Frog Blog, by Lea Ann Robson

One of the orchids on my porch

How many times in your life have you cut a corner, knowing the probable outcome but somehow feeling you’ll be exempt…because you’re a good person?  You answer your cell while you’re driving…or you wear heels in weather only suited for boots.  You rock back on two legs of a chair…or you floor it to catch an orange light (yellow that changes to red while you’re under it).  You write a check to pay a bill, hoping the one you deposited has cleared & you’ll have funds to cover it. 

 

Just as it is human nature to tempt fate, we try to distance ourselves from preventable disaster…after the fact.  We pass a fender bender & think somebody involved did something WRONG (in all caps, whereas we never do anything more than wrong, all lower case).   You slip & fall flat of your arse in a snow bank, those impractical heels sticking out like an inverted turtle’s flippers.  You NEVER saw it coming…except of course you did.

 

Last night I awoke from a sofacoma, & dragged my still half asleep body around the house setting things up for my early morning today.  I washed the dinner dishes I had left in the sink, squinting to read the time on the microwave display:  3:20am.  Ugh. I set up the coffee maker, getting a short-lived boost from sniffing the freshly ground espresso roast.  I filled my dog’s food & water bowls.  I picked an outfit.  I was stepping into the shower when it hit me—I had forgotten to water the plants on the porch.  Most are orchids & several have buds, & long & short, I couldn’t ignore them.  So, clothes back on & out I went. 



One of the orchids on the porch

 

I didn’t bother to flip the switch for the porch light, thinking the less my neighbors could see of my hasty dressing job, the better.  I was happy to find my watering can full.  When I finished with the can, I uncovered the bucket of water I keep to dunk the beautiful cascading orchid that was a birthday gift for my 50^th from my best friend.  The makeshift lid doesn’t really cover the top of the bucket entirely, but I did it to discourage the frogs from setting up housekeeping & having babies in there. 

 

I have NOTHING against normal frogs.  I’m grateful they eat mosquitoes.  I even make ‘Christmas Coqui’ ornaments—styled to look like Puerto Rico’s beloved frog mascots.  Unfortunately, we don’t have normal frogs, and I’m not alone in my disdain for them. 

 

We have light sandy-white colored frogs that burrow in potting soil around your plants, or hide atop the roof support pillars of your house.   That isn’t so bad, but couple it with their attitude, & you’ve got an evil reptile.  When startled, our frogs spray liquid at you with the zeal of a department store perfume girl, trying to meet a quota.  I won’t go into what frogs spray, but trust me it isn’t perfume, & it stains. (Pause for inevitable “ICK.”)  

 

And so last night, just like the caution-light runner, or in-car texter, or inadvertent ice dancer, I pulled the lid off the bucket in the dark, knowing what might happen, but believing somehow that it wouldn’t…couldn’t…and then there was a frog on my face.  He landed with a wet, suctiony ‘SCHWAP’ on my right cheek as I slung my head violently to send him sailing off the porch & into the bougainvillea.

 

Fortunately, I didn’t think he had time to squirt at me (no doubt because I am a good person).

 

I ran back inside, dropped my clothes in a pile & stepped into the shower.

And then the power went off.

The Breakfast Club, by Lea Ann Robson

As a kid I judged the quality of vacation days by the number of wet bathing suits draped over the porch furniture by sundown.  Now I’m 50, & happy to say I judge weekdays that way. 

The sea was a little too riled up to snorkel this morning at dawn, but I wore my mask to try to avoid large rock & coral formations that might prove dangerous when coupled with the surge. Even trying to pick glass out of the shallows before I got in, I was nearly knocked on my fanny.  I took some comfort in the presence of the ‘breakfast club,’ the gang of retired people who gather to bob in the surf & talk politics & current events most mornings.  Some of them move slowly or may need a cane to walk on land, but they take their ritual soak in the sea even when it is rougher than I like.  I suppose they’ve been through hurricanes & rougher things than the surf that gives me pause.

What I do with my Quarry (sea glass pendants)

It was too rough to stay in the shallows next to the rocks, so I swam out a bit, past the coral formations I know by heart.  Today they were shrouded in opaque aqua surf & the only thing I could make out startled me—a large spotted eagle ray.  He had a full length tail unlike a lot of the rays who have had close encounters with boats, & I initially noticed him because he tipped to the right & a ray of bright sunlight hit his white belly. 

 

As I swam back, I was able to grab a couple of pieces of glass before the surf tried to yank them out of my hands.  I realized as I struggled back onto the beach that though my collection bag was lighter than it had been in ages, I’m glad I came to the beach.  I’m ALWAYS glad I come to the beach, no matter what the conditions.

A Tale of Two Turkeys, by Lea Ann Robson

Mu, who is thankful for a nap spot

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, which makes today the infamous Black Friday.  Though I’ve never been much of a ‘joiner,’ I toyed with the idea that getting up at 4am to be in line for the 5am opening of Home Depot might be fun…for a lark.  And then I woke up.

 

Let me preface by saying I LOVE HOME DEPOT.  Oh, & by the way, did I mention how much I care for HOME DEPOT?  In September of 2011, we did join the crowd thronging (whatever that actually means?) in front of the new HD here on St. Croix.  We stood in the sun in the parking lot, listened to the speeches, watched the ribbon-cutting, & got caught up in the excitement.  Excitement, I’m happy to say, that hasn’t yet worn off.  I quip to friends that I’m going to Home Depot…where (as at Tiffany’s, according to Holly Golightly) nothing bad can ever happen to you. 

 

They were kind enough to build the store just over the hill from where I work, enabling me (in the addictive sense of that word) to make an excuse to stop there two or three times a week on my way home.  I might have something on my list to legitimize the trip or more likely not, but I rarely leave without something in hand guaranteed to improve my home, my yard, or my life.  (Did I tell you how I feel about Home Depot?)

 

This morning, the lure to leave my bed at 4am was strong, as they were chumming for me with $2.50 potted poinsettias (limit 12).  Visions of red danced in my head, in window boxes on my porch railing, mounded on my stoop, EVERYWHERE I could fit a plant.  I tried to con friends into going with me to buy their ‘limit 12’ & sell them to me.  I studied the ad & made a list of other things I ‘needed’ to make me seem less silly than if I did what I was really doing— just going for poinsettias. 

 

I had a lovely plan wherein I would get up at 4, arrive at HD at 5, coffee in hand, & then be at the beach by 7 for a swim…all before work.  And then I started watching “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” last night & when I finished at 2:30am, the plan was history. 

My Herb bed (At the far left & right edges are poinsettias)

 

And then I realized the SHOULD spell was broken…just as it had been the day before when I ignored Thanksgiving ‘peer pressure,’ worked, swam, & ate (Lost Dog Pub) pizza instead.  My one concession came from a thoughtful co-worker who brought me slices of pumpkin & apple pie.  They were wonderful, & still I’m not plagued with the guilt of a fridge full of leftovers, turkey or otherwise.    

 

As for tradition, I held to one for this holiday.  I GAVE THANKS…but then again I do that daily here.  At sunset my friends & I were in the sea watching a gorgeous raspberry-tinged sunset…& we gave thanks.  And for the freedom to think & act as we want, not as we ‘must’ here on this island of misfit toys, I give thanks again & again. 

Bounty (No Threat of Mutiny), by Lea Ann Robson

My sink, brimful of mangos...again

This morning, like most mornings here in St. Croix, produced much for which I’m thankful.  Regardless of my GPS locale, I’m still an American & so I’ll make a short list (because that’s what we do).  I am thankful for, & in no particular order:

FAMILY, both by birth & by choice.  For my Mom & Dennis in Florida, & my other ‘chosen’ family here on the island (& in Texas for the moment—fill up on turkey & tortillas & get your tuchas home!), I am grateful beyond words…all evidence to the contrary!  I know how lucky I am to be surrounded (near & far) by people who ‘get it,’ & who make every day interesting & goofy & worthy of a little sappy sentiment, so there!  Living this far from the mainland for two decades means I get to ‘choose’ my island family, & I’m fortunate to surround myself with a fascinating group of kindred souls with divergent interests.  We get called down in restaurants for having too much fun, & manage to make mundane tasks like shopping into events simply by going together.  We bob around in the surf & show each other our finds like big kids on a treasure hunt.   IMPORTANT NOTE here:  I’ve been verbally groveling to my much loved real family, my Mom, trying to squeeze a visit out of her.  Maybe if I write it here, she’ll consider it?  (Shameless huckstering acknowledged.)



Mu, pondering her yard

If you’ve met me, you know I also count among my ‘family’ my delightful Tasmanian devil of a dog, Mu.  And you know how grateful I am for how she improves every day of life, as all our mutts do for all of us. 

 

I am thankful for the ridiculous bounty of nature here on the island & more particularly in my yard.  I was filling my watering cans from the overflowing cistern this morning (rain barrel is already brimming) & tromped around the wet grass to check produce progress.  Both little Carambola (starfruit) trees are chock full of waxy fruit in hues from chartreuse to pumpkiny orange.  The one that produces larger fruit also supports a water lemon vine (passion fruit family, small fuzzy fruit that look like lemons wearing scalloped green ‘hats’ (sepals or calyx?).  The pineapple plants are growing by leaps & bounds & the ones in the ‘nursery’ (potted, but not in the ground) are begging to be planted.  Four big bunches of various types of bananas & plantains are hanging, fat & happy & growing by the day.  And the Julie mango tree has a stray, off-season mango hanging there ripening (& no doubt beaconing stray horses that will hang over my fence & try to ‘prig’it, ie. grab & run). 

But the surprise of the morning was cherries!  I have been busy making jewelry & ornaments & obviously wasn’t paying attention to the giant Surinam Cherry bush below my porch.  I vaguely remember smelling some sweet something on the breeze one night when I was watering the orchids, but the source didn’t register at the time.  So there they were this morning, looking like little squishy red pumpkins.  One fell off in my hand as I was inspecting it, which is the test for ripeness.  If you have to tug to get the fruit free, it isn’t ready & for the most part isn’t edible.  Like a lot of tropical fruit, Surinam cherry has an acrid taste that only dissipates when the sugars overwhelm it, ie. when it is almost overripe.  The cherry bush is taller than I am & willowy, with an appearance a lot like what we called Bridal Wreath bush back in Maryland & West Virginia.  The white bloom isn’t as showy as Bridal Wreath, but the cherries are stunners.  The first one lived up to its promise, too, dissolving on my tongue with that unique flavor somewhere between that of a cherry & a cherry tomato.  Bliss!

After checking all the fruit, I looked at the ornamentals.  Three different white orchids with magenta throats are blooming in the frangipani & sugar apple trees.  Each presents a long spray with parallel rows of big blooms, like a white-gloved sommelier offering a great vintage.  It is even more wonderful when you realize these plants were ‘goners,’ & would surely have croaked if my friend hadn’t advised me to tie them in trees.  He says when an orchid is showing signs of stress it is time to give it what it really wants, which is to live in a tree.  (Wonder if that would work with people?)

And the last oomph from the yard as I got in my car & headed for my other job was that in addition to their usual prolific periwinkle trumpets of bloom, the other variety of Thunbergia against my kitchen door was in full glory.  Three enormous white flowers against the steroid-looking (all natural though, as I don’t water or fertilize those plants at all) giant dark green leaves on the vines.  Obviously those plants are as happy & well-suited to where they are planted as I am, & for that I remain, truly thankful.    

I Cry at Jumbies, by Lea Ann Robson

On ship days, as soon as we set up our seaside booths I get to watch the troupe of three Moko jumbies ‘assemble’ themselves on the wall by Fort Frederick.  These young & lanky guys sit atop the wall & start the transformation process by using rag strips to bind the stilts to their legs.  Then they go through the detailed ritual of covering all portions of their bodies with their costumes, piece by piece.  When they are finished, the only parts remaining uncovered are their eyes. When they rise to full height & lope past my tent, all I can see is the bottoms of their stilts & legs, with the rest carried high above the sightline.   If they know I’m in the tent, one will dip down & wave a gloved hand at me. 

 

Moko Jumbies are the elaborately costumed stilt walkers you’ll see in Frederiksted when the ships are in.  Remarkably agile & well-schooled in their art, they represent vestiges from the West African traditions fused with our usual Caribbean twist.  The lore behind them says they are protectors of the village, scaring off evil as it comes.  We could all use a little more of that.  I’ve been watching these marvelous performers for twenty years now, & it wasn’t until a few years ago that they started affecting me oddly.

 

They are remarkable dancers, maneuvering on stilts in ways I couldn’t dream of on shoes.  They are silent as they perform, swaying & balancing to the DJ’s tunes, & drawing in visitors as audience or even to dance with them.  One of the best days was the perfect example of the cultural ‘mash up’ (Island speak for the collision of objects or ideas) that keeps me falling for this place over & over.  The lead Jumbie was line dancing to Electric Slide (we are a society trapped in amber, & I’ve yet to finish an event or party here without a finale’ involving line dancing).  One by one, ship passengers joined the party, until there was a sea of people at the base of his stilts, all going through the practiced moves & to a person, beaming.  Finally there were 50 or 60 people dancing with him, filling the clock tower park & drawing ‘paparazzi,’ or at least other visitors snapping great shots with their cameras & phones.  It wasn’t planned or staged, just a spontaneous thing (unlike our attempts at flash mobs.  We haven’t got the hang of that yet, & tend to announce them a couple of times before we ‘spontaneously’ break out in…whatever).

 

On another ship day a ‘chain gang’ (all linked together, hand to hand) of local kindergarten students, all wearing slightly oversized red t shirts, flowed past my booth.  Just to my right the Jumbies loped over, & the looks on the tiny kids’ faces were fantastic.  Visitors dropped to the grass on their stomachs to get perspective photos of the kids staring at the towering stilt-walkers, awed & thrilled into a stunned silence, as quiet as the performers.  Most of the students recovered themselves enough to dance a little with the guys, but some were still standing stock still, mouths open as the performers made their way down the street.  They must have wondered at the enormity of all they saw that day, from the willowy Jumbies to the giant ship in port.

 

Jumbies aren’t just born, they’re taught.  Some days when I pass the Education Complex on my way home from my other job, I see the Moko Jumbie class alongside the main road.  Smaller kids start with shorter stilts & bring up the rear.  More experienced students on full-height stilts lead the way with descending ages between them.  These are plain-clothes jumbies, just getting the hang of stilts without the added challenge of costumes.  It is an after-school commitment, so the students don’t have to wear their usual school uniforms.  The older boys wear their baggy jeans.  You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a fourteen year old boy, propped against a flag pole & trying to be cool while strapped to a pair of stilts.  Somehow the fourteen year old girl, still in her plaid uniform & walking past him at street level managed to look unimpressed. 

 

The Jumbies have very special flashy costumes for certain occasions, & they break out their best for our annual St. Croix Agricultural & Food Festival, President’s day weekend every year.  This is the biggest fair in the Caribbean, & I’m proud to participate & show my work there every year.  The event spans three days, but every year local bands and carnival troupes participate in the opening day parade.  And as with all the St. Croix parades (of which there are many), the troupe of Jumbies is front & center.  As the parade wends around the display booths & stage & finally comes to a halt in the center field, they play the National Anthem, followed by the Virgin Islands Anthem, and then there is quiet…followed by a sea of voices reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.  We are all at attention, & high above the crowd, the Jumbies place their gloved hands over their hearts & break their silence to recite.  By the end, they’re just a blur to me as I rifle through my bags to find a paper towel for my silly face.  It always affects me the same way.  

 

I think the evils Jumbies ward off for me are of being complacent & jaded to the unique place that surrounds us, to the traditions before, & to the promise of the future entrusted to us.

And they’re so tall because we’re not supposed to miss all that.  At least that’s my theory!

When Dawn Dawned on Me, by Lea Ann Robson

 

My Mu, who feels about mornings as I do!

My Dad loved to fish.  He had a 15’ army-green Sears Bass boat that I grew to hate long before it capsized in a Kentucky TVA lake & nearly killed him.  It was ugly, & drab, & parked on a trailer in our yard, but I didn’t merely hate its appearance.  I despised its sense of timing.  For some ridiculous reason, it always had to be taken out between 3:30 & 4 AM.  The excuse was that fish preferred this time of day to get caught.  I tried to wrap my head around this logic & as a seven year old, decided they must get hooked while they were yawning. 

 

I’ve always been abominable as a morning person & my parents eventually gave up on changing that, wrapped me in an afghan & bundled me into the back seat of the car on those mornings.   I would wake an hour later to the crinking sound of the winch lowering the boat off the trailer & slipping it into the flat & quiet water.  I had a white Zebco rod with a zebra striped reel, & they spent the day baited & dismissed, resting against the side of the boat.  I was wedged crosswise in the center of the boat, reading Trixie Belden books & ignoring my Dad’s pleas to cast my line at least once. 

 

So I had a pretty strongly-held belief that early rising was a waste of time, & I clung to that even tighter when I realized I had been duped.  Fish are awake all day. Snorkeling in the Caribbean, I have encountered endless schools of all manner of fish…at all times of day.  If my Dad were still alive, he’d tell me that was because I wasn’t fishing & they didn’t feel threatened.  He’d be making my argument for me.  I never had the stomach for fishing, not even for catch & release.  Ironically my Dad was a latent pacifist.  He even collected & refurbished antique guns, only to use them for target practice.  So somewhere, deep within his evolved older self, I think he’d understand (if not agree with) my hesitancy to put a hook in something I enjoy swimming with. 

 

He’d probably only concede this point if I give him the following ‘told you so’ opportunity:  Now I get up at 5am so I can be on the beach at dawn. 5am gives my pup time to roam the yard, & me time to do some yoga stretches & brew a big stainless cup of freshly ground Peet’s to take along.  Mu (my pup) won’t go with me because she hates the beach despite having been born on an island.  Go figure.  Maybe she hates 5 am? 

 

I even enjoy the twelve minute drive from my house to the water.  People are taking their plaid-uniformed kids to school, & I pass a very efficient, white-gloved veteran crossing guard on my trek.  If I’m early enough, I pass my favorite local farmer too.  Grantley has a small Jeep with a tow-behind trailer, & obvious pride in his life’s work.  He has the best-tended garden I’ve seen since my Grandfather’s in West Virginia.  His permanent produce stand is right by Queen Mary Highway (main drag) & he waves when he catches my eye.  Years ago we vended side-by-side, & his wife makes the best carrot cake imaginable—very dangerous to be next to all day!  I usually see him in one of three stances—riding his little red tractor, roasting ears of corn over a small coal pot, or showing an interested teen some facet of agriculture they won’t find in a textbook…and making it acceptable to be up at 5am. And then there’s the sunrise over the sea…

Technicolor Adaptation, by Lea Ann Robson

Aptly named Flambouyant

As a kid I vacationed with my folks on Sanibel Island, & I recall being completely enthralled with the improbable-looking flora there.  The plants had almost surreal adaptations designed to retain water in drought & salt conditions.  Then there were the sea grapes with their lilly pad-like leaves, purple to crimson veining & shiny chartreuse new leaf faces.  I marveled at how the red blooms on the crown of thorns formed perfect rows within a tidy grid.  They didn’t look real, not in the random way nature looked in West Virginia.

Mary Robson's (my Mom) pic of frangipani

Colors & shapes were bolder & flashier, too.  Spring in West Virginia & Maryland is a game of hide-&-seek, with spring beauties, trillium & may-apple, daffodils & crocus all getting their start under piles of winter compost, peeking out slowly lest they get stopped in their tracks by a late frost.  Tropical plants are fearless by comparison.  They have big bold leaves, incredibly saturated hues, & they seem unapologetically flamboyant.  We even have gorgeous red-orange blooming trees called Flambouyants (or Royal Poinciana, if you really like over-the-top).  There are other exotic names—Frangipani, bougainvillea, bird of paradise, jasmine, monsterra.  Tulip & Violet can hardly compete.  (Not to dis violets.  I still remember the joy of finding a carpet of them, & looking for the white ones in all that velvety purple.)

Thunbergia vining through bromeliads

When I look at my little house on Google Earth (two-dimensionally because no one has taken street views here yet) I can pick it out immediately by the magenta hedge of bougainvillea lining the front of my porch.  So bright you can almost literally see it from space!  I just painted the porch railing behind it a color between celadon & Tiffany blue (very close to capturing the color of the sea off our Frederiksted beaches), & the effect of the bougainvillea in front of that is arresting.  I have huge mounds of periwinkle blue thunbergia against my creamy Danish yellow house & despite friends’ warnings that I have to keep the aggressive vine in check or risk being housebound as it furls around my doors, I love it as it is (& I have a machete in case I get trapped inside).    

In the morning, I pass a house recently painted key lime with white trim.  It is a modest house within an area of similar houses, but that green has distinguished it & made it fresh & inviting.  I can’t imagine that color or the colors of my house in Maryland or West Virginia.  They are an adaptation to the tropics, like those bulges & bumps full of water on our tropical foliage.

Joy in a Rainy Night, by Lea Ann Robson

My 'office' booth by the ship pier in Frederiksted

So the ‘Adventure’ has sailed away & the weather was merciful & didn’t settle into this torrential rain until it was well out of view.  Merciful to the visitors, because we wanted a bright & sunny day for these refugees from ice & snow, & we got our wish.  As for us, we don’t mind the rain.  99% of our houses are built on a cistern as the foundation, & we collect water from our roofs & contain it below for our daily use.  We shower & wash in rainwater, & though some of us have connections to the ‘city water’ system, we’d all rather use our cistern water first, before having to pay through the nose for pumped or trucked water. 

So it is pouring & loud (most of us have a roof of tin or galvanized), & the temperature has dipped to a chilly 78.  Sounds crazy I know, but 78 & rainy feels deliciously cold when you’re used to the sometimes sultry daytime island temps.  The dip made me crave & eat hot soup for dinner, & I’ll go to bed early & actually have more than my usual sheet on the bed.  My akc (all kinds Crucian—put together from all manner of spare dog parts) dog is grateful for her thick fur right about now.  She’ll wait until I’m snoring & sneak in the bed to burrow next to me tonight.  I guarantee it. 
 

Company Is Coming! by Lea Ann Robson

The car is loaded, packed as tight as a hybrid can be.  Laundry is hung to dry (including today’s bathing suit).  Banana/Mango smoothie (product of my prolific yard) is frozen, along with my big water bottle.  Iced coffee is chilling in my big stainless mug. 

'Bamboo wrap' sea glass necklace

The cases in my car are loaded with fresh designs, from palm trees to earrings, to holly clusters, all bright & cheerful & as happy as I was making them over this last week.  The only thing left out is my tools, wire, bells & some glass.  I can never put those away until the last possible minute, always thinking ‘what if there is an emergency & I need to make reindeer…tonight!?’  Don’t laugh.  Could happen. 

Tomorrow morning will start at 5 & not too long after I’ll be at my spot on the seawall in Frederiksted by the pier.  I’ll be building my little house (tent, actually), decorating (filling tables & hanging racks with all my designs), & then I’ll put on a fresh coat of lip gloss, fluff my hair & wait.  I’m waiting for company.  I’m waiting for you.

Aqua long earrings

You got on the boat in Bayonne, or Miami, or San Juan.  You’ve left snow or freezing rain, or just bare trees & days when you can see your breath.  You may have had to scrape your car windshield before you could start the first leg of your trip.  You’ve been at sea for days or weeks or just hours.  You may have been to St. Croix last year or this could be your first trip here.  You’re on vacation, & I’m lucky enough to live where you want to visit. 

Believe me, I know how lucky that is.

If I don’t know that tonight, I’ll definitely know by the time you have to get back on the boat tomorrow.  Because for one day I get to talk to people from all over the country & the world, find out what makes them happy or curious, & share a lot of my island & a little of their vacation. 

I’ll meet honeymooning couples & people celebrating landmark anniversaries, & those will leave my booth with a handmade memento & my admiration of their faith in love & their fortune at finding the one. 

I’ll meet kids slathered in sun block & curious about sea glass & how the waves & surf make this phenomenon.  I’ll meet kindred souls who have been beachcombing as long as I have, & I’ll listen with some envy as they describe beaches full of treasure scattered all over the globe. 

My 'From the C' booth by the cruise ship pier

I’ll recommend the St. George Botanical Garden to all who ask about attractions, because I have so much affection for the place that after renting for 16 years here, I actually bought a little house in the neighborhood (knowing I’d be able to grow stuff there).

And as you board the ship & sail off to your next island or the final port on your journey, I’ll pack my tent, load my hybrid & return to my permanent house to water my orchids & pineapples, to skritch my dog Mu, & to think about the connections made with you on one day of your vacation. 

With luck I’ll have an email or a blog comment from one of you who I met a year or a month ago, one who was hesitant to break the connection or anxious to make the move to paradise.  I hope so!

On the Bream 'Teem' by Lea Ann Robson

Yesterday evening’s swim was one of those exceptions to the old Groucho Marx quote (“I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.”) I’m always oddly flattered when an animal accepts me on its level.  OK, usually that’s my dog Mu when I’m in the floor doing yoga (downward dog is a fave), but this time it is about fish. 

To say I’m focused when I’m snorkeling for sea glass is like saying a monsoon might be damp.  Friends who show up at the beach after I’m face down find the only way to get me to acknowledge their presence is to hurl something near my head so it makes a big thwunk in the water next to me.  OK, that’s one friend’s methods, & he doesn’t care that I’ve got lumps on my head from where he ‘missed.’  I know, I know—Nemo.  “With fronds like these, who needs anemones?”  (Wow, I pulled out a nautical pun quote!  Impressive!)

My Sea Glass Pendants

But back to yesterday.  I broke my mask strap as I was putting it on, no doubt due to silicon fatigue from overuse.  Not to be thwarted by a silly detail like a strapless mask, I exhaled & suction-stuck it to my round face & went about my mission.  It worked well enough for me to haul in several pounds of my quarry, but the concession was that I’d have to pop my head up & clear more often, something I usually avoid (lest I miss the perfect pendant piece of aqua glass, as I’m positive I would). 

So I was ‘blowing the hatch’ as it were & when I re-dunked, I caught motion in my peripheral vision, looked up & realized I was in the middle of the biggest school of fish I’ve ever been a part of.  They were inch-long & shiny, all rainbow iridescent & fearless & flowing against me on all sides.  And I had that wonderful sensation I get when there is no gap between nature & me, & I’m a part of what I love.  Don’t spread it around, but sometimes it makes me tear up inside my mask.  What must the fish think?

Christmas in Paradise, by Lea Ann Robson

Eighteen years ago I thwart

My 'From the C' vending booth by the ships

ed the definition of insanity by realizing it would always be freezing in WV if I went home for Christmas.  So I decided to flip-flop vacation days to summer & instead spent the Holidays in my new home of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. 

The upsides:

1.        Santa wears jams & plays steel pan.

2.       Every Caribbean island has their version of Carnival at a different time of year, & St. Croix’s is the Crucian Christmas Festival.

3.       Fruitcake ships well.

The downsides:

1.         Without a really obvious change in weather, there were no external cues to tell you to shop & ship any gifts you had hope for the recipients to get by Christmas.

2.       How do you make it Christmas when you’re still sweating?

3.       Fruitcake ships well. (Just kidding—my Mom’s fruitcake is fab & has never suffered from a drizzle of the local Cruzan rum I have occasionally added.  It’s just that fruitcake is such an easy target!)

After I committed to Christmas in St. Croix, I set about figuring out ways to ‘Holiday it up.’  The most obvious would happen by accident.  I needed something from the hardware (read ‘general’) store, no doubt to replace something that rusted.  Aside:  If I calculated the percentage of my life here replacing items that rusted, I’d probably realize that I could have pursued a career in neurosurgery or the like with that time).  Our major hardware store, I found soon after I moved here, served many more functions than rust prevention & maintenance.  It was run by a couple who understood the ‘continental’ (island speak for imported statesiders) need to shop.  They carried a full array of hardware necessities, but realized empty space in their shipping containers could be filled with fun housewares—dishes/glasses/pots/pans/linens, etc. & that those would be the items that would prove irresistible to us all. 

My 'From the C' vending booth at the holidays

At Holiday time, their stock magically transformed to the most remarkable array of ornaments & Christmas décor imaginable.  They would travel to gift shows every year to source the fun, the frivolous, & the enchanting.  And then they did the unthinkable…& the thing that really makes it Christmas here.

They imported real Christmas trees!

When I got out of my car in the parking lot, I was hit by the scent of real pine & I realized THAT is what makes it Christmas to me.  So I left the store with a replacement part for something that rusted & broke in my toilet…& a big, fat, smelly CHRISTMAS TREE strapped to my rusty roof rack!

It was only after I had cut it loose & put it to soak in a bucket of sappy water in my back yard that I realized…I got rid of all my ornaments before I moved here.  I had nothing to put on the tree.  I had been so thrilled to see trees & wreaths that I forgot my ex & I had moved here via the Post Office.  If it didn’t fit in a box acceptable under the postal size requirements, or if we deemed it so fragile we sold it or gave it away before we made the move, it didn’t come along for the ride.  So my ornaments were all over the states now, with friends, family & strangers who had bought them at our pre-move yard sales. 

Initial regret was replaced with the thought perhaps that was how it should be—the past scattered behind, replaced by the need for something new & different to represent the radical change in our lives.  That sounded good, but I realized we were still on a very tight budget, having taken jobs we weren’t really qualified for at white-knuckle pay cuts.  On top of the cost concerns, there was the disconcerting fact that the first 5 years we lived here saw very active hurricane seasons—not exactly conducive to amassing big collections of breakables. 

So I pulled from a family* skill set & looked at ways to make ornaments from what I had.  (*My Grandfather was a collector of all things that might ever be useful—with epic stacks of items from twine to foil, to the heavy aluminum pie plates from his weekly favorite pineapple pies ).  I had been walking on the beach every day & picking up scads of sea glass.  As with most who love beach combing, I had filled most of the containers in my house with the beautiful shards…& then watched them collect dust. 

'Bamboo Wrap' sea glass necklace

After a series of ‘real world’ jobs, my ex & I had remembered we moved to an island for a DIFFERENT life, & opened our own business.  It was a 3000 square foot consignment warehouse, chock full of all manner of stuff, from appliances to furniture to books to tools we didn’t understand…& a huge spool of welding wire.  After investigating the malleability of the wire, I paid the full ticket price of $10 for the huge spool, took it home & started experimenting with wrapping the wire in various ways around the chunks of sea glass, all in the hope of creating a stunning ornament collection for my live tree. 

To call that first year’s efforts abstract would be a kindness.  Ugly as sin would be a more apt description.  The saving grace was that most were Heineken green & to an extent disappeared in the green (& now brown, after a few days in our climate) limbs.  At least the tree smelled great…as it expired in the heat!

And now it is 20 years later & I’m plotting where my tree will go this year while I work like a caffeine crazed elf, making the line of whimsical sea glass ornaments that formed the basis of my company, From the C Jewelry.   Boggles the mind to realize those ornaments & the related line of jewelry are now spread much farther than my childhood ornament collection.  Visitors to St. Croix have carted them back to Denmark, to Seattle, to Paris, to Germany & to RUSSIA.  They took with them the accompanying card that explains the formation of sea glass & the fact that every item is made by my hand from authentic  St. Croix sea glass.  Stores in St. Croix & stateside are now carrying lines From the C & after years of pleading cyber-ignorance, I’ve launched a useful website with photos & descriptions for those who prefer to shop from home. 

And the newest addition:  this morning I began this blog to chronicle the quirky & challenging fun of life in paradise.   I’m adding a link from my website, fromthecjewelry.com so you can see what is going on in this special part of the world.  Stay tuned, but now I’m going to celebrate with a swim!

Inside the Sunset, by Lea Ann Robson

My absolute favorite place to be is at the beach at sunrise…my favorite except to be at the beach at sunset…more specifically IN the sea at sunset.  Dorsch Beach (where I get the sea glass I use for all my From the C designs) on the west end of St. Croix is a long expanse of soft sand punctuated by only two or three inns & condos.   It is as popular with residents as tourists, & is the one place I always feel confident recommending to day-trippers, positive they’ll come back with glowing reviews before they get back on the ship & set sail. 

It is diverse & active, & most mornings I share my first swim of the day with a guy I call Horst.  I don’t know his real name, but I like to name animals, so Horst it is. He is sleek & black & loves the water as much as I do.  His trainer is a small guy with waist-length dread locks, & he hangs onto Horst’s mane & floats as the stallion swims further out than you’d believe.   While they do their slow circle out & back, their landlubber counterpart, a roan mare wearing green legwarmers, trots circles in the sand around a rather large man who sits on an inverted drywall bucket.   They’re usually my only company other than an occasional early-rising guest, coffee in hand as they scan the sea from the deck at Sand Castle by the Sea, the first inn on the beach.  I imagine the guests returning to their room full of sleepy family & reporting on the calm & intensely aqua water in anticipation of the lovely vacation day ahead. 

'From the C' 'bamboo wrap' necklace

There are much worse ways to start your day than snorkeling for sea glass, watching a horse swim from underwater, & sharing a moment of vacation with guests who are always fascinated in the day’s haul of treasures.

And so I always think this is the BEST part of the day as I drive home to shower & go to my other job…right up until after work, when I run home to change back into my suit & zoom back to the beach for sunset.  Fighting the dying light, I stubbornly stay mask down until the absolute last possible minute, when I pop up to catch my favorite moment.  There’s an instant when the sky & sea seem to exchange places & properties, when the reflected colors in the water’s surface are so bright, the sky seems to darken by comparison & the water feels like it could levitate.  Standing chin deep in that bright water, I feel my concerns rise also, leaving me limp with contentment & with only one remaining item on my to-do list, to dry off & make the short drive home.