Resting in paradise.

Last month Nancy and I went to Panama for an island vacation. We took three planes, two different car rides, and a boat to get to a 600 acre island on the southwest corner of Panama. There were five cottages on this island, no stores, no TVs, no restaurants, no buildings other than the ones people stayed in. We were the only guests there for most of the time, so it was the two of us, lots of howler monkeys and iguanas and a few very helpful staff.

On the plane over, we both noticed that we were getting sort of sniffly. Before we left, Lucia had a cold and we had been worried we'd catch it. By the time we arrived at our island destination, we were both full blown sick. Nancy showed symptoms about one day in front of me, so the intensity of our colds staggered-- she was bad one day, and the next day I followed suit.

The result was that we each had to rest and isolate at different times. On the first day, Nancy rested in our room alone while I took a hike in the jungle and explored the tide pools and the next day, I hunkered down to rest while she felt well enough to do a lagoon hike.

We laughed a lot. Every morning we had to ask housekeeping for extra kleenex. Having no way to replenish our stock of medicines, we rationed our cough drops like lost campers with their last Clif bar.

But we were sick in paradise and it was wonderful. Bernie Clark, one of my teachers, told us that colds are important. Getting the common cold and sitting through it, letting it work through our systems, is a way of strengthening our immunity. It's not unlike the slow build of core strength that happens over the hundreds of times we hold plank or the eventual opening of our shoulders when we do day after day of Bikram Pranayama. The strengthening of our immune system takes time. Getting a cold and following the natural course helps.

So it was a blessing in disguise that we were sick in paradise with no amenities. We did exactly as we should have done. We rested. We sat with our symptoms and let them run through us. If we'd been back in Seattle, Nancy would would have been running around trying to make it to Saturday morning spin class, squeeze in a tennis game, and have long days at work. I would have been driving Lucia all over the county for soccer, doing as much yoga as possible, and trying to finish taxes.

But we had none of those pulls there. And our sickness took us to a even more quiet place. We just rested in paradise. In Chinese medicine, they don't use the terminology, "catch a cold." They say that your body is out of harmony, that it needs to get back in balance. I believe that. Too much running around, too much of anything, even good things, can take the body out of harmony. Our Panamanian Paradise was the balance shifter. We both needed quiet, rest, and recovery. I felt so grateful, lying in bed with kleenex floating around the sheets and floor, to look out the window and see the Pacific Ocean, watch the geckos scamper across the ceiling, and listen to the howler monkeys and variant birds creating music outside.

When we returned, we were both on the tail ends of the cold. "What a bummer!" our friends and family exclaimed when then heard we'd spent our vacation sick. But neither of us felt that way. We both loved our vacation resting in paradise.