Immersed in the World
Fishermen throw their nets out on the lake,
And they soon have their catch.
Women wash laundry on concrete tables set up in the water,
But the beach is not theirs alone.
Cooling off (and often bathing) is done in the lake,
And friendships are easily made [...]
We tried to order a mojito but there was no mint, we were told. We asked if they could make a naranjita, but there was no rum. A margarita? Nope, no tequila.
“What could you make?” Brian asked.
“We can make a caipirinha,” our waiter said confidently.
It had been a big day. We’d ridden a ferry across one of [...]
Comic books and graphic novels are the favorite reading material of Remy and Simon these days so they circulate through our house by the armful. Our latest find is artist, Kazu Kibuishi, cartoonist extraordinaire. We can’t wait for the third book in his Amulet series to be published, but this Copper cartoon actually inspired me to create my own cartoon.
[...]
The day we landed on St. Vincent happened to be Remy’s fifth birthday. I don’t remember my daughter having much interest in flowers before we moved to Petit Byahaut, but once there, she became obsessed with them.
I couldn’t blame her. We were surrounded by a myriad of amazing tropical [...]
Summer 1992, Lopez Island, Washington
During a week long family reunion spent kayaking, playing volleyball, hiking and hanging out around the bonfire, Brian and I decided, with flight vouchers in hand, “Let’s get married!”
We also decided that if, for some reason, things didn’t work out for us in the Caribbean, [...]
This was our first taste of the Caribbean. It was 1993 and it was our honeymoon.
What enabled us to afford this indulgence at such a tender age was our good fortune of getting bumped from a flight the year before. Truthfully, it was those generous travel vouchers we received that sparked talk about marriage in [...]
Mostly, the books I read are travel memoirs. Offer me the latest bestselling novel or a true story of adventure in a foreign land, there’s no question which book I’ll take.
Recently, I came across The Motion of the Ocean by Janna Cawrse Esarey. The Seattle author and her brand new husband sailed off into [...]
Have you ever, in the dead of winter, on a day when everything goes wrong, fantasized about running off to the tropics?
You imagine what your life could be. Swimming everyday in a warm sea, sleeping in a hammock strung between two palms, maybe you’ll finally become an artist, or open a beachside burger stand.
[...]
This island dream has filled my thoughts for embarrassingly too many years.
The funny thing is, once we got to our dream island, I began to conjure up all sorts of new dreams. Ideas that could be combined with our life on the island and ideas that were separate.
Those ideas are still floating around [...]
