Photo from https://www.roambelize.com

Kerry & I had just finished an adrenilin-pumping adventure at Cave’s Branch in Belize and were sitting in the bus depot at Hopkins waiting for the Placencia bus. It was freaking hot -shirt-soaking, humidity hot with no air-con within miles. The depot was little more than a slab of tin  to keep the sun off our heads. Kerry was furiously catching up on her journaling and had studiously ignored my pathetic efforts to engage her in conversation so I went off to go find treats for the bus ride.

Our bus had dropped us off on the opposite side of the building from the town so when I walked out the other side I was unprepared for the scene before me. OMG. I thought it was hot in the depot! There were all these stunning young  people engaged in this slow, simmering sexual dance that was breath-taking to observe. There was no overt touching, no nakedness. Yet it made the already steamy air, almost solid. I stopped in my tracks, staring, and gulped. Damn. I had never seen anything like it, not even in the most frenzied nightclubs of my youth.

When I was young and lovely I would have been way too intimidated to cross that street, too terrified to take the chance of being noticed and not knowing how to handle it if I did and mortified if I wasn’t noticed. But now, well now I realized my age made me invisible to these hormone fueled humans so I could cross the street and be protected by my age. It was the first time I saw it as liberating. I crossed, got my munchies and returned, carefully picking my way through the maze of slick bodies.

When I got back Kerry with a grin plastered on my face, I shared my epiphany . She rolled her eyes and returned to her journal. This was obviously  something she’d already figured out. What can I say, I have always been a late developer.