Puerto Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta (see in Gallery / Store) | Image by Bruce Harris

The stamen glows at the tip. It’s perfect. Unintentional but perfect. That’s what draws me in, mesmerizing as the hibiscus yellows and magentas are. It’s seventeen degrees outside here in Illinois, yet I can almost feel the intensity of that Puerto Vallarta sunshine from the day I took this photo.

Friends for twenty years. We spent a handful of long weekends in Mexico with a collective of neighborhood couples that have become the close friends of our lives during these past two decades. No different than most other people if they’re lucky enough for friendships of this kind. Kids or sports or just the human networking apparatus at work, we found each other, and that led to the annual three or four night adventures in Puerto Vallarta overlooking Banderas Bay. A six-thousand foot deep Banderas Bay, waves breaking white over blue and shimmering to the horizon, where oceanside meals are easily found and trinkets constantly sold, where a beach-combing vendor dropped his rather large and alive iguana on my shoulder, then asked me for money. Where too much tequila can be easily drunk.

And I’m not a drinker. Not anymore. Maybe that’s why. I’d have the curtains drawn and be woken to group laughter and appall from the patio. My wife asked, curious about the ruckus, Is there something I should know?

All I could manage to say was, It wasn’t my fault, and then stumble to the bathroom swearing I’d never drink again. Only to be conned later that night into some game called flippy cup, which is even dumber than quarters, and definitely more confusing. Especially with tequila chasers.

What had actually happened isn’t likely to be funny to anyone else but us. The magical thing about distance and sunshine and lounge chairs, beaches and adventures, tropics and coladas, time becomes very pliable. One moment you're not aging, you're not caught up in the stuff of life; you're just living it young and free as you ever were.

But the mirage only lasts a few days. Then you're older and looking at this photo from maybe the last time you'll ever be in Mexico with that exact group of friends. Maybe you will again, hopefully. But certain things will not be the same. Certain couples have split. Some have retired elsewhere. Some have grandchildren and don't want to take the time away from home. All understandable. All predictable.

Now, when most of us are together a time or two a year, not in Mexico chasing tequila shots, but at one person's home or another, the same stories make the rounds and the laughter is as loud as before. Then the room gets quiet. The brightness dulls. A slow fade. The sun, once lighting the hibiscus and the bay, sets into the unending lap of the Pacific.