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)