A warm tropical breeze brushes across my face, its the last night in Mexico. The week had come to an end, my family and I would be leaving our Mayan Riviera escape in the morning. This vacation had been different from those in the past, I'd taken advantage of more opportunities and tried harder than ever before to be social. Meeting new people and putting in a conscious effort made this night an experience that I will not forget.

I had spent most of the night at the bar beside the Disco, this was the happening place for the young people at the resort. As the sound of ten years past pop music beats in the background we start to play a drinking games, alcohol may not taste great but playing games with it can be lots of fun. There were at least eight other people sitting around the table, each of them clapping trying to keep the rhythm. A new rule is added, we must make up hand signals, looking around the table I choose a variation of a disco dance move.

Hands clapping, eyes glazed, someone says “this is more complicated than I expected”. The game continues tap, tap, clap, clap, hand signals are exchanged across the table, suddenly someone is doing the disco dance move, noticing I repeat but am unable to remember any other signals.Taking a drink I smile at the girl next to me. Having poor hand-eye coordination and an under developed memory my glass of beer disappears quickly, I get up to grab another.

Waiting for a drink a guy at the other end of the bar starts to laugh franticly as he points at a bartender. The bartender lifts his apron, a cucumber hangs from some strings, with every movement the cucumber bounces up and down. As I laugh another bartender asks “What can I get you Boss?” “Cerveza” he pulls a large bottle of beer from the fridge and pours its contents into two glasses.

Returning to my seat there are more people, all on their feet, hands interlocked their palms on the table, looking for a space I find one next to the girl I smiled at earlier. The game is straightforward, we've been playing all week, hands thump and thud.

Stumbling over my words I start talking, shes still in university, the conversation turns to school and biology. Above the bar is a poorly painted mural of various sea creatures, pointing to the starfish she says “Asterias rubens”. Overhearing the conversation my brother comments sarcastically “your talking about science” she laughs but doesn't seem to mind. Meanwhile the game goes on, the actions at the other end of the table, drinks disappear, I take a couple swigs of beer.

A myriad of characters stand around the table, to my left the girl iv been talking science with - nothing is going to happen with her - shes with three friends from schools, their hitting the table and drinking, I'm introduced but don't remember any of their names. Across the table my brother Max is talking to some random girl, he's always talking to people, it's easy for him. Beside Max our sisters are flirting with two guys
from Edmonton, they arrived at the resort a couple days after us. For the most part everyone is Canadian, the resort employees play along and try without success to pick up drunken tourists.

The night isn't getting any younger, the moon is full and over head, the group gets smaller as people head off to bed. There was a long day ahead as most people were headed home, my family was leaving at 6 am.

The bar which was filled only thirty minutes earlier, had only a single group of people left, grabbing a chair I took a seat.The conversation was all about Canada, natives, Ontario, Alberta, the stupidity of Quebecers and their hypocritical language laws. The conversation continues until the black framed glasses wearing tattooed thug from Alberta said “joint time”. Everyone was in so we headed to their room to burn one down.

Their room was on the other side of the resort, passing the illuminated pools, sounds of the ocean could be heard in the distance, palm trees swayed in the warm breeze. Looking towards the ocean there was no light, the sky was clear and the stars shinned bright.

I had no idea where we were going, all the buildings looked the same, with a little help we found our way to their room. The tattooed thug pulled out some some weed, it was a dark green almost brown, mushed, leafy, seedy mess. It smelt like cannabis, but looked different from what I was used to, back home the weed was more bud and a lighter shade of green.

The eccentric student from Ottawa, who earlier in the week had been grinding with his mother broke up the marihuana with his hands, it appeared difficult without scissors and all those steams. When it was all broken up the guy from Ottawa rolled a massive L-joint using strawberry king-sized rolling papers, by the time he licked the glue and sealed it tight it was the largest cannon I had ever seen.

We sparked the joint, as the sound of the TV flickered on and off in the background, the crappy Mexican cable had been doing this all week. Not everyone joined in on the smoking, a few were just there for the party.

Slowly exhaling smoke rises and dances in the air, the herbs are good, tasted nice and got you baked, I hadn’t smoked in a while so the reverse tolerance helped. Max wasn't smoking and was tired so he took off and headed to bed.

The room was cramped with unfamiliar people looking for a place to sit, smoke filled the room, the smell of reefer lingered. A fan spun above our heads directing the smoke towards the balcony, conversations were flowed back and forth as I gaining the confidence to start participating. It's easier to be myself in situations when my family isn't around, it must have something to do with my social identity.

A gentle voice whispers “Come over here” almost immediately my head turns towards the balcony where I suspect the voice was coming from. There sits the girl from Montreal, her long black hair waving in the wind. All by herself she's avoiding the smoke, looking at her for a moment she doesn't notice me, so I wonder if I am hearing things. Contemplating the situation I considered going to talk to her but realize the disadvantage of missing the joint, naturally I decided to stay where I am.

A few minutes pass, the joint is dead, the smoke starts to clear the room, the girl from Montreal gets out of the chair on the balcony and steps inside taking a seat on the bed beside me.

Confidently I ask “Do you ever feel like you’re in the moment.... living right now?”“Yes definitely, not often though. It usually happens when I go for walks in the woods or play sports, but the environment and people need to be right.”I thought to myself 'set and setting'.

Blitzed out of my mind I swayed to the rhythms inside my head, stopping occasionally to sit still and contemplate as though I were going to say something important. The dark haired girl from Montreal watched with interest and laughed at my routine.

“After smoking weed I feel connected with the flow, I become more aware while thoughts and insights race though my mind at incredible speeds... its mind blowing”. A look of confusion came across her face, she didn’t understand, presumably she figured I was blabbering nonsense due to all the herb I had just smoked.

Speaking loudly my comment grabbed a lot of attention, heads turned and eyes were fixed on me, fascination filled the room. I was the center of attention! This was new. I’m never the center of attention, I often don't say much.... but today was different.

Continuing with conviction “The flow surrounds all of us like an ocean of life or maybe its love... actually its probably energy..... regardless it's flowing around and between us, it connects us all together whether we can feel it or not”

“But how does that relate to right now?” someone interjected.

“Right now we are in this moment, can you feel it flowing through you? It's the flow, it connects us all together.” Stopping to think for a moment there is silence, the room is captured in my words and is left hanging waited to hear what will come out of next...

A moment later I continued “We are here right now, this is how it's happens, this is life, this is now, this is the experiment!”

“The experiment?” asked the typical American Eagle jock.
“The experiment of life, of living in the moment and being here now. On my website I try
to explore this, I want people to participate and get involved in the experiment.”
“What’s the website called?” someone asked.
“Novelog, novelog.com, its really easy to remember” spelling it out “N O V E L O G dot
com.”

Stopping for a moment to think 'I don't like to sell but this is my website and I believe
in it.'

My monologue went on, I couldn't help it, the words just kept coming out. “The bible is the story of one man's life and experience, it was passed on recorded and remembered. The goal of Novelog is to create a book, online of course, about the lives of many.” Stopping for a moment the eyes remained fixed on me, I continued “All of our experience is worth remembering and passing on to future generations, the problem is it hasn't been practical until now, that is what the internet is doing, it’s the great equalizer”

The room was hushed aside from the fan over head and the flickering TV in the background, no one else said a word as they waited for me to go on “Have you ever had an experience you thought was worth telling others about?”

“Sure... but why would anyone else care?” asked the shaggy haired punk from London.I answered with a question “Who would have thought Jesus would have been remembered 2000 years later?” I went on “My point is that if you think an experience is worth passed on then other people may feel the same. Everyday we have encounters that we can learn from, these lessons can be passed on to other people, that's what it's all about.”

“This is a good idea, I'll check it out.” the guy from London said enthusiastically.

He went on “So you’re making an online bible about the experiences of many people?”
“Sort of... its a website about experience, moments, lessons and life, I was just trying to using the bible as an analogy”

The guy from London who had been most active in the conversation was with his sister, she had been lying on the bed next to him with her eyes closed, she motioned as though she wanted to leave. He stood up and announced “It has been a good night but my sister wants to sleep.” Standing tall I confidently shock his hand and asked his name then said “Nice meeting you Matt” helping to establishing his name into my memory.

Turning back to the girl from Montreal she laugh again as I swayed.

Being high and a little paranoid I ask “Anyone have eye drops?”
Sarcastically the joint roller says “Why do you need eye drops? Its 4:27, who’s going to
see your eyes?” he laughed and continued “Like your brother is going to say 'Let me see your eyes!' then go tell your parents”
I laughed “Yeah I guess not”

The thug and his friend from Calgary grabbed their Mexican wrestling masks from a drawer and put them on, they had an extra mask so the guy from Ottawa wore it. The thugs friend tried to drink a bottle of beer though the mouth hole, the masks was confining and the hole too small, as a result he spilled the beer all over himself and soaked the mask, we all laughed hysterically as he tried to clean up the mess.

There was a knock at the door, the masked men ran drunkenly to answer, it was the food they had ordered from room service. They were handed trays of food while they joked about the masks, the delivery man chuckled along waiting for a tip.

It was late and I had to get up in an hour so I said good bye to everyone.

Walking down the sparsely lighten hallway, a breeze rushed by, coming to the end of the hall just before the stairs I spotted a security guard. He was a young Mexican and could hardly speak English I asked his name and he said “Jesus” then with broken English he asked mine I said “Sandy.” It was difficult to communicate as we could not speak each others language. Noticing another security guard ascending the stairs, he asked what my room number was, nervously I said “I'm in another building” and pointed in that direction. Filled with paranoia I said “good bye” and walked down the stairs, stepping out of the the building I ran at full speed to my room.

In the morning, only an hour later I meticulously packed up my things and had a shower, there was a loud knock at the door and my father yelled “Hurry up! were leaving in twenty minutes” I woke my brother as he was still asleep.

Thirty five minutes later we packed into a massive air conditioned bus headed for the airport. It was a long drive and a great opportunity to checking out the diverse Mexican landscape, sleep wasn't an option as the sun was too bright and there were no blinds. Sunglasses on my blood shoot eyes were hidden.

The line for customs extended outside of the airport and into the parking lot, as we got closer I noticed customs were scanning all the bags this frightened me. A matchbox filled with Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds was in the front pocket of my navy blue suitcase, I hopped to try them back in Canada.

Anxiously I figured that if they searched my bag and found them there would be trouble and possibly time spent in a Mexican prison. Reaching into the pocket and grabbing the matchbox I threw it into the nearest garbage can. This process relieved the stress but was unnecessary. By the time we reached customs I realized they weren't scanning for drugs or plant material but for bombs and weapons the consequences of September 11th.

After customs we walked through the crowded airport, had some americanized food and headed to the terminal. We got onto the plane, it was pulled to the runway and reached reakneck speeds before it took off.

the story continues at http://novelog.com