Serenade of the Seasons

Serenade of the Seasons

So it’s December 17^th …are you sick of Holiday music yet?  How ‘bout if it was cranked out a public address system from a live band on the back of a flatbed truck…in the WEE hours of the morning?  If such a thing slowly drove through your neighborhood at 3 or 4 a.m., would you pull the pillow over your head & grumble, or do what we do & tumble out of bed to go out in the streets in our P.J.’s to dance behind the truck as it goes?  Would you offer the musicians expletives &  ire or as we do, refreshments & greetings?

Such is the Crucian traditional ‘Serenade,’ & I heard it in a ‘neighboring neighborhood’ at around 4:30 this morning. Local favorite band Stanley & the Ten Sleepless Knights earn their name this time of year, with these nocturnal mobile parties trouping from area to area & rousing the sleeping with festive local twists on traditional holiday songs & completely original calypso & quelbe compositions befitting the holidays our land of no snow.  (In a documentary, I heard Quelbe defined as a mixture of Quadrille which is our local version of a called or square type dance & Belbe, which no one ever defined further??).  Whatever it is, I don’t begrudge any lost sleep due to the refrains of ‘I want a piece of Pork for Me Christmas,’ “Santa Lookin’ for a Wife,’  or any of the other clever ‘carols’ we twist with a wink & a nod to their more traditional counterparts. 

The best Serenade experience I ever had was one morning at dawn when I was snorkeling by Dorsch Beach on the West end of the island.  Blissfully face down & focused on my fish friends & sea glass quarry, it took a moment for the approaching strains describing a Crucian’s concern that without a chimney, ‘How Will Santa Get In?’ to register.  Wending through nearby communities, the truck never came into view, but I hummed into my snorkel as the refrains became nearer & clearer.

Here’s hoping your holidays are tuneful & fun, & if you want to start some new traditions don’t forget to look for (lots of local stores have them) CD’s of Stanley, or Bill Bass, Ebenezer Methodist Church or Rising Star Steel Pan carols.  Once again proving Culture is like yeast, if you don’t combine it with other ingredients & make something of it, it disappears. 

Ho Ho Ho from Paradise by Lea Ann Robson

 

Oh what fun it was to be on St. Croix this weekend!  Our little berg was holiday hoppin’ on all four burners & we were repaid in breezy, lovely days for all the great rain we’ve had lately.  The Coquito (homemade rum cream—think eggnog with a St. Croix twist!) was flowing, & though it’s not snowing, everyone was showing up for events far & wide (OK, enough rhyming!). 

Saturday was the Governor’s Christmas Fair at Government House & the First Lady’s Children’s Party on the lawn at Fort Christavaern.  The beautifully manicured lawn around the Fort was the perfect setting for the kids & parents, & crafts (some sponsored by Home Depot), games & book giveaways were in stations all around. Of course Santa showed up, & fun was had by all.

As night fell & everyone flowed (& glowed!  Glow-in-the-dark hoops were everywhere!) toward the wharf to get front row seats to the Boat Parade.  Spectacular entries floated by to cheering crowds.  Some of the ‘boat floats’ used laser light shows, fire twirlers (Kiki & the gang really outdid themselves), & live bands to thrill onlookers. 

 

My friends & I slipped out after the first boat lap, before the second & third & the fireworks finale.  We had been at the Governor’s Fair since morning & despite the wonderful local Pate’s, tarts, fermented Sorrel (sort of a spicy, Port-tasting delight from Grizelle Davila), ginger beer & other local delicacies we’d been sampling while I sold ornaments & jewelry there, we had managed to work up yet another appetite.  So while everybody on the waterfront ‘re-oohed’ & ‘re-ahhhhed’ to the boats again, we slipped up the street to Kendrick’s for a wonderful meal (between the four of us, we taste-tested  & revelled in the chipotle onion garlic soup, the spinach salad, fillet mignon kebabs (why didn’t I think of that!?), & what were pronounced the best patty melts EVER. 

 

On Sunday morning, we decided to milk a good thing by driving out to the worst kept, best secret for brunch—Blue Water Terrace.  I had the epic Quesadilla & my friend had the ‘Double Love’ which can only be described as one chotamama plate full o’ fantastic breakfast food!  Shops were open in town, so on the way back we hit our favorite décor store—Sampson House--& had a great time looking through all the gorgeous items there. 

 

Despite being dangerously close to post-brunch comas, we stopped by the annually held local Woodworker’s Expo at the UVI campus to see evidence of the talented artists & craftspeople we have in the VI, yet again.  I am a self-professed & unashamed woodworker groupie (my Dad was a talented woodworker, so I can’t help myself), so I enjoy seeing what’s new & catching up with the people who work their magic on local materials.  This year’s crop was as inspiring as ever, with some new twists on this venerable art form. 

 

Last night we finally hauled my little live tree out of the bucket behind my house where it has been soaking for almost two weeks, like some forgotten pedicure client & brought it inside.  I’m happy to say (& obviously someone else is PROUD to say) that despite its shortcomings (I usually buy a much taller tree), umpteen tubs of décor made it a cheerful little addition to my living room.  My pup Mu was a Christmas gift many years ago, & she loves a Christmas tree more than most kids you’ll meet. 

 

Next weekend is a ‘three-shipper,’ as in we have a cruise ship in port Saturday, one Sunday & one Monday.  I'll spend evenings this week knuckling down & trying to refute grade school teachers' prophesies that I'd never apply myself & live up to my potential.  I'll create as many new sea glass designs as I can (& yeah, I probably should have been doing that this weekend).  But I can't bring myself to regret one second of this delightful weekend of friends & festivities & now I get to work next to my cute little tree, in my happy little house with my blissed out little dog.  Could be worse!

So we’re here, full of cheer, & hope you’re having as much fun, wherever you are!

Outside the (cigar) Box

(written in September)

I was first confused & later horrified by an email I received this morning touting a pre-sale on HALLOWEEN decorations…EEEEK!  Shaking my head to realign my mental calendar pages, I moved from full denial (but it is still SPRING…Why Halloween???) through incredulity (OK, so it is SUMMER…but we’ve got tons of time until Autumn…How dare they start pelting us with Halloween ads when it is ...) to utter defeat (OMG!!...August 21^st!!???...I’ll never be ready for Christmas.  Might as well take a nap.).

I’ve been benched this summer with an injury that prevented me from lifting my equipment to vend over the last couple of months.  As much as I love vending, I haven’t missed it nearly as much as you’d think.  I’ve missed talking to visitors, working by the waterfront (sounds like a Longshoreman?) & selling what I make.  It’s just that setup & takedown of my tent & displays has never been the fun part & I’ve found so many great activities to occupy my time without that component. 

Aside from my usual marathon fruit (pineapples, mangos, bananas, etc.) harvesting & storing mambo, this off-season has also afforded me the time to catch up on some of the zillion ideas I have during the high season when there is no time to act on any of them.  A note here:  Admittedly, not all these ideas are gems warranting action—storm season equates to brain storm season in my head.

This summer, interior & exterior décor have been front & center on my to-do list.  After living in my little house five years, it is finally starting to look less like a blank slate & more like I feel—upbeat, exuberant, colorful…& a little over the top!

Wall art was a necessary first project.  I mounted espresso-toned modern cigar boxes as display cubes, a task I had been procrastinating about for ages.  The delay was because masonry walls, while a definite plus in the Caribbean, are the natural enemy of hurricanes & drill bits.  I have burned up many bits & friends, just mounting curtain rods & a microwave.  Hanging art here can be quite a commitment in time & effort because by the time you’ve drilled through cement block to mount it, you can be sick of something you loved just days before. 

To avoid that, I’m keeping displays flexible and mounting all with what I consider to be the greatest invention of the century…OK, I’m being a little hyperbolic but I really love them—COMMAND STRIPS!  The boxes aren’t heavy, & I’m only using them to support Plexi-mounted art prints, so the strips aren’t overtaxed.  Originally, I had in mind Plexi-sandwiching some beautiful handmade gouache prints I bought in boxed sets from my beloved Anthropologie some time ago, & only using the modern cube boxes. 

And then I remembered something liberating—those are my walls (OK, mine & the bank’s) & I can do what I want…& COLOR happens to be what I want.  This hit me when I was sorting through the cigar boxes & found a bunch I had altered a couple of years ago.  I love orchids & I love photographing them, so as mine bloomed I had taken extreme close ups, printed them on translucent vellum, & then ‘wallpapered’ them to the front of some older cigar boxes, applying a paste wax to protect them after they fully dried.  And then promptly shelved & forgot about them.

When I added a few of these bright image boxes to the wall arrangement, it came to life & united the colors of my mod crimson sofa & crazy tropical print drapes (also Anthropologie) in an unexpectedly harmonious din.  And yes, I know that is an oxymoron, but then so is my house. 

I had cleaned out Home Depot’s precut Plexi shelf, buying the 9” x 11” sheets by the dozens.  To create a floating appearance, I sandwiched the gouache prints between 2 sheets, using black binder clips top & bottom to hold all together.  I had 2 boxed sets of the prints, a dozen per box.  Midway through mounting them, I found a pile of orchid photos I had printed on vellum & hadn’t affixed to boxes.  Sandwiched between the Plexi sheets & atop the cigar box display shelves, slightly tilted to allow light through the picture, these orchid images fairly glow. 

So I mixed the plain & printed boxes, Anthropologie prints & my photos, threw in a couple of mercury glass candlesticks & a little yellow enamelware teapot, & now my walls speak volumes.  It may not be a language to everyone’s liking, but it suits me just fine.  It is impossible to be depressed in that house.

Next project:  the ‘sledbed’ room.  Stay tuned!

Fabric (of my being?)

Hi.  My name is Lea Ann & I am addicted to fabric.

Latest project--my porch!

Hi Lea Ann (you freak!). 

 

I can’t claim hoarder status because at 51 I wasn’t alive during the Depression, nor did I lose all my belongings in a natural disaster.  I just really, REALLY like upholstery fabric…in large quantities. Rarely do I buy it in rolls of less than 15 yards…because you never know when you might need to recover a sectional sofa…or make drapes for a room full of windows…or…OK, I have a problem. 

 

The porch is an outdoor room here

This week I’ve been turning that problem into pure joy—sewing up a radically bright facelift for my bedroom.  My house footprint is small & manageable, only topping 1000 square feet when you include the spacious covered porch.  The reason it doesn’t feel cramped, & one of the biggest selling points for me when I bought it is the beamed cathedral ceilings. I grew up in a house with vaulted ceilings, & as a result can’t stand squinchy, stingy, low-ceilinged dark spaces.  Here in the land of a whole lotta sunshine, open spaces seem even more appealing. 

 

That said, the ‘master’ bedroom (truly a misnomer since the one large-ish bathroom in my house doesn’t attach to anything other than a hallway) has a rather ridiculously small footprint for the giant ‘sledbed’ that was & is lodged in there.  The previous owners of my house were a wonderful young, international family who relocated to the husband’s native Switzerland so their bilingual toddler & his baby sister could become TRI-lingual while their brains were still sponge-like.  They already spoke English & Mom’s native Mexican Spanish, but for these sharp, energetic people, two languages & cultures weren’t enough.  Since they were relocating from the US Virgin Islands to Switzerland, they were traveling light & not taking their furniture.  Some had already been parsed out to island friends before I bought the place, but since I was moving from a furnished rental apartment to this first house of my own, I needed what they didn’t & negotiated a package deal for some of the remaining furnishings. 

 

Enter the ‘sledbed.’  This was how the husband described the sleigh bed to me when we were striking our deal, & the name stuck among my friends.  It is a beautiful bed & I loved it immediately.  Philippe was a reasonable man & I paid a reasonable price.  Which is a good thing because it doesn’t come out of that room without tools & possibly a shoe horn & a tub of Crisco.  So there she sits, dark & large & well…THERE. 

 

In the five years since, I’ve had blasphemous visions of painting the dark rich wood cream or white…or of removing the inset panels in the head & footboards & replacing them with caning (I have 2 rolls of caning—don’t ask) to allow light through…or sawing the footboard off completely & using it as a headboard for the bed in the spare room…or of making a tie-on slipcover in Belgian linen (OK, they’re painters’ tarps I got on sale from Home Depot, but after they’re washed they LOOK like Belgian linen).  And yet there it sits, like a shipwreck on a sandbar, enormous & imposing & unchanged.

 

So I sewed.  (and sewed & sewed).  I keep a white duvet on the beds in both rooms, allowing me to accessorize with any color I choose & change looks on a whim.  Aside from the dark, warm wood tone of the bed, the other furnishings in that room are honeyed shades of split bamboo & the walls are a creamy Danish yellow.  And of course the ceiling beams are espresso colored. 

 

So, I went ‘spectral sunrise,’ (to coin a phrase)--  hot geranium, ‘push up’ orange & warm yellow shams on the 3 sets of bed pillows.  A slightly more elegant orange & khaki print linen that reads old Hawaii to me for the closet drape & tailored cover for the corner shelves.  A warm yellow cushion sham for the oddly proportioned wooden chair in the corner (dubbed a slipper chair because it is low enough to be conducive to put on slippers…or heels) And I had already made a wall arrangement of orchid prints & cigar boxes interspersed with cut recycled metal framed mirrors from up island (Puerto Rico & Hispanola).  And the inspiration for the whole room—the Tjord Boontje laser cut drapey paper lantern that looks like curtains of flowers & leaves in shades of red, rose & orange. 

 

It feels like a successful transformation.  The lantern glows at night & the colors glow during the daylight.  When I wake up & look around I am energized, happy & inspired…to tackle the next bedroom!

Buss Up Shut

Buss Up Shut by Lea Ann Robson



Bread Nut after boiling & draining, or the start of Buss Up Shut?

As I’ve mentioned, St. Croix is a wonderful ‘mash up’ of cultures, flags, traditions, & people.  Today was a great example.  I had dinner with my two favorite ‘Southern Suitors’, my dear friends Miles & Philip.  Among the local restaurants we tend to have our favorites & form our ruts, but tonight we branched out a bit & tried a lovely bistro called Salud.  There we had a wonderful array of tapas that I feel sure would rate well with any food critic, anywhere.  But my culinary adventures weren’t over for tonight.

When I got home I remembered a kindness my friend Joan gave me as a holiday treat this morning.  She vends (colorful wraps, bags, & pretty much everything else!) next to me by the sea when the ships are in & has become a great friend.  She is from Trinidad, has a voice you’ll never forget once you hear it, & a fiendish sense of humor.  She also has a work ethic & positive outlook that is rare.  She packs a substantial amount of wisdom in her not so substantial frame, put her kids through school & is a veritable dynamo.  She loves to garden, & makes all manner of local fruit preserves, jams & chutneys that are a big hit with patrons of our annual Agricultural Festival.  We chat a lot while vending & the topic is frequently gardening or cooking. 

So Monday when the Jewel of the Seas was in port, we were gabbing about what is growing & what we’re doing with it & she mentioned she had a bread nut tree laden with nuts.  Bread nut trees have longer ‘fingers’ on their giant hand-shaped leaves than the more common Breadfruit, & breadnuts have a mild flavor & texture that I loved when I tried them a few years ago, kind of like a cross between a chestnut and a fingerling potato.  I mentioned I liked them, & this morning she had me stop at her veggie stand in front of Ag Fair grounds to pick up the bag of nuts she had cleaned for me.  She told me they still need to be boiled, & I thanked her & rushed off to my other job. 

It wasn’t until after dinner out this evening that I remembered I needed to boil the nuts…& I had no idea about the specifics so I typed the question into my phone & as always, up came multiple answers.  I found one website, simplytrinicooking.com that had several pertinent entries.  The most interesting posts were from ‘Felix,’ who seemed trustworthy if colorful in his advice.  So I boiled the nuts (as he said) for 25 minutes in a deep pot of water, added salt (no idea how much—Felix doesn’t work from specifics) & boiled them 25 minutes more.  They are resting in their water as I write, & we’ll see if I made Felix proud or filled him with shame. 

Some of the breadnut curry recipes on that website were very interesting, but their names are more so than the actual recipe.  One recipe is called Buss Up Shut, & if I have success with the nuts, I may get brave & try that…mostly for the opportunity to say that name to people!

Independence Day(S) by Lea Ann Robson

So today we’re in the midst of our second day celebrating independence.  True to our love of excessive holidays here in the islands, we celebrate TWO versions of independence days, one on July 3^rd and the Continental states’ version on July 4^th. 

Granted we’ve been somewhat justifiably accused of ‘padding’ & fabricating holidays, but on the other hand there are a couple Federal holidays that really make little sense here—Columbus day comes to mind.  Hard to dedicate a day of praise to a guy who in effect invaded your shores (we did kind of hand him his lunch though).  Presidents’ Day is another quandary, given that as a Territory we are unable to vote in Presidential elections.  We fix it by using that weekend to throw our annual AgriFest (see earlier posts) & invite people from all the islands & the mainland to see how the ‘island half’ lives it up. 

And we have a couple of holidays that make sense only from our perspective:  Hurricane Supplication Day & Hurricane Thanksgiving.  The first occurs at the beginning of storm season & is celebrated by the sending up of prayers for peace & tropical weather inactivity.  The second falls in November & is dedicated to giving thanks for surviving yet another storm season (Note:  In 1995 after I lost a business to Hurricane Marilyn, I thought I could forgo the second holiday but stood corrected by a local friend who educated me otherwise.  We’re giving thanks for life, not for possessions, so thanks I gave.) 

So, while you might be tempted to think declaring two independence days is a bit over the top & just some extension of the relaxed island attitude, there is an important reason to celebrate both days here on St. Croix.  You know all about the Fourth, so here is the reasoning behind the Third:  July 3^rd represents Emancipation Day on St. Croix.

In 1847 King Christian of Denmark decreed that all Danish West Indian enslaved people would be free within twelve years.  On July 2^nd 1848, the oppressed people on St. Croix decided the twelve year projection was eleven years too long & that drastic measures were necessary.  Led by General Bordeaux (a.k.a. General Buddhoe), they massed in Frederiksted on the West end of St. Croix & threatened to burn the town (especially the government buildings) to the ground if swift freedom was not granted to them.  Danish Governor-General von Scholten did a much quicker risk/reward calculation than modern politicians seem capable of handling, realized the numbers & potential bloodshed, & on July 3^rd, 1848 from the battery of Fort Frederik issued a proclamation that freed the enslaved Danish West Indians.  His decision was unpopular with the island’s plantation managers, & three days later he was forced to resign his post.  He was exiled to Trinidad while a provisional government was put into place & Spanish soldiers were dispatched from Trinidad to prevent further bloodshed & unrest (though termed ‘the Bloodless Rebellion,’ that wasn’t completely accurate).  Despite this attempted rally by the landowners’ version of an ‘old boys’ club,’ there was no going back & freedom, once granted could not be rescinded.

Each year the anniversary of Emancipation Day is commemorated by large groups of islanders who walk the 15.4 MILES from Fort Christavern to Fort Frederik.  They start before dawn but as July is definitely NOT the coolest month in STX & given the advanced age of some of the participants, this is a real sacrifice & fitting tribute to the bravery & strength of their ancestors. 

Here’s to Independence and however you choose to celebrate it.  This year fireworks will return to the pier in Frederiksted, & we’ll be there, once again looking up.

Refuge, Reuse, Recycle

Frangipani, used in Hawaii to make Leis of Welcome

A couple of days ago there was an article in our local paper, the St. Croix Avis, about a group of 20 Cuban refugees who had barely survived the dangerous passage from their island to our island of St. Croix.  As I read the article, I was surprised that anybody would choose this direction & distance as a path of escape.  The youngest refugee was 15 years old. He came with his mother, who was seeking a place where she could speak and live freely. She wanted better for her son.

It is not a new story.  Some of the details surprised me though.

For instance, one of the group was a 31 year old IT guy.  In his case, his father had urged him to go.  And I started thinking about why people make long, risky treks in search of something different.

This group was seeking escape from external conditions over which they had no control.  Others of us had different motivations.

For many of us who had what would typically be considered a stable, if not enviable life in the continental US, close relatives & safe jobs, the reasons aren't that clear to the observer.  Personally I was running to, not away from something.  Instead of a shot at a better life, I was looking to St. Croix as a place to find my better self.  I wanted my life to mean more than traffic & paperwork & taxes & conspicuous consumption, because those were the pivot points it hinged on at the time.  At least once a week I wondered why quiet desperation seemed so damn loud in my head.

It turned out the silencer was to leave dry land completely, floating in the edge of the Caribbean Sea.  A bonus was the fact our soil grows a huge array of plants, & since that is my other mental balm, I found exactly what I sought. 

But back to the real refugees.  They are being temporarily housed in a local High School, & the Red Cross is attending to their basic needs.  Since they made it to land, they will be allowed to stay on our Island & the agents from Customs & Border Protection spent a few days sorting that out with each arrival.  And then they ran out of bureaucracy to occupy their time. 

So on Friday they went to our Botanical Garden.  There they found someone who spoke Spanish and beautiful grounds with no doubt familiar plants.  They got to relax & wander & start to recover from their journey. 

I hope they found the two things long distance travelers usually seek:  refuge & hope. 


Pictures my symbols of hope:  Plantains in Progress (above) & Pomegranates (below)

I Have the Need...for Seed, by Lea Ann Robson

Blooming Pineapple

Every year at this time peoples’ fancies (whatever that means) turn to Spring cleaning, & despite the lack of a temperature variant here in St. Croix, I’m not exempt.  My urge is also propelled by the fact my Mom finally succumbs to my pleas to visit around Mothers’ Day, thus making my usually benevolent view of my piles of stuff a little more critical.

 



Bumper Pineapple Crop!

I frequently joke that I have ADD, as in Artistic Deficit Disorder.  I have a zillion ideas, most of which I start in some format or fashion…& abandon for some other newer, better idea shortly thereafter.  Fortunately or unfortunately (perspective?), I have materials for nearly everything I think of…SOMEWHERE.  So in addition to the piles of half finished projects, there is always the trail of unrelated stuff I had to unearth to find those materials. At 51, I know myself well enough to realize that if I stopped to put away everything I dragged out, I’d lose momentum & never even start the project before grinding to an unsatisfying, overwhelmed halt. The difference between 51 & 21 is that you recognize that trait in yourself & are more forgiving of the resultant piles of ‘potential’ strewn everywhere. 

 

Potential is alternately my absolute favorite & most despised word.  The other day it caused me to decide the strangler fig vines my friends were pulling out of the Botanical Garden & heaping up to discard MUST BE RESCUED from that fate & stuffed in the hatch of my car so I could take them home & MAKE Baskets & trellises, & furniture & EVERYTHING!  (Sorry, the manic phase frequently comes out in all caps…no control over that).  When I got home, despite the fact it was misting rain, I was so enthused about the project I sat right down on my stoop in the rain & started a basket…at least I think it was a basket…like Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I fear I may have switched the plans & been ‘knitting a Brazillian ranch house instead of a sweater.’ 

 

After I spent about 45 minutes & had a respectable start, it was quite dark out & had begun to seriously rain…& I hadn’t eaten in hours.  You can guess the rest.  Five days later I got sick of tripping over the pile of vines & the basket nubbin, & hucked it into a nearby bush so I could continue later…who knows when?

 

The rain continued all day Saturday, a beautiful, tropical, straight down I mean business Spring rain that thrilled my pineapple plants & banana trees, overflowed my rainbarrel & impelled me to run out in the downpour with every container I could grab, catching the gushing cistern overflow & putting it aside to water plants when the dry season comes.  My normally much more sensible dog Mu even decided there must be some reason I stood in streaming water, so she came out & got completely waterlogged watching me.  No doubt she was trying to figure out how to protect me from my feeble-minded self. 

 



Waterlemon Bloom

It was only later that I remembered the seeds I had planted in containers a few nights prior, no doubt getting the hoo-hingus beat out of them & most probably sloshing right out of their pots in the downpours.  I had planted several varieties of dwarf sunflowers, basils & zinnias, 3 heirlooms plus one yellow pear tomato variety, cucumbers, green cantaloupe, & no doubt something else I forgot in several planters & small pots.  It is probably quite telling that all the seed packets denoted the contents were packed for 2012 planting.  Yes, I got distracted last year & didn’t get them in the ground when I should have…no doubt because I started some other project midstream.

 

This morning I noticed several different varieties of seed sprouting in odd clumps, not where I had planted them but instead where they washed to.  I’m still heartened by  the sight of sprouts—the epitome of potential.

 

This weekend I made a pendant light by adding a fringe of gem drops to a boring linen shade cylinder.  I actually finished this project & followed all the way through to getting out my cordless drill & mounting hanging hooks.  The light looks very warm, glowy & inviting as I had hoped. 

 

For those keeping score, that is one project completed for the 278 started this year.   

 

I might up that ratio this week when I (possibly) finish a fun cigar box purse I’m working on.  It is actually the product of some past potential idea, wherein I had embroidered an orchid on an old jeans leg I thought I’d use as a panel in a cloth purse I was going to make.  I found the panel when I was digging for hat patterns (don’t ask!) & decided it was pretty cute.  It also coordinated with the hand-painted plaid I had done on the other side of the box.  So I cut a square of batting from some other abandoned project, used my staple gun & upholstered the 2^nd side of the cigar box.  I have an upcycled denim belt I’ll apply as the strap, & some coordinating vintage fabric to line the interior & after I apply trim around the edges, I may actually have something else finished…maybe.

 

At least no one can say I don’t live up to my potential…more like I hope to live long enough to realize all the potential I’ve started!

 

Happy Spring!    

Zone Envy by Lea Ann Robson

Pineapple w/limb full of mangos

I’ve been outside, gleefully planting in the mud.    My genetic clock refuses to be reset, despite 21 years away from the West Virginia hometown where these seasonal markers make sense.  It has to be some hindbrain function, as completely entrenched & unreachable as the tap-rooted weeds popping up through my stone patio. 

Ground Orchid cluster

At 2am, I was pounding a Phillips head screwdriver into my yard & wiggling it to make spaces for my new solar lights.  After that I planted hot pink, crimson & scarlet Kalanchoes in my yellow planters…because in spring we plant flowers…no matter how many are already blooming year-round in the tropics.  Lately Home Depot (oh, my beloved Home Depot) is chock full of continentals (stateside transplants), mostly women close to my age, filling carts with anachronistic bedding plants & bags of soil, in some knee-jerk reaction to Spring.  If our brainwave activity had a verbal interpretation, it would read “MUST DIG & PLANT…MUST DIG & PLANT,” like some Cro-Magnon tickertape printout. 

External cues are so different here.  Spring’s rays of light are of the longer, golden variety reserved for autumn in the continental states.  Mahogany trees actually drop their shiny leaves in the spring, with each breeze initiating an insane leaf dance that is at once graceful & leathery…& confusing. 

And yet these tropical tricks don’t still the impulse to add more flowers, plant herbs & vegetables, & to start over. 

Waterlemon (passion fruit family) bloom

The do-over is a common thread here.  Many of us came to St. Croix because something wasn’t working, wasn’t quite right where we were & we hoped this big leap of locale would hit our reset switch, knock us out of the groove we were wearing in our lives, & give us the new perspective we sought.  For many of us, it worked spectacularly.  For others, not so much. 

Even for the successful transplants, certain ingrained behaviors were either hard to shake, or reappeared after we had initially overcome them.   Though I’ve long since abandoned stockings & heels, I still tend to overdress in defiance of the casual chic vibe here.  It was part of the identity I wasn’t willing to jettison, regardless of the impracticality in this environment. 

So for 21 years, when March, April, & May roll around & despite the fact I have to concentrate hard every morning to even determine what month it is (our temperature only varies 5-10 degrees, year round), my brain says plant, & so plant I do. 

Some of us long to be able to grow things they left behind, & Home Depot’s packing policy fuels that nostalgia.  When they have room in garden supply containers bound for our islands, Home Depot packs empty spaces with whatever plants they have in abundance, regardless of their zonal incompatibility.  The latest is one of my favorites, Hydrangeas.  I love the shape of their leaves, their flower colors, & the fact they’re a living science experiment with flower hues indicating the acidity of the soil.  HD’s massed displays of the short shrubs are so tempting, even knowing what I know about how miserable they will be here.  Like dieting, frequently that denial of what we instinctually crave causes a pendulum swing & a binge the other direction.

Kalanchoes

So I planted Kalanchoes instead.   Lots of Kalanchoes.  Everywhere.

The subverted need to plant tomatoes popped out the other side & I planted instead the local substitute for cilantro—Recao.  It has a broader, long leaf with serrated edges, & when a shower hits them after a day of sun, the scent released is fresh & clean.  I also grow lots of lemongrass & several varieties of basil.  The lemongrass blob is huge & clippings infuse most everything I cook, most of the year.  I steep it with basmati rice, steam it with asparagus spears (imports, I’m sad to say) & Brussels sprouts (they grow here as do most cruciferous veggies—leggy but functional).   

I pound the base of the lemongrass stalks & steep them with lemon bay rum leaves, peppermint tea bags & a generous amount of Lipton bags to make a fragrant iced tea & a wonderful smelling house. 

A note here about tomatoes:  I have successfully grown heirloom varieties here, if you accept success as smaller & more sparse fruit that tastes pretty wonderful anyway.  A couple of their small, peppery slices on a sandwich with whole wheat bread quell any longing for pretty much anything.  And of course the season is almost here for mangos, Surinam cherries & my favorite pineapples, along with bananas… bananas… bananas (not a complaint, merely a statement of plenty).

Dendrobium Andree Millar
 

So as soon as the rain slacks a bit I’ll be back outside, drilling drain holes in planters, flopping big bags of soil from place to place & planting sunflowers, zinnias…& heirloom tomatoes.  (That sandwich sounded too good to pass up.) 

Happy Spring, regardless of what zone you’re in!

Nothing Happens in a Vacuum, by Lea Ann Robson

 

Or so they told us in science class, but I’m not sure they knew the scope of that statement.   Yesterday I opened an envelope full of clippings from my Mom.  I’m over 50 now & she still clips & sends things she finds useful…or interesting…or hopeful. I still look forward to reading them. Yesterday the envelope was full of photos & lines about the Special Olympics held near her Gulf Coast Florida home.  Her primary reason for sending them was for the pictures of the local police officers who were volunteering with the Special Olympics.  She did it so I could put faces to the names of the coworkers she mentions frequently & with more than a little pride.  She volunteers with the force, & though I’m definitely biased I take the fact that she was just given the Volunteer of the Year Award as proof I’m not the only one who values her sizeable contribution. 

 

I too am more than a little proud.

 

So, after recognizing nearly all the captioned names for the officers pictured, I read the attached article.  I laughed as I read about the 8 year old runner who was so overjoyed with his race that he just kept running…& running…eventually necessitating an impromptu chase by his Mother & a couple of volunteers before his energy could be contained…

And then, like a swift punch came the memory that other headlines yesterday described another 8 year old, another race, & an unimaginably different outcome. 

In my mind now, those two 8 year olds & their stories are permanently linked.  I won’t ever again see the photos of the victim without seeing those of the victor in that other race.

And I’ll see the volunteers & first responders in both races…and rely on those images to move forward.  

Darwin & Do-Overs, by Lea Ann Robson

Twenty years ago I hit St. Croix like a trop storm, all full of random energy going every which way.  I had just turned thirty & was coming from a type A job (Claims Rep) in the type A capital of the free world—Maryland/D.C.  I had adapted to that life fairly well despite being, in actuality, about a type G minus. 

 

So when our pipe-dream became (against all odds) a reality & we moved to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, I made that landing complete with a shiny resume’ chock full of declarative statements & action verbs, a suitcase full of power suits, & several pairs of very controlling control-top pantyhose.

 

Despite a Liberal Arts degree & multiple, seemingly unrelated majors & minors, I had only worked at one profession since I graduated & so my paper pedigree appeared much more focused & driven than the actual me.  So I hit sort of a paradise catch 22.  I needed a paycheck, so I sought jobs my resume’ said I was suited to (pun intended) & papered all the local insurance agencies with my applications.    

 

I tried to ignore the long, gaping looks & sniggering reactions to my forthright self, my linen-textured resume’ & the aforementioned control-tops.  In twenty-odd offices I was variously ignored, tolerated, placated, blown off, or met with ringing silence comparable to what a kangaroo might encounter upon trying to hail a taxi or order a latte. 

 

So, having been a lifelong fan of Darwin, I took a step back, sized up the preposterousness of my approach, & calculated how best to adapt & survive in this new environment.  At last seeing it through the eyes of those I had approached, I finally laughed at what they found funny—this typing-paper-white woman dressed in ridiculously inappropriate-to-the-heat garb, presenting a piece of paper that might just as well have stated “I have no idea where I am & I won’t last 6 months here, so please give me a job!”  Once I saw it as they did, I lost my nerve & knew I had to have an alternate plan.

 

So I went home & built my loom.

 

Not kidding, that is really what I did. 

 

My loom today, displaying another product of ADD (Artistic Deficit Disorder), My painted Cigar Boxes



How do you get a floor loom in the tropics, you might ask.  You persuade your then-husband a weaving business on a beautiful island can be viable, convincing him that shipping all your belongings through the USPS packed in yarn would keep them safe & secure (which it did—only one broken bowl in 33 boxes).  You cajole him into believing the financial & logistical commitment to shipping 5 huge boxes of unfinished loom parts from Maryland to St. Croix will be a stellar proposition. 

 

Facing the pile of adult-sized tinker toys that would become my loom, I was reminded that I had NO mechanical ability, construction experience, or other aptitude for such a task.  And so, remembering the bemused faces as they read my resume’, I built it anyway. 

 

I sanded all the pieces of hardwood carefully, then applied & wiped off a coat of ½ linseed oil & ½ paint thinner.  With the first coat the wood had the tone of light clover honey, & by the second it glowed a warm amber.  The process made the wood irresistible to my fingers, & twenty years later I still absently drag my hand along the front beam when I pass it in my living room, delighting to the satiny cool feel (& knocking off some of the dust of disuse, without accepting liability for it).

 

Not being a husband, I felt no compulsion to discard instruction sheets & instead poured over them as if they contained the secrets of DNA.  I lined up wooden & metal pieces as they appeared on the written sheet, as if that would cause it to magically self-assemble.  When that failed, I rose above my inabilities like a dyslexic swan-diving into Tolstoy, and after a week of uber-concentration mixed with trial & error, I had a functioning floor loom that would weave cloth 48” (or doubled, with a fold on one side—96”) wide. 

 

Or at least it would have if I hadn’t warped it upside down.  Yup.  I got so excited at my new building skills I forgot all others, namely the steps to dress the loom in preparation for weaving.  I had been repeating these steps hundreds of times since I learned to weave at 12 years old, but this was the first time that the threads ended up bypassing the back beam entirely.  I had painstakingly accomplished all the other steps, including gridding the pattern on graph paper, winding yards of fine yarn so that the threads weren’t tangled together, cranking the length on the back beam, threading each yarn end through each metal eye & the metal reed in the appropriate order, & finally tying the yarn to the rod under the front beam in groups, adjusting & re-adjusting so each thread was held in equal tension to all the others. 

 

But somehow I had threaded under instead of over the back beam.  This meant the tension would be impossible to maintain & therefore all that work would be pointless & I’d have to slice off & discard my beautiful silk threads. 

 

I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  So, I stepped back, studied the problem & tried to adapt. 

 

There was a pile of scrap wood on the porch of our little cottage.  It was the remains of a tiki bar some oil refinery workers (the previous tenants) had built on the back deck.  I found a 2 x 4 the appropriate length, but it had seen better days & was too rough & catchy to get anywhere near the fine silk, even after sanding. 

 

So I got a roll of Cutrite Waxed paper & covered the 2 x 4 as a  faux beam, inserted it under the warp near the beam that should have been under the warp, & happily started stomping pedals & wham-whamming the reed against the rapidly forming new cloth.  It wasn’t perfect or easy, but it worked & that fabric means more to me than any other I’ve made. 

 

These were only my FIRST adaptations to life here in this strange paradise.  I can’t remember or even count most of the rest. 

 

And now, two decades later that same loom stands covered not in threads, but in carved & painted cigar boxes, one of my other projects.  Beautiful lining fabrics are folded & stacked nearby & the finished pieces will be a feature at my Agriculture Fair booth on President’s Day weekend.  I’ve adapted them into purses, jewelry & treasure boxes, & while I make sure they are still recognizable in their origins, I like to think I’ve added charm & function with what I’ve done. 

 



AgriFest 2013 From the C Booth

Ag Fair may be different this year, because we’ve lost so many residents due to our refinery closing, July of 2012.  St. Croix is facing challenges of epic scale, & the joy on our tourists’ faces is sometimes met with lines of concern on those of the residents.  Fortunately, every visitor’s smile is a reminder of what we have here, what we can offer others, and how important it will be for us to choose carefully how we will adapt.  As a part of this community, I hope & believe we will do so by maintaining our numerous treasures, adding charm & improving function.