We Dream In Colors Borrowed From The Sea

[The beach at Taino Beach Resort. Photo is mine.]

Like painted kites

Those days and nights, they went flyin’ by

The world was new

Beneath a bright blue umbrella sky…

~ ~The Summer Wind. Lyrics by Henry Mayer & Hans Bradtke

Slide your beach lounger closer, Mariposa, the white plastic is making my eyes water. There plenty of room for the two of us under the Palm Thatch Tiki Hut. If the onshore breeze get too cool for you, you can always rely on my warm arms. But don’t get too close. The Aloe Vera gel on my sunburn is still sticky. I have a few things to talk about. You do know, Mari, that I have two more nights here before I have to get back to Jimmy Buffet’s Cruise Boat. (Why it’s called Marguaritaville-at-Sea is beyond me.) I know you will miss me like the sun on a rainy day…but who knows…I may come back sometime, in the distant future, riding the summer wind.

But, I digress.

Yesterday we handed over $18.00 for a return trip to Port Lucaya. The trip lasted all of five minutes. That works out to $3.60/minute. If you calculated a similar trip from New York City to California…I don’t need my calculator to tell me that trip would run about $68,000.

Port Lucaya is where there are more restaurants and Gucci gift shops and bars (The Rum Runner looked inviting) than we have here. And it’s only five minutes away. Most of the shops were closed but we did manage to find a convenience store where I stocked up on my midnight snacks and a can of Coconut Water. That last purchase got me to thinking. How did water get inside a coconut? I’ve seen enough castaway movies to know that the person with that Island Survival Knowledge always chops the top of a coconut and gulps the liquid thereby avoiding dehydration and thereby saving all the others from a grisly death from drinking fetid seawater.

So I googled Coconut Water like a good blogger. The ‘water’ is really a clear liquid that serves as a suspension for the endosperm of the coconut during its nuclear phase of development. [Note: “Nuclear” in this case has nothing to do with Polonium 210 or any other of those fun elements at the bottom of the Periodic Table.]

Back to Port Lucaya. I managed to find a post box to dispatch two postcards to my daughter and son. Interestingly it was fire-engine red and had the E-R logo. As a former colony of Great Britain I get it. But I wondered if the changeover to a King Charles logo (it’s gonna be very expensive in England!) will apply to former colonies. I wonder. We (the USA) does have our own issues with former colonies. Texas and Florida come to mind. But I’ve found myself caught inside yet another digression.

As I write this, I’m keeping an eye on my iPad battery. I’m down to 60% and nowhere to plug in. Mariam’s iPad is at 51%. The sun is burning my shoulders while my fingers are slightly numb. Don’t ask. The beach is beckoning. I need reading time as does Mariam. We should also take a walk to burn off last night’s midnight snacks.

So it’s back to plug in at Room 210. Time for a walk. Time to think, read and dream.

Reading and dreaming is always best left to a chair and shade and sound of the never ending waves from a silver-green sea.

[Why do they need a pool when you have the ocean? Photo is mine.]

[Author’s Note: In no way am I attempting to make many of my friends and readers be jealous of me. Many of you have just finished shoveling several feet of snow. This trip was ‘won’ in a drawing. But I’ve paid my dues at the working end of a shovel. Enjoy these posts for what they are meant to be. Entertaining and enjoyable.]

Down By The Sea

Apr13

I knew the man’s story. I had read his many blogs but the campfire was the place where he untied his cachet of stories. There would be no campfires in Florida, not this time of year. Instead, I would have to find shade beneath a palmetto palm to study his photograph. I stretched the screen of my iPhone. Yes, it was him. I compared the picture to the one he sent me seven years ago. It was the same lighthouse over and behind his right shoulder. The mask and snorkel were the very same. His bracelet was different. The cheap ones he was inclined to buy had been replaced many times over. His pale shoulders were the same, no sign of a slouch. His beard seemed a tiny bit grayer as did his hair.

We all had been caught in the great Pandemic but he seemed to be emerging from its shell like a newborn chick. A new wrinkle? Sad eyes? I couldn’t get a good look because of the snorkel but I suspect they were present on his face. After all, it had been seven years since he stood chest deep in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Some things change with terrifying speed. Some things never change Some things change so subtly that it’s hard to see the years.

I knew him well enough to see the partial smile on his lips. He was happy, happy for the first time in years. At least seven years anyway.

He failed to notice me behind the palm observing him. He thought he had sent the photograph to someone distant friend but I was usually physically closer to him than he knew. I noticed his head turn toward the twenty-something in a toxic pink bikini. Ha, I thought, he still remembers some of the important things in life. I saw him turn to his wife as she handed him the bottle of ice water. He smiled in his contentment. He looked westward toward the horizon and stared for many minutes.

He rises and walks to the water’s edge.

He thought himself Poseiden, but he was really just an old man standing on the shore.

A Stroll On Estero: Encountering Sand Sculptures One Grain At A Time

Nov25

We decided that we would give Sanibel Island a rest for a day. Besides, we’d save $6.00 for not taking the Causeway Bridge. No, it was time we crossed another bridge (free) from Fort Myers to Fort Myers Beach. When we did, we found ourselves in another world. This wasn’t Wal-Mart country. This was the Gulf Coast version of Wildwood, New Jersey. The young and the restless were here–strolling along the boulevard and taking up a blanket size spot on a very large beach. We drove slowly. We had to because of the frequent pedestrian crossings and road construction barriers.

If I wanted a burger of any kind or price, this was the place. If I wanted a Marguerita, this was ground zero. I was amazed at the number of open-air bars and vacation rentals.

I noticed that the Periwinkle Motel had hourly rates. I wondered why someone would want to do that. Aren’t motels for sleeping and resting from the rigors of long road trips? I’m still thinking about this…

Slowly I drove, inch by inch, yard by yard. This place was the stuff of my beach dreams that I forged in life. Then we saw the sign: Sand Sculpture Competition, we simply had to check this out. It didn’t come as a total surprise to me that this event was happening. I had seen a brief article about it in the local newspaper, the one I read while I enjoy my iced coffee at the Java Cafe in the Outlet Mall.

When I was a child, we used to go family camping in the Adirondacks of New York State. Some summers we would spend a week or two at Golden Beach State Campground on Raquette Lake. Now, I’m no stranger to building sand castles. I did it all the time. What kind of competition could this be, here in Florida? How hard can it be? All I ever needed was a Tupperware container, a little bucket and a Dixie cup. I could build Camelot, Buckingham Palace or the Kremlin with those simple childs tools.

After no small amount of difficulty, we found a parking place. It was at the Wyndham Hotel. They sponsored the contest and it was their sand that was going to be used in making the little castles. (It would require us to patronize the hotel bar after the beach, but we could manage that.)

As we approached the entry gate, a woman who was heading to the parking lot slipped Mariam a paper-like bracelet and said: “Here, save yourself $5.00.” We accepted the freebie from her. I decided I would struggle with the ethics and morality of this later. I tried to calculate the number of years in Purgatory I would get for stiffing the Competition for five bucks. Mariam doesn’t believe in Purgatory, so this whole thing would fall on me.

Later, I thought. I’ll deal with this later. I paid $5.00 for my bracelet and entered through the little tent-like entrance.

It had rained heavily during the night and there were large wet patches and pools in the sand. I was a little put off by this. I didn’t come to the beach to get my feet wet! Then, I looked around me. Wait a minute. These weren’t sand castles at all. This was the stuff of high art and imaginative skill that made my head spin. I worried about the warnings I was getting on my iPhone about the approaching limit to my storage. I wanted to take a hundred pictures. Not that there were a hundred sculptures here, but I wanted to capture the objects on all sides.

And, here is where my brain began to overload. I’ve taken a few art classes when I lived in New York City, but it was all 2-D, like water colors and chalk sketching. This stuff was all 3-D and it was astounding.

I didn’t know what to photograph. I was split between worrying about my iPhone storage and how they got the sand to stay put. Everything I built on beaches as a child always collapsed. Yet, these figures defied gravity.

Walking through this display was both amazing and enjoyable. At the same time, I thought about when the day would come when rain or wind or people would cause these pieces of art to crumble–and turn into a beach again. What is the lifetime of a sand figure? I didn’t know, but I did know it was finite.

Someday, I might walk along the beach behind the Wyndham Hotel and find no trace of the dragon or the faces.

I stood looking at one that depicted a man being drawn into a gear wheel. He seemed to be clutching a mound of something that was labelled SAND.

For some reason, I felt connected to him. I think I understand what the artist was trying to say. That’s more than I can do with a canvas by Picasso.

We drove back along Estero Boulevard. We passed the bars and burger shacks. There were a few tattoo parlors. I made a mental note about the location of one. I think I’ll come back here and get a Henna tat. After all, it washes away in a few weeks.

It’s not like it’s permanent or anything.

[Photo credits are mine. Also, the Periwinkle Motel does not have hourly rates. I don’t want that on my conscience too.]

The Albatross And The Vulture

Nov20

What’s it like to float upon misty air?

Way up there upon winds of turbulence,

where your wings tame them,

as a cowboy does the wild Stallion.

–Dara Reidyr from “On Flying“

Four hours ago, I was finishing my iced coffee at the Java Cafe in the Outlet Mall. Even with the AC, the plastic cup was dripping on the article in the local Fort Myers newspaper. I was totally absorbed in a breaking story about an 18-year old guy who was arrested for roughing up his girl friend because she refused to go out and buy him some “clean” urine. He was on probation and he apparently needed to pass a random drug test. The water drops from my coffee obliterated some of the story, but not the part where he pushed her head and then threw bananas and a metal comb at her. More wet newsprint. Then the story ended with his breaking down in the kitchen, crying, and grabbing a carving knife, threatened to kill himself. It seems that a friend captured the whole thing on a cell phone.

It’s good to have friends.

Now, I was in the pool at the RV Resort where we are staying. I was leaning back with my head against the rim. I was intent on getting some exercise one way or another, and since its way too hot to go bicycling, the decision to go to the pool wasn’t hard. I was doing a peddling motion with my legs and practicing the scissors kick. Nearby, at the shallow end, there were a dozen seniors doing water exercises. A woman’s voice was telling them what to do.

“Now, turn around and lift your left leg–that’s right, just like that.”

“Okay, now run in place–do the best you can.”

I looked at each person in the group trying to identify the speaker with the tiny headset microphone. I couldn’t find her. She seemed to be joking with someone in the group. I looked again and still couldn’t find her. Then I spotted a cable from an outlet. It led to a small boom-box that was placed on a pool chair. Everyone was listening to a tape. But, how could she banter with the group?

I was puzzling over this when I looked directly across the water and noticed that a man was staring at me. He had on sunglasses, so I couldn’t be sure it was me he was watching. He looked exactly like Colonel Sanders, the founder of KFC. Same hat. Same white goatee. I would have bet my last fiver that it was the Colonel himself. I didn’t place any bet– there was no one to place it with and besides I remember that Colonel Harland D. Sanders died of leukemia in 1980.

The clouds were slowly thickening. The forecast called for late afternoon showers.

I looked up. There, in the pale blue of the sky was a soaring bird. I looked at its wings. It wasn’t an eagle–it was a turkey vulture. Both are built for soaring. Both are symbols–metaphors to us. So is the Albatross.

I looked over at the seniors who were busy treading water and then back to the turkey vulture, making slow circles above my head.

You do not want to know what goes through my head at times like these.

I’ve always found the Albatross very interesting and enigmatic. I’ve never seen one in the wild but from photos, they have an outstanding appearance. But, the poor bird is cursed by being a symbol of “a burden”.

“Oh, he has to carry that Albatross around his neck–too bad for him”.

We have Samuel Taylor Coleridge to thank for that. One of my favorite poems is “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. In case you don’t remember your 10th grade English class, a sailor shoots an arrow into the sky and kills an Albatross. This brings really bad luck to him and his crew. He is condemned to carrying the dead bird around his neck while the voyage of his ship wanders the seas.

He is the ancient mariner who stoppeth one of three…

Sometimes, I feel like I am like the pitiful sailor–condemned forever to carry the wrongs and sins of my youth around my neck. It can depress a recovered good Catholic altar boy like me.

However, there are many times in my life that I’ve felt more like the Albatross and not the archer/sailor who killed without thinking. These great birds (some with a wing span of twelve feet) are designed to soar–to ride the thermals–for unbelievable lengths of time. Some say that these birds can go weeks (or longer) without landing. They eat by swooping and catching the unfortunate fish who came too close to the surface. They don’t need much food because they don’t expend much energy. Their wings are engineered by nature to lock in place. When you watch a skein of migrating geese, they flap their way from horizon to horizon. The Albatross hardly ever uses its wings, except to stay aloft.

It has also been said that they only land to rest briefly, on a calm portion of ocean. And, more importantly, they need to alight on a solid surface to find a mate and procreate. The Albatross generally mates for life.

But, to soar above it all–only coming to the ground when necessary–seems like an amazing way to spend a life. I feel the need to wander, sometimes far from home (like Florida), but I’m held by gravity to the surface of the earth. Yes, I can take American Airlines to Puerto Rico, if I choose, but you get my point.

To soar above the aches and pains and heartbreak of life–to dream with your eyes open–of faraway lands and people who fill this world. To soar and day-dream about the minute life below me and the sky, so blue and intense, above me, is enviable. I would make an extra circle high above that red-haired woman who is crying on the empty beach. I would make two extra circles around the Eiffel Tower and hear the cries of the Parisians. I would soar above the lonely man, broken by war, meandering a boardwalk and thinking of ending his life.

But, I would make sure that I soared low enough so that the dim eyes of an old person could see me. I would soar slow enough so the children, playing in the fields, would stop and point at me.

All this I would do, If I had the wings of an Albatross. I wonder if that is what death is like–we can soar around the heads of the loved ones left behind?

All this I would do, even knowing that I would never be totally unencumbered and without the dreams that live in the living.

Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?

–Bob Dylan

[Images: Google search]

Don’t Cry For Me, Puerto Rico: My Final Postcard

Mar9

If you want to use Google Earth to find me, just enter 18.44 N and 66.01 W. That’s me, sitting at the beach bar waiting for an order of nachos.

I’ve licked my last stamp and stuck it to the corner of this postcard. I won’t be writing to you anymore–from this place. This is my last day.

So, I’ve spent seven days at Condado Beach. I admit that I’ve done nothing that several million other tourists, before and after me, haven’t already done. I didn’t find an undiscovered gem. I didn’t walk a virgin path. In fact, I’ve done less than most people who come here given our limited budget. I’ll be washing the sand off my feet soon and in the morning we’ll take a taxi to the airport.

I only purchased one tee-shirt and eight postcards. That’s really good for me. Oh, I almost forgot, there is a new refrigerator magnet in our luggage.

I’ll be honest. I really don’t want to go home just yet. I found this island fascinating, fun and full of potential as the salve I need right now.

I’ve shared what I’ve done, but what about the places unseen and people I never talked to? Those are left for the next time.

I can only think of those brief moments, scenes, people and impressions that I chanced to experience in this too brief a time:

A pretty teenage girl stood in a small park. I asked if I could photograph her. She was wary. In five seconds, her family appeared. I talked fast. I snapped quick. I walked on.

Inside a church, there was a small wedding. maybe nine people witnessed besides the videographer and the priest–and me. The bride wore scarlet.

The cobblestone streets of the Old City were said to come here as ballast in the ships that sailed centuries ago. The ballast for the return trip to Europe? Gold.

The buildings of Old San Juan were pink and mint green and yellow and pastel hues I couldn’t name.

There were homeless men on the streets, each one had a dog or two to assuage their loneliness.

I passed a small baseball park where Roberto Clemente played his first professional games. There was a man on the beach with the entire (?) 23rd Psalm tattooed on his stomach. There was room for all the text.

There was a young woman on the same beach in a slight bikini. Her perfect shape and beautiful dark skin would have stopped a bus-load of Baptist ministers.

The graffiti on the walls reminded me of New York City in the 1970’s. The tree frogs along Ashford Avenue sounded too perfect to be real–but they were.

***

My last thoughts? They are like the last thoughts of these islanders. My final memory is of a place where memories live, tears fall and dead rest.

Out on a large wind-swept lawn, with a historical site and light house, is a cemetery. The San Juan Cemetery sits inside a 16-foot stone wall (the wall that protected the Old City for centuries). The plots gleam white in the sun. White and bright enough to bring tears to your eyes. Beyond the thick wall, the sea waves crash against the rocks. You look at the white cemetery, the white breaking waves and your eyes moves to the horizon. There the sea makes a perfect line as it meets the sky. Surely, the spirits of those who rest here must sit on their stones and admire the view of the moon-lit ocean. As I stand on the high ground above, on the lawn where kite fliers run and laugh, I’m sure the spirits are down there in the daylight and watching the sea..watching the horizon..looking for the Final Boat that will take them away to whatever heaven they believe in.

I’m thinking these things but I’m finding my words are inadequate in describing this wondrous place.

I don’t think anyone down in the cemetery, watching their kites or watching the sea needs my tears.

They don’t have to cry for me, either.

patrickjegan

Respect your ancestors, for you are the result of a thousand loves….

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