December, 1997, and the nights in Boston are so long they practically connect.
It is a time of reflection and transition, because I am about to embark on an
adventure that will last five years and alter the course of my life.
This is not about that trip. This is about the trip I took four week earlier,
the trip I took because United Airways wouldn't refund my already paid ticket,
or let me transfer it to anyone else before it expired while I was in
Nicaragua. It's the story about the pre-adventure, the trial run, the test
drive. It's about spending the shortest night of the year in the Caribbean,
just because.
I left icy Boston and flew south, traveling with one small bag and my journal.
I'd all but packed out of the room I was renting in a Dorchester boarding
house, and two duffels and a stack of books were all that remained to accompany
me to Central America. But I didn't need much either for that trip, or for
this one. Rather, I was leaving it all behind me.
But the first time we boarded the 20 seater twin prop jet for Eleuthera, we
traversed the narrow Caribbean in vain, only to circle the Eleuthera runway
twice and return. The sun had dropped below the horizon and the runway was
unlit; we couldn't land. We spent a night in Fort Lauderdale and returned with
the next morning's light.
"Miss Purdy" answered the door when I arrived at the little beach
front hotel where I had reservations. She showed me to my room - I was the
only guest - and brought me a one speaker AM/FM radio. "You've got to have a
radio out here on the islands," she told me matter of factly. "I've lived here
all 76 years of my life. It gets quiet out here, I can tell you." She was
right.
Eleuthera was just what I needed: isolated and mostly overlooked by the
package tourists that filled the casinos on Saint Johns, hibiscus on the
hedgerows, and the thin shade of the coconut palms on the stony shore. One
morning I drove out to the bay to see the turquoise water lying still in the
windless morning, another I drove up to where the Baptist church stood at the
edge of the Caribbean, stark white in a field of blue, and another I collected
shells.
As 1997 came to a close, Eleuthera made a great transition for me. With the
solstice, the days would grow longer and everything I knew about my life would
change: soon the winds would blow permanently from the south.
