This post is a sort of tribute to my dad, who just left after a week and a half visit, which was also an immersion course in our particular lifestyle. He is a world traveler from a young age, supremely adaptable, and one of Tallulah's best friends. We call him Frizz. 

I'm writing this in the UVI library while Tallulah puts stickers in my hair, which, by the way, I can't recall washing, and that explains why there are no pictures of me in this series. I have other things in my hair, souvenirs of places I've been over the past couple of weeks. I can't remember how to spell, either, a terrible thing that has not happened since I got performance anxiety during a spelling competition finals in 6th grade and the word was "subtle." I've just given her my purse to play with, so I expect a child decorated with lip and eyeliner shortly. Not that I use those things myself, I just carry them around for some reason. 

After he arrived we went on a grocery mission. Our first stop, The Priority Shop, ostensibly owned by a Dominican who flies down to bring up produce in his private plane, contained nothing more than moldy taro and an incomprehensible cashier. We decided it was a front for other imports.

Decorated.

Foraging for fruit in the University test gardens. Crops to look forward to: passionfruit and zapotes.

Rowing to shore. Sometimes a barracuda follows along.

Local pomegranates are powder pink.

Eating fried turnovers (pate) on the beach.

Barbeque for three generations of left-handed sailors. A good marinade for pork ribs, by Adam: fermented sugar, molasses, mustard, and vinegar.

I found a big stalk of sugarcane on the street in downtown Charlotte Amalie.

Local men in suits smile indulgently at three tourists sucking on cane on the front steps of their office.

Diabetes be damned!

At the Bordeaux Agricultural Fair, drums and vegan soup.

Playing dress-up.

Tallulah comments, "This curry is like inflated balloons chasing each other around the bowl!"

Waiting for the safari bus.

Saying goodbye.

View from bathroom window, Brewer's Bay

I've been taking occasional photos from bathroom windows since visiting France in the late eighties or early nineties (who knows anymore?), appreciating their uniquely serene aspect.

Parenting with both parents around much of the time is harder than you’d think. I would say it’s harder than I thought it would be, but what did I know, in those blissfully ignorant days before I had a child? Lots of theory was flying around back then. Some of it has been borne out in a way that makes me feel disturbingly self-satisfied. For example, I could never have done this thing surrounded by the exigencies of US culture. The objects, the expectations, the advice. Being in a foreign country where I could barely speak the language and had little idea of what was next, not having a car, not having the view remain consistent have, in fact, suited me. And I was committed to the idea that Adam and I would be in it together—he would be on site, an equal, a colleague. Which meant in practice that neither of us would have a job for awhile. And we worked it out, with help from our incredibly supportive families. The funny thing is, though, in some ways it’s actually much easier when it’s just me. (Or him.) Tallulah and I get in sync, we cooperate. With Adam and I present together, it’s essential that we be in utter harmony. Tallulah sees and seizes upon the most minor fissures in our relationship, in our mundane interactions, things we might be barely aware of, or believe that we’d successfully suppressed. She plays one off the other in a benign or malignant fashion, defending or, lately, peacekeeping, acting out, performing. Those average moments, teasing or cloaking some real grievance in joking terms—all duly noted. And they become the stuff of shame. And reason for punishment. Adam and I live now in such a way that we need to trust the other with our lives. This is the literal truth. But how insidious those small persistent failures become—the deep currents of the psyche, formed by my own parents/early experiences, now played again. It’s this complex, stratified space that I notice myself navigating—again, this is literal—on a daily basis when we’re both together. There’s no other room, no room to go to and shut the door. The space is fluid—I really have no need of metaphors—and the scudding clouds of the others’ moods are close enough to feel the vapor. By now we’ve gotten nearly as good at this as acrobats, but not yet perfect, and perfection is, in fact, required of us.

how we roast

 Not sure how this got started but we buy green coffee beans and roast them ourselves, really good coffee is quite a bit cheaper as green bean, oh yeah, we tried buying coffee here in Culebra (I'm tempted to expand on this theme but perhaps that's not a good idea) and it was all really bad. This became our DIY solution.

 these photos were taken about 4 minutes apart: start off on high flame and start to reduce heat as smoke begins, ending on low flame, stirring the whole time. Expect smoke, flying husks and snapping/ crackling over the 20 or so minutes of roasting.

call it quits when they look dark enough for your taste (lighter brings out citrus, darker brings out chocolate, too light tastes sour, too dark tastes burnt)

this move helps cool things down and gets rid of the papery husks

the flavor of freshly roasted beans seems to improve for a few days then levels off, a bur grinder (as opposed to those blade choppers) grinds more evenly and makes it easier to duplicate a good pot of coffee. Enjoy!

Tallulah's projects

I think I understand the reality of living on a boat, but I am still trying to grasp the mystique, the myth of it, the thing that makes all the bits and pieces cohere and make something that lights your mind on fire. I have made peace with the idea that this myth will not come to me whole, that I may be left with pieces.

This morning when I jumped into the dinghy a school of tiny silvered fish leapt, startled, landing on the bottom of the boat—they were in our shoes, and the bailer, and the lifejackets, and everywhere, with the large unclosing eyes of prey, and we reached for their tiny silvered bodies and tossed them, delicately writhing, soft sparks, back into the water.

Something I have noticed at sea—how things get left behind. It is a place where the old, landed grudges and regrets can dissolve into nothing, which is their natural state. On a clear day, running with the wind, ordinary, bound life disappears, and we may be made new by our imaginings.

 cousins

 Thanksgiving

foam angel
Stomach flu and a hard-hitting virus have taken a toll on quality blogging lately, but I'll be back soon.