Simple Pleasures in Life (M)

I was 6 years old. My older brother was my idol, my hero, perfect in everyway. I could only hope to someday be as great as him. I followed him through sports, racing pencils down the gutters on the hill in the pouring rain, and out of bed at 4am on Christmas Eve to tear through our Christmas stockings mischievously putting everything back in order prior to waking our parents as if nothing had happened. We were standing at a river as I watched in awe as he masterfully, at the old age of 8, threw the smooth rock into the water with a sideways flick of the wrist. It skipped gracefully several times across the surface before plunking into the depths of the water. My brother patiently showed me his “secret trick” as all brothers have one, and we spent hours scavenging the shores for the “perfect skipping rocks”, shouting with excitement everytime we had a great skip or the perfect jump.

Almost 20 years later, my Neomi II Croatian sailing crew, consisting of me, 2 American colleagues, four other Swiss randoms, and our German skipper, anchored up in a small bay near one of the tiny Croatian islands. Excited to get to land, Alissa, Kevin, and I took the dingy to shore and decided to scavenge a path around the point of the island and suddenly found ourselves standing on the rocky cliffs of a secluded beautiful bay. Out of shape after spending the last few days sleeping, drinking, and eating on the boat, we needed a rest from the walk and plopped down on the rocks to simply take in the spectacular view. Suddenly I heard a familiar “plop, plop, plop, splash.” sound which took me immediately back to childhood.

We were in luck. Kevin had found some great skipping rocks among us and was expertly chucking them across the Aegean Sea. Instinctively, as if I were still that 6 year old girl, I jumped up to scour for another rock. Picking up a smooth, flat rock, I chucked it into the sea only to watch it drop discouragingly into the water. After several failed attempts I sat to watch Kevin for another half hour, with a permanent childhood smile on my face. It was one of the most surreal and peaceful moments to take so much pleasure from something as simple as skipping a rock.

“Question of the day: What do old, fat German men, speedos, and sailboats have in common?” (F)

Answer: Sailing in Croatia. Every boat we passed by as we came into each harbor or bay was filled with large German and Austrian fat men, proudly showing off their stuff in tight speedos, sprawled lazily out on their sailboats like a bunch of beached sea lions. The only movement one could see from their overweight lifeless bodies would be the slight turn of their head as we glided by, excited to see some young females (i.e. 30 years younger than anyone else in the area) on the boat. It was the strangest phenomenon, which made you ponder the question, which came first, the chicken or the egg? I mean, did the fat speedo strutting men come first and scare off all of the women, or did women relaxing in the sun get frightened off and immediately set sail for Greece? Hmmm..makes you wonder, doesn’t it? And this also brings up the burning question that is relevant to all cultures in all countries..why is it always the unattractive people who lie out in the nude???