Palegirl in the Tropical Storm
Most gorgeous rainstorm!! I'm sitting in the house, laid up with a sprained ankle, but I'm not itching to go anywhere anyway because it's raining gallons. The thunder is coming close, then going out, then coming close again. There are flashes of lightning, too, not as easy to see in the day time as at night, but seeing is not the best part; it's listening. A few seconds after a flash of lightning, a building crackle starts from the East and tumbles West, towards me, then past me, until it builds to a huge boom right to the North.
The rain is falling so thick and slanted, blown by the wind, that it's flowing together in huge ribbons before it hits the ground. When it first started pouring down, I had to get up and hobble around closing windows so the rain wouldn't get in and make the floors slick and dangerous for me. I'm paranoid about retwisting my ankle but I'm getting around just fine with a cane a friend has loaned me.
I discovered a few more leaks in the roof, but happily they aren't directly over any beds or couches. The leaks are directly below the roost attached to the roof - the sunset roost - so I think it wasn't properly sealed with paint when they finished building it. I'm tempted to get some water-sealant paint and drizzle it off the side of the roost into the cracks, but I'll have to wait until I can actually get up the stairs and not have to fear about getting down again. We may just tell the caretaker - a precious 80-year-old guy, Garth - about it. He's really prompt about getting things taken care of generally.
Well, apart from being laid up a few days getting cabin fever and reading, I've been getting drawn more and more into island life. The seamstress Marion has become a good friend. I've just been able to get over to her house twice this past week, but once I walked in, she got me a chair and turned back to her sewing. As soon as she finished the project she had on her machine, she dropped it into my lap and said, "Here, this's for you. It's a clothespin bag." Then she dropped two more on my lap and said, "You can carry these back to your friends what hangs their clothes on the line," meaning my friends in Japan. Oddly enough, she and I sort of bonded over our mutual dryer-less-ness. I have a dryer now, but I didn't in Japan - apartments rarely do - so we could bond over having to hang up our clothes and worry if it's going to rain or not. She says she prefers hanging things out, "Where the sun can see 'um."
I've met a lot of other people through Marion. She commanded me to come to a church pasta dinner a few weeks ago and, even before I'd finished eating, she was steering me around the room introducing me around. She has such a big family that a few people asked if I wasn't some grand-daughter or another from Nassau or further out. I've been mistaken for a native!
Not much else going on, just trying to figure out What To Do With Myself For The Rest Of My Life. Another lady I've met here, an American lawyer from Orlando, is telling me she'll write a recommendation letter for me if I choose to go to law school and apply to her alma mater Emory.
Wait, Elizabeth needs much more of an intro than that. I saw her first at karaoke about three or four weeks ago, when she came in with her husband and another couple, sat in front, and cheered for me as I sang "Come Together." We met again at the grocery store and she greeted me like an old friend and invited me to her house.
Hmm. Total stranger in a foreign country invites you over to her house.....
Naturally, I went.
She is an amazing person. Very successful lawyer, bubbling with energy, and always seems to be totally fascinated by YOU whenever or wherever you two are talking. She's a person who can lift your spirits just by walking into the vicinity. And a lawyer no less! But she is a lawyer who litigates to defend mis-treated cancer patients and elderly people who were not given proper examinations and care because of ageism. People who were turned away, basically.
She'll give me a discerning look now and then and say that I really should be a lawyer. From her, that's a great compliment. Still, she also thinks I should meet her son who's my age, and these days I panic every time someone suggests I should meet a son, or guy-friend, or brother, or cousin, or whatever. Yes-that's-very-kind-of-you-but-no-thanks. Get me to Asia, no strings attached to yank me back early a second time.
Well, because, that's all that is really occupying my thoughts of the future, getting back to Japan. I'm sure I'll burn out after a few more years of a foreign place and teaching, but why leave a good thing while it's really good? The thought of Japan is keeping me up and running right now.
As for Dad, he's behaving himself better these days, as I'm trying to do as well. He has run out of books again is the only problem. Elizabeth gave us a four-book fix, but he has finished two and flatly refused to read the other two. We've only got six more weeks, so I'm feeling less trapped. The smallness of this island is a little overwhelming for the long-term. Maybe it's like any home in that it's just as good to get away from it as it is to get back. Maybe I'll be back here someday, too.
Now the rain has stopped and the sun is out again, acting like it never left. The plum tree out in the yard has more leaves now and they are a marvelous color, the green that glows. The birds are out catching bugs hatched or driven out by the rain. More power to them.
The rain is falling so thick and slanted, blown by the wind, that it's flowing together in huge ribbons before it hits the ground. When it first started pouring down, I had to get up and hobble around closing windows so the rain wouldn't get in and make the floors slick and dangerous for me. I'm paranoid about retwisting my ankle but I'm getting around just fine with a cane a friend has loaned me.
I discovered a few more leaks in the roof, but happily they aren't directly over any beds or couches. The leaks are directly below the roost attached to the roof - the sunset roost - so I think it wasn't properly sealed with paint when they finished building it. I'm tempted to get some water-sealant paint and drizzle it off the side of the roost into the cracks, but I'll have to wait until I can actually get up the stairs and not have to fear about getting down again. We may just tell the caretaker - a precious 80-year-old guy, Garth - about it. He's really prompt about getting things taken care of generally.
Well, apart from being laid up a few days getting cabin fever and reading, I've been getting drawn more and more into island life. The seamstress Marion has become a good friend. I've just been able to get over to her house twice this past week, but once I walked in, she got me a chair and turned back to her sewing. As soon as she finished the project she had on her machine, she dropped it into my lap and said, "Here, this's for you. It's a clothespin bag." Then she dropped two more on my lap and said, "You can carry these back to your friends what hangs their clothes on the line," meaning my friends in Japan. Oddly enough, she and I sort of bonded over our mutual dryer-less-ness. I have a dryer now, but I didn't in Japan - apartments rarely do - so we could bond over having to hang up our clothes and worry if it's going to rain or not. She says she prefers hanging things out, "Where the sun can see 'um."
I've met a lot of other people through Marion. She commanded me to come to a church pasta dinner a few weeks ago and, even before I'd finished eating, she was steering me around the room introducing me around. She has such a big family that a few people asked if I wasn't some grand-daughter or another from Nassau or further out. I've been mistaken for a native!
Not much else going on, just trying to figure out What To Do With Myself For The Rest Of My Life. Another lady I've met here, an American lawyer from Orlando, is telling me she'll write a recommendation letter for me if I choose to go to law school and apply to her alma mater Emory.
Wait, Elizabeth needs much more of an intro than that. I saw her first at karaoke about three or four weeks ago, when she came in with her husband and another couple, sat in front, and cheered for me as I sang "Come Together." We met again at the grocery store and she greeted me like an old friend and invited me to her house.
Hmm. Total stranger in a foreign country invites you over to her house.....
Naturally, I went.
She is an amazing person. Very successful lawyer, bubbling with energy, and always seems to be totally fascinated by YOU whenever or wherever you two are talking. She's a person who can lift your spirits just by walking into the vicinity. And a lawyer no less! But she is a lawyer who litigates to defend mis-treated cancer patients and elderly people who were not given proper examinations and care because of ageism. People who were turned away, basically.
She'll give me a discerning look now and then and say that I really should be a lawyer. From her, that's a great compliment. Still, she also thinks I should meet her son who's my age, and these days I panic every time someone suggests I should meet a son, or guy-friend, or brother, or cousin, or whatever. Yes-that's-very-kind-of-you-but-no-thanks. Get me to Asia, no strings attached to yank me back early a second time.
Well, because, that's all that is really occupying my thoughts of the future, getting back to Japan. I'm sure I'll burn out after a few more years of a foreign place and teaching, but why leave a good thing while it's really good? The thought of Japan is keeping me up and running right now.
As for Dad, he's behaving himself better these days, as I'm trying to do as well. He has run out of books again is the only problem. Elizabeth gave us a four-book fix, but he has finished two and flatly refused to read the other two. We've only got six more weeks, so I'm feeling less trapped. The smallness of this island is a little overwhelming for the long-term. Maybe it's like any home in that it's just as good to get away from it as it is to get back. Maybe I'll be back here someday, too.
Now the rain has stopped and the sun is out again, acting like it never left. The plum tree out in the yard has more leaves now and they are a marvelous color, the green that glows. The birds are out catching bugs hatched or driven out by the rain. More power to them.