tumblr and wanted to heart this gorgeous post. It is really great following you on tumblr. And I love your whispery posts about your novel. Keep up the good job!

[Matthew Gallaway]

Thank u Zahira!

[Robert Patrick]

as always, wonderful observations on life, Matthew, thanks for sharing.

[Matthew Gallaway]

Thanks Robert!

[Emily]

Just "liking" this didn't seem like enough. Thank you -- this nailed a feeling. It is a creepy part of the world! But I will probably go back.

[Matthew Gallaway]

Thank you Emily, for triggering the memory! I think I would like to go back too, but I would want to stay in a more populated area, maybe closer to Acumel?