A Weekend at the Swan and Dolphin Resort in Walt Disney World!

Last weekend we enjoyed a lovely stay in April at the Swan and Dolphin Resort in Walt Disney World as seen at https://www.swandolphin.com/home.html.

Our room had two balconies and Madeleine joined me for a few pictures taken by @laurabanfield.

I intended to take just enough pictures to make a post to share the experience without ruining the trip for taking pictures of everything.

Our room was perfectly cleaned and had everyone one could want for. It was probably bigger than the homes most people have on this planet.

We enjoyed dinner at the Garden Grove as seen at https://www.swandolphinrestaurants.com/gardengrove/index.html which would have been perfect for me two years ago before I switched to eating mostly whole plant foods/vegan after reading "How Not To Die".

Given it was in fact April 2018 and not 2016, I spent the majority of the dinner first judging human beings for being a cancer on the planet eating without regard to the ecosystem. Next, I worked on judging myself for not being unconditionally loving. Then I prayed for relief. Finally, I both asked for a vegan dish for myself and made a few dips into vegetarian as I waited and for dessert.

I hope I remember to avoid going to a seafood buffet again and am happy we enjoyed meeting a few of the Disney characters like Goofy. I could not be bothered to take photos of all of them this time.

Madeleine loves water and enjoyed looking out from the boardwalk.

We had a lovely boat ride back to the hotel which lasted about 10 minutes.

The view from our room at night was beautiful which motivated me to put down the laptop and just look after a few minutes of sitting outside on my own while Laura put Madeleine to bed.

@laurabanfield and I enjoyed the fireworks from Hollywood Studios together while Madeleine slept in the room for what we call a date as parents now. Going back in involved being extra quiet.

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful overcast view of the resort.

What I learned on this trip was to honor the beauty where I am and appreciate the comedy of seeing from so many points of view. While I appreciated the landscaping and the human creation of such a magnificent retreat, I also contemplated the entire resort as the body might look at a cancer growing without regard to the needs of the host. How many trees needed to be cut down to build this? How much fuel, work, and waste to run this place every day. Why do we feel the need to leave our homes and go somewhere like this for a night?

Loving the time with family and fellow vacationers while seeing the insanity of the whole thing was a delicate balance which went pretty well save for a few moments of discomfort and thirty minutes crying by the pool.

The awkward moment of the trip award goes to me during an elevator ride with a mother and her daughter elementary school daughter from the lobby to the seventh floor. I first felt the urge to not look and them out of politness. Next I said "screw that" or maybe something similar and I proceeded to try to look at each of them in as much detail as possible. Then, the mother did an epic slow head turn and made brief eye contact with me while none of us said anything because I decided not to bother with saying hi either to make it normal to the mind. Finally, as we hit the sixth floor and the mother broke eye contact and went back to pretending like I did not exist, I turned and walked out of the elevator and felt the separation.

What makes it so challenging to just stand with a stranger in the elevator? Why do we feel this huge pressure to not look at each other or to turn the experience into a mind interaction of "Hi how are you oh the weather is great today ..."? It definitely depends on who is in the elevator because with some people we would just stand on the elevator and look at each other and it would not be weird. Like at Steemfest 2 with the members of the @gardenofeden @quinneaker, @saramiller, and @everlove along with @virtualgrowth. We just looked at each other and it was awesome. I wrote more about it at https://steemit.com/steemfest/@jerrybanfield/an-unexpected-delight-at-steemfest.

I watched this movie a few years ago that said our basic problem as human beings is our failure to be able to just sit quietly in a room with each other. Naturally that pissed me off at the time and I thought it was stupid given I could not do it at the time. Now I get it from both sides. When in fear, being near a stranger is uncomfortable especially if they look at you they must be judging or want something. When in love, being near a stranger is a fun time to connect and appreciate the common divinity.

Thank you for reading this and maybe we can ride an elevator together sometime.

Love,
Jerry Banfield

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