Sohere it is: my final days on this lovely oddity of an island have arrived. How do I feel? Ready to leave. Wanting to stay. Open to the new adventures offered by the future. Mired in the past. Scared. Exquisitely happy. Skeptical. Love struck. I'm all over the map. But the real situation is simple-- like this tree, I keep growing. Stronger, sturdier and older; rooted to the past, with branches that reach for the promise of the future in the sun and the sky. In the middle is where I grow fuller with life and love-- you can look inside me and see the rings that experience has left and know just how far I've come and where, in the present, I am: Endless. Ever- changing. And powerful. I'll miss St. John and the things I'm leaving behind but I know, deep in my wooden gut, that there is more to come-- in every way.
25 Things I've Learned So Far:
1. You need a lot less than you think you do.
2. A little shack in the woods that lets the rain and bugs and lizards in can become a glowing home if you love in it, and laugh in it, and cry in it enough. Houses need humanity to become homes. And some comfy sheets. :-)
3. Natural bug juice DOES NOT work. Bring on the DEET!
4. People lie. And it hurts. Forgiveness is the balm for this kind of pain but it doesn't heal torn trust. Let the liar repair that.
5. West Indian people are some of the most colorful, friendly people in the world (at least as much as I've seen of it, anyway)
6. You really can eat curry and rice 4 times per week and love it!
7. Toilets and hot showers are overrated.
8. Distance, interspersed with long roads of time spent together is the (albeit slow) path to a sturdy love between fiercely independent people.
9. Compromise is a different animal when you have to live with it, day in and day out, in a tiny shared space.
10. I love to shake my booty to reggae. (But I knew that already, technically.)
11. Water is intrinsic to my happiness. On it. In it. Around it. Surrounded by it. I need it.
12. St. John is choc-a-bloc with Mainers and is more like Maine than anyone realizes. And I also re-realized what a Mainer I am in many ways. And DAMNED proud of it. Ayuh.
13. Secrets can destroy the best things in life. But we all have them.
14. Hitching rides are the best way to meet a variety of people.
15. Rum is a beverage for all reasons, seasons and times of the day.
16. We should all spend a lot of time in the woods.
17. A real friend is someone you can play with, climbing trees like little kids or searching for history on the ground; bicker with so bad that you want to punch each other in the eye and then laugh, laugh, laugh with all night long.
18. Cockroaches will play dead.
19. Iguanas do NOT perform the backstroke.
20. No-see-um bites can give you leper-legs.
21. Taking your shoes off after a red-ant attack and stepping in cactus requires a patient boyfriend and a knife to make it all better. I don't suggest it though....
22. I can't handle fried calamari anymore. (That is a truly sad realization).
23. Yerba Mate is rocket fuel.
24. Writing is a powerful method of dealing with life. For me at least.
25. Life, and love, take time to experience fully. I'm glad I've got lots of time.
Goodbye, St. John. Goodbye, Nut Hut; Frustration Station; Love Shack. Goodbye, Coral Bay and it's motley cast of characters. Goodbye, my Viking. I'll see you all again...?
No comments:
Post a Comment