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Ok so maybe I'm procrastinating. Dragging my feet a little. Eking out the summertime memories here. I don't think anyone would blame me, but just in case, I did have some excuses planned for you (last weekend I was in Connecticut, the weekend before I was in Istanbul. Truly strange but truly true!)
But forget all that. Because honestly, in my mind's eye, I hope I will always be right here on this beach, on this gentle August evening, ginger beers that would become dark and stormies gently rolling in surf, with this on the tapedeck and sand up to my ankles and nothing left to do but build a bonfire and watch the sun going down, over the ocean, as it should be, for ever and always.
It is absolutely incomprehensible to me that it has been two whole months since my plane touched down on West Coast soil, two months since the sweetest two and a half weeks of my 2012. Maybe because I think about these places and those people so often each day that, in my mind, I've never ever left.
In a history of fine island summers, I'd say this was definitely one for the books. The finest visitors, the finest reggae mix tapes, the best berry picking and the very best and most adorable lighthouse docent I ever did meet.
I took three big fat rolls of photos this trip, and these are from one of the first orders of business we got down to: our annual boat camping trip. Mom, Dad, Dag, Dog and I all piled into the Albin and set sail for our favorite spot. We ate hot dogs and fried our spuds up with fresh rosemary and garlic and gathered feathers in our hatbands and slept outside so we could watch for shooting stars. Our own Moonrise Kingdom.
Spent last weekend in a beautiful, magical, fern filled land catching fireflies, reading books, taking photos, cooking foods. Spent this week suffering from severe post-paradise depression.
(photos by Cass, to whom I owe it all)
My family's land is beautiful, and being only about half a mile inland, on a quiet night you can hear the surf crashing down on the beach in North Bay. Even so, I remain more than a little jealous of those folks who have managed to snap up a piece of waterfront property. To wake up and see the sea in your front yard, to watch the sun set over the other dusky blue humps and take a moonlit stroll on the shore at a minute's notice? That would be a bit of all right, all right.Every winter, I tend to get a bit restless at some point and take off from home for a walk that usually ends in a bit of light trespassing. Our sweet but short warmer months tend to attract a lot of vacationers in the summer whose houses then stand empty for the better part of the year, and it's pretty irresistible to go peeping at the windows of some of these places now and then. They run the gamut from multi-story, sterile monstrosities to cozy little cabins--the one pictured above being my very favorite and of the latter variety. Built decades ago by relatives of one of the oldest families on the island, it has everything you could ever need to live a comfortable, quiet life: a bedroom, a loft, a modern gas range and hand-operated water pump in the kitchen, a wood stove for heating, a beach-combed collection of delicately salted shells and other pale detritus, and a piano. And, a huge set of windows facing a wild, watery, ever-changing amphitheatre. I fantasize that some day I will have the means and the opportunity to buy, or even just rent it for a week...but until then, it's the art of the snoop for me.
I finally got three rolls of film developed last week, and suddenly I feel like I have more photos than I know what to do with! Some of them have been sent off on secret missions, a few are waiting in reserve for a special announcement, but until then I will get on with sharing the rest.We may not have a had white Christmas, but I did have a white winter vacation this year. It was the first time most of those ducks had ever seen ice or snow, and hi-jinks ensued. Ducks are so dang cute, I think these guys may have put me off chickens forever. I spent a lot of time lurking around the house, taking pictures of my Mom's weaving studio, my growing stack of National Geographics. We also did a good bit of bushwhacking and trail building in the woods around our place, and I still have the blackberry vine marks around my ankles where they got in above my socks and worked their mischief. The water was snow-blue and everything was still crusted in white the morning I left.
By the time I see my homeland again, winter will have miraculously turned to mid-summer and the garden will be blooming.
Initially inspired by Nidhi's photos, and subsequently encouraged by countless friends and friends-of-friends with stories to tell, tips to offer, and nothing but the glowing-est of recommendations, Alex and I took a trip to Tulum, Mexico back in the beginning of November.For us, it was a vacation in the purest sense, a rare and precious thing these days: no internet, no phone, no museums or shopping destinations or itineraries, few preconceived notions. Only sand, water, sun, rain, bicycles, hammocks, books, food and piña coladas 'til next Tuesday. An hour and a half distant from the rack and ruin of Cancun, when we stepped from our shuttle onto the powdery roadside sand the air smelled like flowers and sea and coconut, and there were conch shells in place of faucets in our hotel bathrooms. Other highlights of our five days of cabana life in the state of Quintana Roo included: going to bed at 8pm and waking (gladly) with the sun, forgetting what pants even feel like, having a different form of shrimp for every meal of the day, and buying strange, beautiful citrus by the sackful from the side of the road. It's true what everyone told us: you won't visit Tulum only once. You'll be back.
