The Fiery Quill

Far outside of Cancun, lies a tiny town that tourists have never heard of. It is a sleepy place with dusty streets, where the friendly locals nod as you walk by. There are no nightclubs, no cocktails with umbrellas, no beautiful people. But you can get a cool drink and plenty of hospitality. I was 16 and wide-eyed. This was the first time I had been to a different country without my family in tow. I was in Mexico with my Spanish class, two chaperones, 7 other giggling girls, and Max: my best friend and the only boy on the trip. We had spent the day exploring Chichen Itza and were on our way back to the hotel in Cancun. Our little group stopped for lunch, and a break from being trapped in a VW bus with no AC. We tumbled out of the bus into the hot, dusty streets. The sun shone on a village with buildings painted in an equally sunny hue. They all had white trim on their stuccoed facades, lined up like old friends. Our first stop was a small, open air church with large shady trees bowing ...

Amid crowds of hopeful runners dressed in Mickey ears and Tinkerbell wings, Laura and I set out in the pre -dawn blackness. The air was thick with excitement from all the bodies jostling for position. Adrenaline was coursing through our veins, as we blindly entered our first emotional phase of the race: euphoria. This phase is exemplified by cockiness and the phrase, "hey, no problem!" We maintained this air of false confidence all the way through the 6 th mile ("if we keep this pace up, we'll finish in 4-and-a-half hours!") and well into the 12 th . The sun was shining, we both felt good,untouchable even. Little did we know that we were getting ready to hit our first wall....funny how it happend at mile 13. Ironically, things started to fall apart after our first food station. This is when we arrived at the next phase of the race: doubt. The first phase was so blissfully long, that we were lured into a false sense of security. Which is why the next one hit ha...

This past Sunday I visited three amusement parks, got a suntan and ran a marathon: all before lunch. Not to mention going through every possible emotion and getting a blister so big it earned its own nickname (Pinky and the Brain). I felt as though I was running for days, even though it was only for 5 hours and 47 minutes (and 3 seconds). It seemed so long partially because the race began a couple hours before the sun rose. The wake-up call came promptly at 3 am. I remember my first thought being: "whose idea was this?" But it didn't take long for the adrenaline to start flowing. Tying on my pink bandana and strapping on my shoes felt like putting on battle armor. By the time I walked out the hotel door, I was ready. I joined my running partner, Laura, at the staging area where we chatted nervously and sized up the competition. After a final visit to the all-important Port-o-Potty, all the runners made the solemn 10 minute march to the starting line. Hip-hop blared from ...

It was the last plane out from San Juan to St. John. I was the only passenger on the tiny, eight-seater plane. The pilot was a local who was going home for the night. When he realized that I was his only passenger, he quickly invited me to sit next to him at the very front of the plane. As we climbed higher into the night sky, the pilot encouraged me to lean closer to the curved window at the front of the plane. He assured me that this was the best way to view the myriad of stars on display. The glow from the stars was brilliant, and became even more so the farther we got from the lights of San Juan. I had never been so close to twinkling stars, it felt as though I was among them. As we made the short descent into St. John, I was briefly sad to see the constellations get smaller and smaller. But one first was replaced by another. I had never been the only passenger in a plane, and I had never had the pilot morph into personal taxi driver. It turned out that the pilot lived close to the...