iguana afternoons

In the eighties, my sister and I traveled in style. Claiming either the back or the way back of our family's minivan - a baby blue Dodge Caravan with wood paneling - we'd beg our mother to play a Debbie Gibson tape bought with precious allowance money at the mall instead of the oldies station while the world slid by on our way to a piano lesson or a girl scout meeting. In those days we lived in pastel-hued South Florida, where little lizards and enormous cockroaches populated our everyday landscape and an enduring hibiscus bloomed by the back door.

Our tenure in Fort Lauderdale, which happened to overlap with a sizable chunk of my childhood, seems strange to me now. I'm a nail biter, I get sea sick, I'm positively pale. Me, a Floridian? By 1990 we'd moved north, where I've remained every since, and my connections to that singular state and formative chapter in my life have only been revived in recent years thanks to Facebook.

But last week I found myself once again with my sister in a cavernous minivan, riding past palm trees and brilliant bouganvilla, and a tether that normally hangs slack was pulled taut. A continuity emerged. Yes, I remember sitting on sandy towels on the way back from the beach in the minivan, tasting salt in the stray ropes of hair that swing down and plaster themselves to my face, in all the heat and heaviness of the afternoon.

I had forgotten. But these sensory memories during our trip quietly linked the person I am now to the person I was then, and the family I am growing now to the family I was growing up in. Truth be told, besides the flora, Vieques, a small island off the coast of Puerto Rico, is not much like Fort Lauderdale. It is a lot less developed - wild even - which might explain its extraordinary, abundant fauna. Not so many iguanas were joining us to bask poolside when I was a kid. Nor were there roosters roaming free, herding chickens and crowing lustily at all hours,nor wild horses sauntering down narrow streets,

 nor silvery angel fish grazing our legs, gleaming in the sun that filtered down through clear blue water to illuminate the sandy bottom.

Maybe it was just the fact of being together, of navigating our days and cleaning up our meals, sharing the frustrations and surprises and little jokes. My dad's absence was felt, as it always is when I am with my mother and sister; this time it was persistent, yet gentle. It's not so often in our adult lives that my sister and I get to settle into more than two or three days together. It's nice to be reminded of who you are.

And it's damn nice to do it in the Caribbean.

 

And what of the children? From this distance, they look lovely, don't they? We had our moments. All kinds of moments, just like we do in regular life, but really, who could throw a tantrum when the sunset over the ocean is so glorious? A toddler, that's who. Gabriel, unsure of what the heck was going on in this so-called "vacation house" that had no toys in it whatsoever and ran by no discernible schedule he was familiar with, fell into tantrums if ever I left his sight or if someone else threatened to usurp our very special relationship by doing awful things like offering to wipe his nose or get him a glass of water.

NO!!!! MAMA DO IT!!!!

Mama did it, mostly, but then one night we escaped to a bioluminescent bay. My mother, sister, and brother-in-law went the night before, then very kindly offered to babysit for us so we too could kayak in the evening to a special spot filled with strange teeny tiny creatures that illuminate when the water is agitated. To be alone with Mike at night, to spin and kick and punch the magic water to great greenish glowing effects, to see the moon high overhead and delight in our surroundings...it was a gift. 

There were many gifts! A shopping trip followed by tropical drinks at a charming bar with my mother and sister, my brother-in-law's astounding facility with our rental minivan which was quite literally falling apart (at one point a sliding door fell off - this never happened to our Dodge Caravan), a week-long hiatus from hair washing, the sight of my naked kids moving gracefully in their beautiful brown bodies, reading a novel in three days!, and taking long, luxurious swims in the Caribbean.

Friday morning, gathering items for the beach, I noticed a new tranquility in our group. We were a content pile of overlapping soft brown limbs driving to the beach. The children had finally settled in, acquired a new peacefulness, and we endured nary a tantrum the entire day. I felt so good in my skin, and they did too. That day we saw fish, a stingray, and a starfish, we built a sand castle, found delicate sea fans on the shore, and had the best lemonade ever. 

We made rum drinks and dinner, watched the sunset, and ate ice cream. I felt just right. In the morning, packing up the last bits before our flight, I put off getting dressed as long as I could. The very thought of corduroy pants made me want to cry. To willingly return to gray March days, just when we'd found our groove here?

After a very long and blessedly hitchless travel day, during which Gabriel's mounting enthusiastic anticipation of his reunion with all his trucks and books spread like a happy contagion, I walked into my kitchen. It was about 6:30 and the evening light shone gently through the windows. The warm pink walls gathered around me, the soft brown floor came up to meet me, and I fell into a physical sensation not unlike a sweeping embrace that took me unawares, though my arms were laden and my mind hurtling towards dinner: we were home. I thought of Madeline's return from her dalliance with the circus gypsies:

The best part of a voyage--by plane,

By ship,

Or train--

Is when the trip is over and you are

Home again.

Indeed. Now it is spring, and yesterday I planted peas. In corduroys and a sweater. And I felt just right.