Where Heaven is Hidden

Oh my heart! It is still in the Caribbean! The people! The landscape! The villa! Charlestown! The sea, the rainbows, the clouds and mist - the jungle! The monkeys!

I am so laid back and relaxed I can barely move as well as very brown and very happy. The only way to get to the island is by ferry - riding on top of the ferry, where the wind blew as wild as Wyoming wind, and the heavens let loose curtains of rain! We laughed and laughed - and that was the last time I put makeup on or did my hair on the isle.

I was informed that with me, came the rains, much needed rains each day. Afternoons were filled with lying back on the veranda watching clouds and the sea. I am a hyped up Type A and never dreamed I would be content to watch cloud formations for five hours at a time.

We toured ruins from the slave era, took hundreds of photos, used the sling shot on the monkeys that scampered about trying to steal fruit, I walked through pine needles about a foot deep that felt like a bed for animals or human and lay, stretched like a panther, on the cement walls overlooking the sea, literally drinking in the place and space in time. I think I've never been so happy.

While volcanoes erupted elsewhere, I lay cradled in the arms of lush dormant green volcanoes in wept my weary tears into the earth.

So that was my time away. Years of stress and held onto anxieties have melted away. I cried with gratefulness off and on - joining tears into the rain. Life exploded in technicolor and painted my being with its intensity of immense love, I danced with the hills, the mountains, the wind, the ocean all at the same time. I can say no more words. I live with exquisite joy and gratitude.

My heart has found its place, perhaps, and I will set it to think about going back. Life is not full of telephones, TV, McDonalds, Walmarts - only markets, the sound of goats and birds and insects and rain and recycling and reusing and growing food, of living just because its good and a privilege to be alive. No coats, no gloves, not much in the way of shoes. Three months, please, and a sip of rum.

My sister will be here Wednesday and we'll see if we can find a patch in the sunshine here to feed life back into us. We will find some, I'm sure.