“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”

When I left St John on August 6, I knew I had chosen to be gone for too long.  Two months and change off the rock…My return seemed a like a lifetime away.  After months of looking forward to reconnecting with friends and family, eating great food for a reasonable price, LIVE MUSIC and revisiting my beloved Colorado, on that day in August, I regretted (Something I do not frequently do) my decision to leave a life of one foot in front of the other for a “vacation” where fast cars and tall buildings zoom past and tower over my existence.  I just wanted to stay on the beach and ride out the off season with the rest of my island misfit cohorts. 

Now, on October 15, I sit in the Miami airport, having already been on two other flights in the past 12 hours, ready to board my final plane to St.Thomas, and, for the first time in two months, pick up the hint of a West Indian dialect in one of the neighboring rows of passengers.  My heart leaps.  Home…I’ll be home soon.

The journey I have been on has been a transformative and reflective one.  For on this path, I have learned that there are places I have loved and to which I cannot return, there are places I wish to know better and there are places in my past to which I will always return to with the mentality of “I love you, but I can never date you/live here.”  In these past weeks, I have released my home of nearly ten years.  One of my reasons for returning to Colorado for a full month was to purge my earthly things…Sell my car, donate my things to thrift stores and distribute them to my friends and, all in all, close the door on my life there.  In the midst of boxes of clothing, photos, kitchen wares, ticket stubs and costumes, I sat weeping in the cold dark basement of a best friend that had housed my things when I had decided to take off for 6 months last fall.  Two months into my stint on STJ, I called to make sure it was okay if my things stayed for another 6 months…I was staying.  This time, as I sorted the important things, it was much harder.  I felt as if I was on a figurative island…not just the amazing literal one I actually reside on.  Everything I owned was being shipped or given away.  It’s liberating when it’s over.  But scary as shit when you’re actually doing it.

 

 In my time in Colorado, I had some great fun, spent quality time with some of the people I hold dearest in this world and, in doing so, discovered that while we may grow separately, we will never grow apart.  The laughter and love will bridge any gap between these people and myself for at one point or another, with each of them, I realized that our lives intertwined were a large part of our connection.  The rock has changed me, it has slowed me down, it has allowed me to see life for the miracle of each moment, and to not be caught up in the time that swirls around the present.  These are difficult things to do amidst fast cars and tall buildings.

“On the Road,” from Colorado, I discovered more of a vacation.  I was headed to Seattle and then Portland to spend a week in the North West with some of the most amazing beings I have been blessed to cross paths with.  Another circle of beautiful people whose lives will remain forever entangled with my own reside on the left coast and it was enchanting to be in their world, if only for a short time.  I was startled by the way it DID feel like home in Portland, even though I have never lived there…The sight of Mount Hood on a clear day, the amazing food, the subtle swing from Summer to Fall on the tip of every tree and temperature change and the comfort of my best friends’ newly purchased home, in addition to the outpouring of love and affection from each and every one of the friends I have been blessed with over the years of traveling for music, all sang to my heart.  I may find myself there one day, just maybe. 

I rode the breeze to Oakland next, leaving behind a new love interest and departing with a heavy heart.  My sister picked me up at the airport and we went to her new apartment where her new fiancé awaited us and congratulations were passed around over a bottle of wine.  As she completes her graduate work in forensic psychology, she also plans a wedding for the fall. Her energy amazes me.  As she went to class the next morning, I headed into the city…San Francisco, with flowers in her hair and the remnants of my favorite eras filled with music and madness and beatnik poetry and writing and art and intellect.  It was a picture perfect day and as I rode the BART to Union Station, I posted on facebook that I would be cocktail hopping in my favorite areas of the city, beginning at Magnolia on the corner of Haight and Ashbury.  This was a bar we had visited after the Earth Day festival in Golden Gate Park while on tour with Yonder Mountain String Band in 2007, specializing in craft beers and gastropub-type fare. 

My phone lit up with a text from a friend who had seen my facebook post and was also in the city for a few days from, of all places, Colorado.  This is ALSO the friend who connected me, again via facebook, with the amazing couple who put me up for my first weeks on island, strictly based on his “She’s cool,” recommendation.  This friend was also traveling with us in 2007 when we visited this same restaurant.  I think that Noah and I will always cross paths…another example of music bringing great people together for a lifetime of random adventures (Facebook helped too).

From the Haight, we cabbed it to North Beach, an area of the city known well for its “Little Italy” costume it adorns each evening as open air cafes and restaurants light up with candle light and the air fills with the smells of 100 pasta sauces simmering with sausage and meatballs.  However, this was not my reason for visiting this, my favorite, area of San Francisco.  For me, North Beach echoes a time that I only wish I could have known.  I have read every piece of literature written by Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassady is one of my favorite characters of all time.  While in Bowling Green, Ohio, I lived vicariously through their ramblings around the country and followed suit as soon as I finished college…While, maybe a little bit while I was still in college.  These late nights spent flipping the pages of Kerouac’s “On the Road,” are a large piece of the puzzle comprising my life and my own wanderings.

It is on the corner of Jack Kerouac Alley in North Beach that Vesuvio’s, a beautiful little hole in the wall bar that screams of a time of jazz music and literary geniuses, and the City Lights bookstore reside.  I will never understand the fascination with Kindles and Nooks, for it is in old, locally owned bookstores that I feel most calm and comfortable.  Browsing through the works of the Beat Generation, picking up books and reading a few pages here and there, breathing in the air of paper bound by decades of work, talent and perseverance, is one of the most inspiring things I can do for my writing.  While standing in the upstairs room of this tiny store, I can feel the presence of Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac, Cassady and the other characters who contributed to the weekly poetry readings in this little shack that literature built.  I picked up a book written by Neil’s wife entitled “Off the Road,” coincidentally….I was going home soon. 

Leaving Oakland by train the next day, a wave of memories and sentiment overwhelmed me as I sat in Jack London station, awaiting my ride to Fresno where I would visit my dear Aunt Sue, also a leader in teaching me that it’s okay to pick up and go;  that there is a big beautiful world out there worth exploring.  The last time I sat in that station was with my ex; the one who broke my heart into so many pieces that it sent me spiraling into the Caribbean.  He lived in Oakland, but now resides with his fiancé near Tahoe, and I would fly out from Denver and we would take the train to meet up with his band mates in Truckee for one show or one tour or another.  It was fitting that I had just fallen so hard for another man while in Portland and it softened the blow of the memories of photo shoots on the bench that I now sat on, of a time we had to pretend we were married to board the train because he had lost his wallet, of intellectual discussions of music and books and future plans.  Still though, it stung a little to think of those bittersweet moments in time with a person I loved so much that it hurt.  I pondered for a moment how far I had come, the strength I had developed and the leap of faith I had taken in moving to St. John under the cloud of momentary insanity that settles over a broken heart, and I thought to myself, “I wouldn’t trade my life now for a lifetime of those moments with him.”  And that felt amazing. 

The short of it is that I am now HOME.  On island.  Back on the rock.  When the plane landed on St. Thomas just last week, I was giddy with excitement to be reunited with my island family and the crystal clear waters of the most beautiful place on earth (in my opinion), a far cry from the anxiety and panic stricken discovery of the reality of my decision to move here when I landed in the USVI for the first time last fall.  It’s a beautiful thing to discover your true place in life.  Even if it’s just for a short moment in time…

Snorkeling is like Skiing Because….

I moved to Saint John after spending nearly ten years in Colorful Colorado, as many of you already know.  A number of you who either vacation on, or have lived on, “the rock” know that it is a requirement of service industry employees to tell the story of who we are, where we came from and how we wound up in paradise.

In a typical evening, during wine service, I will ask the question, “Where ya’ll from?” to break the silence as I present and open a bottle.  It directly leads to 20 questions about where I came from and how I uprooted from Ohio and, ten years later via Colorado, landed in the middle of the ocean.  I don’t mind telling my story, EVER. I enjoy sharing my story of misfortune that lead me to where I am now.  I also understand that people who are vacationing are often baffled at how someone could wind up living in a place so beautiful and so remote…If you don’t like sharing your story, don’t work in the front of the house in a restaurant in an amazing vacation destination.  Better yet, don’t go to happy hour or the beach either; someone is bound to ask eventually how you got there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Usually, the first 30 seconds of my interview goes like this:

Me:  “Where ya’ll from.”

Guest:  Dallas, Boston, New York, Greensboro, San Diego, etc.

Me:   Insert some kind of comment relating to said city (I worked a ski expo there once, I have a childhood friend that moved there, etc.)

Guest:  “Where did you come from?”

Me:  “I spent eight years in Colorado before moving here.”

Guest:  (Nine times out of Ten, unless they are also from Colorado or have frequently vacationed there themselves.)  “Wow, that’s a real change for you.”

Generally, this comment is also followed by something about how they have met a lot of Colorado transplants on the rock.  I would agree, there are a few of us.

Now, I just want to stop for a moment and say that I am not, BY ANY MEANS, making fun of someone for this response.  At first glimpse, Colorado is cold, and St. John is definitely not.  Colorado is known for snow and skiing and, well, there’s not much of either of those things on STJ.  Many people ask me if I traded my snow skis for water skis and I reply, “Ski Bum to Beach Bum.”  When you can do it all, why wouldn’t you?

I thought for a long while about this disassociation people make between Colorado and Saint John and, well, I actually came to the conclusion that, aside from the climate, the two places are very similar.  A large number of vibrant, young people with a lust for life and adventure flock to both destinations in order to set up shop in a beautiful place and enjoy the readily accessible outdoors, make a good living with easy hours, stay out late, wake up early and build a new life from the ground up.

When you meet someone in Colorado, you immediately ask them where they are from…Not many people are actually FROM Colorado.  Same with STJ…I can count on two hands how many people I have met who are born and raised on island.  Therefore, the phrases, “Where are you really from?” and “No one is FROM here,” ring true in both places, and, when you have a majority of people who have migrated to a place by choice, but not by necessity, you find a happier breed of humanity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The majority of the transplants in both places spend a lot of time supporting their local establishments, er, uh, watering holes.  Due to our rambling tendencies and our ineffaceable pull in the direction of bar and restaurant work, many of us are, sometimes to a fault, VERY socially inclined.  Therefore, we get done with a busy night at work…Are we going to go home and relax?  Probably not.  Are we going to wander into town to see who’s around, what the antics of the past 24 hours entail and wind up sitting at a bar, laughing hysterically at nothing until we need to be “evac’d” home?  Most likely.  This also applies to the daytime transplant workers in both arenas.  I have never known anyone in my life that abuses happy hour privileges more than folks living on Saint John, and in Colorado.

The biggest similarity?  Playing outside.  I promised myself that when I moved to Colorado, and again when I moved to STJ, that I would never not take advantage of the gifts of Mother Nature right outside my doorstep.  Both places have amazing hiking trails and constant sunshine.  A lot of people don’t realize that Colorado gets 300 plus days of sunshine a year.  Saint John probably does one better than that, but all in all, both places are high in the daily dose of Vitamin D and lend to both a happier and a more active existence.

There is, I suppose, a slight difference in the predominant extracurricular activities of the beaches of Saint John and the mountains of Colorado.  Skiing is very different than snorkeling….or is it?  Yes, yes, I suppose that speeding down the side of a mountain at knot speed wearing more clothing than I keep in my Cruz Bay closet with numb fingers and ice particles ripping through your cheeks could be quite a lot on the opposite end of the spectrum from sauntering to the beach in flops and a bathing suit, slipping your one piece of gear onto your head and immersing in a warm underwater world for hours on end.  I guess they’re not at all the same.  Or are they?

Riddle me this.  When you get off of the mountain, or out of the water, after a few hours of subconsciously working your body on overhaul, what do you want?  Me?  I want a bacon cheeseburger and a beer…And I want them now.  I realized a few weeks ago after a particularly lengthy swim at Jumbie that water and snow sports are the only physical activities that make me CRAVE calories.  I run, I hike, I do yoga…I don’t want a heavy meal after any of these things.  But, put me in the water or on the mountain enjoying myself in the sunshine for hours, and I go straight into fat kid mode.

Sunscreen is a necessity in both skiing and snorkeling, but you never remember that until after the fact.  How many times have you taken your goggles off and realized you would be rocking a pretty raging set of raccoon eyes for the better part of the next week?  With snorkeling, chances are you put sunscreen on your face, but the upper part of your back, which is exposed the entire time, remains neglected until you coat it with aloe hours later.

Both go better with drinks.  A nice mimosa, or three, is a great way to boost your confidence, therefore also your speed and agility, both in the big blue and on the big white.  During the experience, a pull of whiskey in Colorado is necessary to keep you warm from the inside on the icy slopes and a pull of rum in the Caribbean because, well, that’s just how we do.  To round this out, you’re lying if you say you don’t enjoy going to happy hour in your ski gear or in your bathing suit.

Skiing and snorkeling are both great bonding experiences with a small group of friends and a pain in the ass for a large group of people.  Admittedly, it is easier to “herd kittens” in the water than it is on the mountain, but rounding up a group of five people or more to do any kind of outdoor activity with both a start and an end point is no fun.  Pointedly, skiing is much worse due to the fact that there is a start and an end point at the beginning and the end of every run.  I’ll meet you on the beach and I’ll meet you at the lodge are two phrases with different intention, but parallel meanings.

In a nutshell, I had no idea that moving two time zones (three when daylight savings time is enacted) and several thousand miles from my home in landlocked Colorado to a small green dot in the middle of the ocean would equate to such a similar experience.  Granted there are MANY things that are VERY different between the two places, but to me, they are both home to amazing people, Mother Nature at her finest and some of the most wonderful memories I continue to create every day.

“I don’t live …

“I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.”

― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I thought this to be appropriate to the content I posted yesterday.  It is taken from a book I read about halfway through my first year’s journey.  Cheers!

Looking Back Over my Shoulder….

I have landed here…In a space lucky enough to call this island home.  “The rock” was supposed to be a temporary resting place for me to heal my wounds and now I call it a permanent residence where I will grow.  Over the past year, I have made some incredible lifelong friends and created some new traditions.  I have experienced life as it should be, contemplative and slow…Living each moment for exactly that….the present.  I have learned myself and grown immensely in the emotional world and become addicted to outdoor activities that keep me physically strong and mentally happy.  I found myself questioning a few months ago, “If I CAN live here, why WOULDN’T I?”  Kind of a stupid question when “here” is a beautiful paradise filled with amazing people and constant sunshine, right?

At present, I’m back in Ohio, revisiting my roots and creating new memories with my original family.  In a few weeks’ time, I will return to my beloved Colorado to say farewell…To rid my life of many of the material things stowed in boxes in dear friends’ basements, to get rid of my Subaru which I love so much, to come together with the people and the places and the music that I will continue to love and hold close to my heart in years to come.  I will then turn my vacation to the West Coast, visiting Seattle, Portland, Oakland and Fresno, reuniting with friends and family along the way.  I will eat a lot of amazing food and do A LOT of much needed shopping, camp, hike, festivate, kayak, swim, run, bike…and marvel at the “real world,” the only world I knew for so long before St. John.

As excited as I am about the months to come, I must write now about how I was feeling in my weeks leading up to leaving island for over two months.  Two months.  I had only been there for a little under nine months.  Those months and those moments seemed to dwindle precariously into each Caribbean sunset, taking with them the memories of endless snorkels, volleyball games, day drinking marathons and the “responsible adult day” activities of checking mail at Connections, depositing checks at First Bank and going to the market.

These precious moments, filled with new faces coming and going through the revolving door of the Cruz Bay ferry dock, will never be recreated, nor will I try to do so.  Because you see, St. John is ALWAYS changing…and more apparently than most places in this world.  You can WATCH the plants grow…Life is ever blooming here on island.  When you fill your lungs with a deep breath and plunge beneath the surface of the sea, you will NEVER feel the same current twice; never see the same oceanic sights along the reef or the sea grass covered floor as at that current moment in time.  Even the sand between your toes changes from day to day, moment to moment.  Some days, when setting up the volleyball net at Cinnamon, the sand will be like champagne powder, others, it will be hard and packed down.  Ever changing, ever growing, moment to moment, day to day.

I have left a lot of things in my life.  Not in order to run FROM something, but more because I’m addicted to new horizons.  I am “desirous of everything around me at the same time.”  I want to live, live, live…because we only get one shot, and what if I miss something because I wasn’t paying attention or I didn’t follow the signs the universe presented to me?  I try not to push things in my life, I believe one’s actions, and the actions of others in one’s life, directly affect the outcome of the individual’s path.  And, once that path becomes clear, it should be followed, no matter how scary or unsure it may be.  In my experiences, it is always worth it.  That being said (Sorry about the rant, I got a bit off course there.), I think that when you leave something, even for just a few months, change for the better or for the worse is inevitable.  I am always changing, growing, learning, evolving…that’s what we are supposed to be doing as humans.  Therefore, perception can change in a few moments’ time.  With a change in perception, comes a change of heart many times.  I left a boyfriend behind to move on to Colorado when I was 24.  When I arrived in the Rocky Mountain State, I realized I didn’t want to be with him anymore.  Getting outside of that bubble allowed me to focus on what was really going on in the world and changed my perception…Therefore, putting me in a COMPLETELY different space than I had been just weeks earlier.

In my final weeks on St. John, I began to reassess this and several other similar situations.  I had called Colorado my home until I arrived on St. John and was immediately drawn into the Island therefore, the rock is home now.  Perception; changed.  I had come to love St. John so much over my first nine months there that I feared I would lose that when I got back to the states.  That when I hit Colorado again my perception would revert to the original notion of the Rockies being my home.  So, I became a little scared, nervous, anxious…Given the option of calling me one of these things, my closest friends would choose; D) None of the Above.

Then, about a week before I was taking off for my travels, I was walking down centerline road, heading to work on just another pristine St. John day.  I looked up at the Caribbean Sea and realized something.  I may never even make it back to the states, if I do, I might not make it back to the island.  If I do make it back to the island, I might not make it another six months.  Everything could end tomorrow.  Now, I know this is all kind of morbid, but have you ever had a moment of clarity like that?  Of TRULY being in the present and being okay with it?  Of being OKAY with the fact that this could be your last moment or your last day?  I did have that moment that beautifully warm and sunny day and it felt great.  At 32, I feel like I have done what I needed to do, said what I needed to say and been where I needed to be and the rest is all bonus time.  Time to dedicate to being the best I can be for right now, and not for some future moment that may never happen.

Living on St. John helped me to realize all of these things, because I have the time to contemplate.  Shedding the daily commute, the rat race of life, “keeping up with the Jones’’” has given me the time to dedicate to truly getting to know other people and myself for who we are; not what we were or what we will become.  This applies, not only to those living on island, but to those I left in the states as well.  I have spent more time on the phone with my mother, father and sisters in the last year than I have in many years combined.  I actually use WRITTEN correspondence. Yes, like letters and cards.  I have been able to be a strong and objective opinion for my friends back in Colorado.  I was ready to go to my other homes.  I had realized, changed or not, the rock will always be just that.  At its core, it will remain unchanged, just like me, at my core.  I will remain unchanged as well.

Having made these realizations, I decided to live it up during my last week on island.  Never mind the money saving mode I should have been in (It all worked out anyways, like it does.), I went on a BVI boat trip with two chartered boats filled with service industry employees (Always a doosey, but that is a story for later.).  A group of 15 of us privately chartered the Kekoa for a sunset sail.  I went snorkeling almost every day, except for two days filled with beach volleyball.  I went out late and woke up early.  I spent time with friends; spending days on the beach and evenings grilling and dining.  In a nutshell, I lived those last days as if they were the only days, and they tasted so good.

Now, in the states, I miss it every day.  I can’t wait to return.  I will spend some time in the coming months writing about my first nine months on the rock.  I know this was a little deep, but I needed to lay out my new found mentality in order for my up and coming tales to ring true.  Stay tuned for more light hearted tales from my new life…

Holidaze’d

It’s been a true whirlwind of a month…Mexico, Christmas, New Years and the busy swell of high season, both in the restaurant and on the beach.  It’s crazy that, as far remove from the “real world” as we are down here,  the winter storm and the hurricane in the North East brings tales of it’s existence to the island in a multitude of ways.  For starters, the tourist season was delayed this year, or so I hear because I wouldn’t know as it’s my first year on Saint John.  Christmas Eve was the first night at Asolare that we were booked solid.  Additionally, the beaches have been washed out by crushing white caps that surge with the memory of fallen snow in a place closer to home.

And now, the beaches are packed with pale skin and the restaurant buzzing with folks traveling from the eastern seaboard with high hopes of relaxation and new adventures on this island I now call home.  I feel a lot of long time locals starting to puff up their chests a bit.  I’ve heard the “I live here” card being played on multiple occasions and yesterday, with suitcases in tow, my roommate and I were treated scruffily by a bar tender, who undoubtedly mistook us for tourists, as we waited for the ferry en route to Saint Thomas for supplies at Cost You Less and Kmart.

This is a phenomenon I will never understand.  In my four years in Breckenridge, although by March, we were ready to have our town back, we understood the need for tourist traffic and treated them with respect.  Out-of-towners are the reason that we are able to live in beautiful places.  They come in., spend their money and go home with a lifetime’s worth of special memories. I always strive now, as I did when I lived high in the Rockies, to become a positive part of their vacation experience.  I listen to their stories, with true interest, and I share my own.  I’m not trying to be self-righteous, just stating a point.  “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”  is a phrase that is ringing true in my mind’s eye right now.

It’s funny how a thing like a suitcase can put one in undercover reporter mode.  I’m glad for it as I was able to see a true side of a few people yesterday and I’m very aware of a bar that I will not be frequenting again any time soon.

Having said all of this, December was truly an amazing month.  I have worked almost every night since my return from Tulum and my journey through Mexico with my closest friends.  I’ve barely had the time to update my facebook status, which leads you to the assumption of my lack of posts here.  But, busy is good and, between frequent trips to the beach riddled with snorkeling and volleyball, I have begun to finally collect the things I need to make my house more of a home.  Yesterday, we set off a bug bomb in the house and, after returning from Saint Thomas, my roommate and I OxyCleaned the Villa from top to bottom without a ninja mosquito in sight!  It was a beautiful thing to wake up this morning on my new tempurpedic mattress pad, towed from Cost You Less in said suitcase, to the early morning light rather than a pack of black masked blood suckers dotting my sun kissed skin with red bumps.

My wonderful mother sent boxes and boxes of books and summer clothing for Christmas and I, in turn, shipped off a box on New Years Eve, containing a selection of island souveniers which I won’t reveal here as she and my ever-supportive father (to whom the box is also addresssed) follow my blog closely.  We skyped on Christmas morning, the three of us and my sisters and their husband and boyfriend…and the dogs as well.  It was a warm feeling to sit in my bathing suit and cover up, a thousand miles from the first home I knew, and yet be present in the living room with the first people who knew and loved me for me.  We opened packages together before I scooted off to brunch and a white elephant exchange in the home of the first people on island to take me into their home and give me shelter.

Later that day, as I took a quick dip at Frank Bay before heading into work, I revisited the Ghost of Christmas Past and gave thanks to the universe for my happy upbringing, without which I would not be able to be where I am now…I indefinitely would not be the positive person I am now….Able to conquer the setbacks of life and the difficulties of paradise with a grain of salt and a smile.

New Years Eve was perhaps the most nostalgic of times I’ve experienced.  As the makeshift ball of red Christmas lights dropped slowly from the ceiling of Motu, shimmery silver tinsel lining every surface of the bar, and the skeleton inside of the ball emitted fake snow (foam) and I hugged new friends and toasted champagne to this new found home, I was sucked back in time to a montage of the past eight inaugurations of new beginnings.

I can’t remember a New Years before Yonder Mountain String Band at the Fillmore, the Ogden, the Boulder Theater, the Pepsi Center.  Always with the best of friends surrounding me with true love and infatuation, both for the music and for each other.  I shed a tear as the clock struck midnight and 2013 fell like a heavy vail….The people I hold dearest would not see the New Year for another three hours and were probably stuck in a bluegrass haze of the first set played by Jeff, Adam, Ben and Dave at the Boulder Theater.  Was I sorry I wasn’t there with all of them?  Most definitely.  Was I sorry I was on the beach in the Caribbean.  Most definitely not.

Blissed Out and Blessed

Sorry I’ve been absent in my posts for the past few weeks, but I just returned from a trip that I will always consider to be one of the most memorable and love-filled seven days of my lifetime.  I spent the 11th through the 18th of December with some of the most amazing people and music to cross my path in this short lifetime.  I wrote the following passage on the plane en route to Cancun…

Long ago I fell in love.  It was a love that was always giving back.  A love I could depend on; one that was there with each sunrise and lingering through every sunset.  It was a love that filled me with a sense of adventure and of new discovery and it was always introducing me to exciting people and places.  This love gave me a deeper understanding of the world and taught me that perspective can change and grow with time.  This love had no end and would be by my side until the end of time.  And so began my love affair with a thing called “music” and an obsession with traveling to experience it with like minded “freaks” who felt the same as I.

It’s funny how a group of guys offering me a free ticket to see a band I had never heard of in exchange for a ride to the show 12 years ago spiraled me into a decade of untouchable experiences leading to my present state of being on an American Airlines flight to Cancun to meet up with my “team” to celebrate the beauty of bluegrass for four brilliant days at an all-inclusive resort in Tulum.

Music is on helluva drug.  It hooks you, consumes you, takes you up and, sometimes, brings you down.  It compulses you to move your body, close your eyes, laugh out loud, hug a stranger (ie make a new friend), scream laugh, clap, spin…But with music, there are no negative side effects, except a perpetually empty pocketbook and what my team refers to as “festivation deprivation” (the act of going through withdrawal from 24/7 friends and music to being in your cubicle at 9am on Monday morning).  There are countless positive impacts that arise from obsessive musical consumption that keep me bubbling over with gratitude towards those guys who so long ago towed me to my first Phish show in Cleveland.

We have a saying amongst the group of 60 friends from all points in the country whom I’ll be meeting in Mexico in a few short hours…”Music brought us together, but love makes us friends.”  So, not only do I have music to thank for making me take leap of faith after leap of faith with love, traveling and opening up both my soul and my mind…But also for bringing me together with these amazing folks who have come to make my world spin round.  Our relationships have evolved from clumsily giggling and apologetically spilling drinks on each other in the front row, to spending holidays with one another, watching each other get married and have children or holding hands and wiping away the tears that spawn from each failed relationship or bump in the rollercoaster ride called life, traveling the country, and now internationally, as a pack…as a force to be reckoned with.

We are family, we work best as a team and we want everyone to know it…simply because we are proud of how awesome our friends are and are privileged to be included in such an amazing group.

In the coming days, we will dance in the sand beneath the stars to the beat of the upright bass, wearing shiny things, drowning each other in hugs and “I love you’s” and shots of tequila and simply doing what we know we do BEST together…creating an amazing experience with bluegrass as our soundtrack.

I don’t know what I would do without the people I am spending the next week amongst and, to be honest, I’m glad that will remain an unanswered question.  I’ll see you on the other side with more stories than I can count, memories that will last forever and a lot more love than I have here today.

Dedicated to Team Shit Show.

I guess that this must be the place…

The sea is angry today, with thunderous waves crashing against the shore of Hawksnest beach.  We brought snorkel gear along on the $5 ride in the red and white striped Westin taxi, but breathing salt water through a tube smothered by white caps seems unappealing.  Lying on the beach and riding the waves will suffice for this afternoon.

I’m adapting to the climate here, which makes the small inconveniences of island life even less meaningful.  My sweat glands are weaning themselves from their perpetual perspiration and the mosquitoes are lessening their relentless pursuit of my “new blood,” as long time locals call it.  The uphill treks all over the town are easier as my calves and thighs toughen themselves each day, transforming more each day to accommodate my pedestrian mode of transportation.  I even noticed goosebumps freckling my legs as I exited the 80 degree waters today.  Physically, my person is synchronizing with the island.

Mentally, I have settled in as well.  I moved my two suitcases into my first island home yesterday with the help of a friend with a Geo Tracker, missing a window and bearing seat belts a bit too tight as they had long since lost their powers of adjustability.  As we drove past Dolphin Market and putted up the steep, narrow road to Villa Lee Anna, a bubble of excitement burst in my belly.  “I have a home.”

And quite the home it is!  I have been told that the residence I landed in is a very coveted rental on the island.  With a purple flowered tree, reminiscent of the focal point in the dreamworld painting from “What Dreams May Come,” hanging low over an aged stone gate, a beautiful patio area with white lights and lush growth and wooden and granite walkways pointing in the direction of six different dwellings; it feels like enchantment before even setting foot inside of the green door labeled number 5.  To give you a mental picture of the courtyard, Villa Lee Anna has been dubbed Melrose Place, without the pool of course.

Moving through the doorway, juggling my overstuffed purple suitcase and a disassembling box of toiletries I had shipped to myself from Denver, I looked around my new dwelling and wondered what I had done to be so lucky.  Gratitude is all I am feeling right now.  Grateful is an understatement.

The villa entryway is tiled with small, brown flecked tiles, as is the rest of the large, wide open common area.  Large stone planters have been built into the walls just to the right of the front door as you enter the villa, one of which is empty, the other filled with conch shells and sand dollars and fan coral and, at some point, someone laboriously took the time to cover it in brightly colored mosaic.  Once inside the 20-25 foot wide octagon of a living room, I begin to feel the ocean breeze, drifting through the screen doors of the patio adjacent to the kitchen and being propelled through the space via three, lazily moving, low-hanging ceiling fans.

The open air kitchen beckons dinner parties and memory making, which I planned to inaugurate that evening, with a gathering of new friends and trying my hand at my first Puerto Rican cooking experience.  Twice fried mofongo and saffron rice with pork roux enjoyed on the deck with white Christmas lights twinkling and a steady breeze embracing giggles and conversation with a brand new group of comrades was a great way to begin making this beautiful villa a home.

 

“Ah, life is a…

“Ah, life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway, why not live for fun and joy and love or some sort of girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and LAUGH…” ~ Jack Kerouac

The Local Wildlife

The town of Cruz Bay itself houses a diversification of local “wildlife” from all over the continental United States. 90% of people between the ages of 20 and 40 residing on the island work in the service industry and, if you have ever done a stint in restaurant world, you will understand what I mean when I refer to them as “wildlife.”

Much like the crew behind the restaurant scene in Colorado, the locals who make the wheels turn on this island are mostly transplants; vibrant, colorful and excited about the life they have CHOSEN for themselves, as opposed to a life they have been forced into by the standards put into place by society and family values. Not to knock the college>career>family path which most Americans strive for…It’s where I come from and I wouldn’t change a moment of my glorious childhood. 

However, I suppose many people on that path decide that they will one day retire in a place such as this as opposed to spending some of their good years here.  I don’t know if tomorrow will ever come, and experiencing paradise is not something I was willing to roll the dice for. 

The people living here all seem to have a goal…Or, like me, they are trying to figure out what that goal is or how to obtain it.  Cruz Bay is a very small and tight knit community which welcomes newcomers entertaining the right mind set with open arms. All with a good heart and a ready smile will be wildly accepted…even if their head isn’t ALWAYS in the right place.  That being said, there is a lot of opportunity here for those with ambition and a respect for the island and its people. 

I have a million ideas right now about community websites, musical endeavors and writing opportunities…My creative juices are flowing…And, for the first time, maybe its the island or maybe the new beginning, I feel I have the ability, the resources and the drive to make some of these things happen.

 

Novermber 26, 2012

These are the Days of Miracles and Wonder…

The past week has been a whirlwind of exploration. I can feel this island breathing all around me through the obvious and aggressive growth of an array of flora, the scurrying of creatures small and large, the slow and steady pace of a community expanding as the busy season picks up and, of course, the pulse of the Caribbean Sea, its waves quietly kissing the white sand and coral beaches that line every inch of coastline. As I begin to settle in here, I realize that, much like Colorado, I will NEVER be able to explore everything here. There’s too much…It’s sensory overload each time I open my eyes to look out at the sea or the more-beautiful-than-words sunset, each time the scent of jasmine or a new cuisine wafting out of an open air restaurant hits my nose, each time I hear pulsating music drifting up the hill to Asolare from Cruz Bay or the rain beginning to drown the forest 50 feet from me as it slowly moves over my head, drenching my skin.

My newfound partner in crime and I both have Tuesdays off. We are also both relatively new to the island. This makes for, each Tuesday, tumultuous activity, beginning gently by 10 am and lasting into the more adventurous hours which evening brings. Last week, we began at Hawksnest Beach, a half mile stretch of pristine sand and water, just two miles from downtown. With a kayak, snorkel gear, a 12-pack of Heineken and a picnic lunch in tow, we settled in under the shade of a palm tree for five hours of sun, sand, water and great conversation.

Snorkeling is a whole new world for me, in and of itself. For someone who has coveted a healthy fear of the creatures of the ocean my whole life, actually viewing the underwater world with bursts of sea life all around me is absolutely surreal. With the slow, steady inhales and exhales of my own breath and the distant nibbling of the fish on the reef the only sounds available for busy ears, it is impossible not to slow down and be completely at one with the visionary wonders of the creatures that reside in the deep blue waters. As the light purple fan coral flaps in the imaginary breeze simulated by the gentle currents, beautifully colored fish of all shapes and sizes scurry about their daily activities in the city of fire coral, just yards off of the beach. I swear, in my first five minutes under, I saw a curious looking blue fish that appeared to be smiling and dancing in a world all his, or her, own…I instantly related.

On this day, we swam beyond the reef, my first time to swim out of the shallows of the hustle bustle of reef life, and found ourselves in a dark, cyan water, with nothing moving except the flippers on our feet and the occasional fan coral, now 20 feet or so below us, the entire universe seemed to slow to a pace I have yet to experience in this life. Gazing gently all around me and into the unknown waters, I realized I will encounter things I NEVER thought I would even see before in the coming months or years. The end of that reef was a new horizon…One I expect to cross and, eventually, know very well.

Back on the beach, the afternoon drifted along, lunch disappeared into our salt and sun soaked hunger and we packed the remaining beer into the kayak for a late day paddle into the cove we imagined was just around the eastern point of the beach. We discovered a small patch of rock and brush, an island which we said we would conquer. I made mention that we didn’t have a flag, but that didn’t matter because, as we paddled onto the rocky shore, we realized exiting the boat was not an option. There were tiny sea urchins, hundreds of them. Their round, spiky bodies nestled in the crevices in the shallow, lapping waters of the shoreline.

We back paddled and ventured around the other side of the island to obtain a clear view of Jost (pronounced Yost) Van Dyke, a popular destination in the British Virgin Islands, the sun shimmering upon its green hillsides, covered in palm trees and innumerable amount of other species of plant life. It is a foreign concept to me, still, that all of these shores lie within reach of my own investigation.

Paddling back to shore to swim away the heat and sand that clung to my body I excitingly realized that this is my life now! I get to do these things all the time! That moment took me back to my first days under the bluebird skies of Colorado as I explored the mountains in my inaugural summer as a resident of the Rocky Mountain State. This, I thought, was a new adventure of epic proportions…One which I will gladly embrace.