Urubamba

It’s a sham. Gift registries for our friends who get married, but what about the gal who remains single? in China, she’s called a leftover woman. At prayer meetings, she’s prayed for as if her singleness is leprecy.

In my book? She’s called a kindred spirit. In spite of the amount of periwinkle taffeta bridesmaids dresses she has purchased (with matching shoes), and wedding gifts, bridal showers, and airline tickets for destination weddings, there is never a party for her. Well, that changed in Urubamba, Peru, a pea-size town outside of Cusco, nestled in the Sacred Valley, sorta near Mach Picchu. We were on a singlemoon for my thirty-something friend, celebrating the best is yet to come.

Since I’m divorced, and not wanting to get involved with someone with more hair growing out of his ears than on his head, I decided to celebrate my singleness, too. Even though I’m no longer in my thirties, the decade when everyone is trying to marry you off, or set you up with their second cousin or invite you to speed dating, or write a profile for you on a romance website, I’m tired of folks asking me if I met someone yet, thinking I ventured to Peru to nab an aging machismo man. This is not him.

No. I’m not here for the meat, but the four thousand potatoes.

Stop asking me about my love life, but rather, do you love your life? Back to our singlemoon destination, Urubamba.

Now, when I travel alone, it’s on a shoestring budget, staying at hotels that may not provide toilet paper in the room, yet alone a mint on the pillow. But being with a single friend who is leaving the color of Peru for the manotony of American suburbia, I splurged. As much as the hotel tab would be, it would pale in comparison to a divorce lawyer’s hourly rate or the overpriced and underused cheese knife that’s lusted on every bride-to-be’s registry.

We stayed at the San Agustin, a hotel with a monastary vibe with a few perks. Hot water, heaters, a breakfast buffet, and vintage MTV. We walked twenty minutes to the city center where our ears tuned into a cacophony of drums and trombones.

Yes, a parade. While the locals thought the festivities were to honor their peasant and rural lifestyle, Stacy and I knew otherwise. The parade was to celebrate us.

There were toiling farmers. Swirling skirts, stuffed alpaca and an abundance of sequins. Children clanking Cusco beer bottles. Every parade participant was dancing, some in heels, others in tattered sandals, oblivious to the headlines of the New York Times.

The parade ended at the church in the city center, some of the celebration pouring into the pews. We didn’t realize that at the same time, an earthquake was skaking our homes in Lima and craziness contined in America.

The quake wasnt big enough to make world headlines, but photos and video clips flooded our personal message feeds. The green Coast de Verde was transformed into a cloud of dust, as if God emptied a vacuum cleaner bag over the city’s cliff-like edge.

Stacy and I will let the locals think the parade was for them, and also for dads. It was also Father’s Day. Families went into the cemetery carrying baskets of beer and spirited drinks to celebrate with their deceased papas

Until then, enjoy the hand God dealt you.