9pm? St. Lucia: Cochon Bay (Pig Bay)

Xmas eve! Imagine that! Really, it is true, my first tropical Christmas and no doubt about it: ODD! But, Xmas nonetheless and the xmas spirit engulfs our small bobbing home in an immense, undulating landscape.

Just lost at chess to Sebastian… lost last night to Sebastian also… But here’s one for you: fact of the matter, I realize this evening, is that I have, true to tradition, been already living these few + meager days in anticipation of the ever-ambiguous “NEXT-PHASE.” Psyched, as it were, to end this gently rocking existence. Why? So beautiful here. So calm + peaceful. So exciting at the same time. So comfortable in a practically moderate climate (sun hot + straight during the days [not unbearable], cool, clear nights during which a sheet is just enough for warmth). So beautiful! And ever shifting… merging anew with every capricious whim of the bow. And today, this afternoon, say 5:30, after arriving finally at our chosen Xmas bay, after yelling + jumping and diving from the deck into the warm water like little kids in a playground, after emerging, dripping and flushed in the late afternoon glow, and after watching the sun set – hands warmed by long-life tea (and rum), popcorn in the xmas eve preparatory festivity, while the sun sinks all orange and fire into the sea beneath a line of fluffing, purple clouds, after all this I took account of my position in the universe and I felt pretty good, and nights like this I could imagine  continuing indefinitely, stretched as far as the sea is wide. And nights like this make me realize how last week, while certainly resplendent w/such moments and many more when there is no question; just experience, even so there has also been a substantiality of negative and uncomfortable moments when I do, in effect, wish the time away or worry about just how I will spend all the minutes until departure. WHY? In examining that question, it is first important to study what exactly I am wishing toward. Not necessarily NYC, although I still hold that as my next objective, and I do certainly, long for it to arrive with a mixture of apprehension + excitement. But, also, simply, CT, where the calm and peace, I have determined, exceeds all other settings… where pressure + tension are virtually nonexistent. Where I reunite with M+D who I long to see with intensity befitting an extended separation, not the mere month and half we have been apart. Perhaps  the experiential depth of each of our lives during this period lends itself to heightened anticipation. But I do look forward to a short period, a respite, in that green and wooded (which even as I write this, I realize must not be green and wooded, but more gray + wooded and stark and cold…) gray and wooded haven. The smell of wood burning in the stove. Dry, intense heat by the fire. Small birds dart and pick nervously at the hanging feeders.

But not yet!

For now I am here. The steady washing surge of waves against a steep + rocky beach. Waves slap periodically against the steel hull (beats fiberglass by far, aluminum… wood… all have advantages and disadvantages. Consensus, however: steel is the most serious and seaworthy material). Sebastian + his bro have just ended their German conversation above me: also about the future, no doubt. (Sebastian, until very recently directing his life toward the USA and 9-5 film-related work, now considering packing the boat with rum + film supplies and heading for Brazil to research + create a narrative feature film.). Wind… rocking gently. Water in the tanks (100 gallons garnered in St. Vincent for a mere 5¢ per EC! Unlike the outlandish 45¢ per in Union Island) sloshes audibly. Wind… wind…

The Xmas spirit, on this boat, displays itself most prominently in the form of… FOOD!! Which I myself gathered in the Castries open market this morning. Sebastian and myself crammed into an already over-packed van, virtually sitting on each other, jolting and rocking on the wrong side of the road (responsible for numerous scares and near collisions [stepping from the sidewalk, as I was apt to do at first in London too], without glancing in the direction of approaching traffic), rasta beats throbbing around us, to Castries, the big city. Stood in line for indeterminate periods first at the bank to change money, later at the supermarket, but in-between I haggled and sweated amid the tarps and blankets and stacks of produce, and swarming humans clogging the open air (open SUN) market. But bought lots of xmas goodies. 

And there’s more. So much more. But now, really, I must sleep. I can’t possibly give it all. How could any one man? Too much. Forgive me, please. Sleep calls… Forgive my weakness and neglect. I’m sorry. Truly…