For Norman Paperman
“In the tropics, they come and they go.” – Jimmy Buffett
I could complain, I guess, about my wife surprising me with a trip to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and how I, a vacation control freak, was denied the privilege of sacrificing hours of precious personal time to arrange for the right flights … the right resort … the right rental car … the right cat sitter.
“What are you doing the first week of April?” she asked.
“What do you think I’m doing?” I said, my face aglow from the laptop screen. I scowled. She had interrupted a “glow face” work moment of mine. “I’ll be working.”
Poor Scott was forced to go on vacation to St. Croix in the Caribbean. (Photo provided)
“You won’t be working,” she said.
“Wait … what?”
“I planned a trip.”
We both represented, at that moment, the mental and physical wreckage of our former selves, racked from work, stressed from daily stress. A getaway seemed too far-fetched. Who has time for downtime during these down times?
Suddenly, I was a sneak attack victim. I should’ve been suspicious about her own “glow face” burning far deeper into the night than normal, all the head-propped-on-the-pillow cyber sleuthing going on in bed as she stared into her cellphone’s glow – we are no better off than bugs at a zapper – and sneakily sought out our sunny sojourn, the right Caribbean island upon which to sentence me.
With Indiana floundering in 40-degree temperatures, I thought Brynne was merely seeking social media to escape vicariously through other people’s tropical vacation photos. How was I to know she was mapping out the mending of our mental health? Can I ever trust her again?
Palm trees meticulously painted on her fingernails was another missed sign foretelling that the dust was about to be blown off our dormant carry-ons. If you take time to notice, you can learn a lot about your wife through her nails.
If only he’d looked at Brynne’s nails beforehand, Scott would have gotten a clue he was headed to a warmer climate. (Photo provided)
On April Fool’s Day, we checked into the Grapetree Bay Hotel (grapetreebayhotel.com) and soon became flip-flop fashionistas 18 degrees north latitude on Christiansted’s southern side where daytime temps were a steady 81 degrees.
We traded in our calendars and clocks and settled into a time zone called Island Time. Had it not been for my color-coded pill organizer with compartments dedicated to each day of the week (a new lifeline I’m still getting used to), I wouldn’t have known what day it was.
I left my laptop at home to avoid temptation to work remotely. I often brag about how I can do my job from anywhere in the world. In the tropics, where I traded my scowl for a beach towel, I realized the idiocy of that claim. At first, work thoughts tugged at me like riptides, but my change in latitude and attitude relinquished me of their pull. I soon savored my role as a corporate castaway.
I could complain, I guess, about my failure to satisfactorily describe the Caribbean Sea’s colors via my notebook scribbles, the varying shades of shallow-depth greens and deep-depth blues. Azure, teal, cyan, turquoise, aquamarine, blue-green, navy, sapphire, cobalt, caerulean, indigo – the paradisiacal patchwork of a liquid quilt, a commercial paint swatch creator’s wet dream. Hues of hallelujah! My favorite Jimmy Buffett song, “Mañana,” warns, “don’t try to describe the ocean if you’ve never seen it.” As a captive under the captivating spell of the Antilles chain, I became convinced one should also heed Mr. Buffett’s advice even if you have seen the ocean. Barkeep, another Painkiller cocktail, please!
I could complain, I guess, about the sea being so loud, its roar drowning the conversation of a husband and wife debating which words to use to describe the spectrum of greens and blues before us. The sounding of a pounding sea is Mother Nature applauding herself. Well done, MN! Barkeep, another Cruzan Confusion cocktail, please!
Our first two days carried mid-30 mph winds, causing the palm fronds to click like dry bones. Beach rocks secured napkins to tabletops, and unguarded sunglasses slid off table edges. I could complain, I guess, about being jolted awake one night by a shotgun sky as thunder boomed boastful pronouncements about the coming of much-needed rain to our parched island. It was a pitch-black, starless night except for rare times the shiny, almost-full moon peeked through the cloud cover, making the whitecaps luminescent and spectral. Flashes of lightning provided temporary X-rays of the sky. A day’s worth of rain followed. The drops touching down sounded like bacon sizzling. The palm trees perked. The island grew greener. The resort happily avoided the expense of a water truck’s visit. As Herman Wouk alludes to in his classic escapist novel, Don’t Stop The Carnival, it’s all about the water down here.
Scott and Brynne quickly traded in their calendars and clocks for Island Time. (Photo provided)
I bought a hat with a sea turtle on the front. Embroidered on the side, “Stay Salty.” Now home, the hat seldom escapes my Hoosier head. If I’m caught scowling, Brynne reminds, “Stay Salty, Scott,” a reminder that I married right.
Yes, Brynne had forced a surprise vacation on me. She can be unreasonable like that. I could complain, I guess, about how surprise is the antithesis of control, but to grumble about being kidnapped by a caring wife and carried away to the Caribbean seems too much like a rich man complaining about sinking to the bottom of a pool due to the weight of too many gold coins in his pockets.
Our memories of St. Croix are nothing short of treasure, and while it was financially costly, we returned home much richer for it.
Contact: scottsaalman@gmail.com