Post #31: Saltwater

Post #34: Barbados Bye Bye

No one in Barbados has a last name. I learned this very early during my stay here. Whenever you meet someone, you get their first name and then an associative physical or geographical characteristic. "Hi, I'm Peter." And Peter is tall and bald and from Denmark and so that's how Peter is known to you from then on. When you describe Peter to someone else, those characteristics become that person's last name. Person A: "Do you know Peter?" Person B: "Maybe. Peter who?" Person A: "You know. Tall. Bald. From Denmark?" Person B: "Oh right - Peter!" What's incredible is that people fully accept that this counts as "knowing someone," and I can think of no better way to encapsulate my time on the island than that: a series of very intimate and personal connections, shared experiences, and fun where no one even knows your name. It's hard to say what I'll miss about Barbados because I believe that in time, this pl...

Post #26: The Moonraker

If you fly to the Caribbean, and you taxi to the southern coast of Barbados, to a clutch of jungle and tall grass called Green Garden Bay, which rests its ass on the beaches of the Silver Sands, nestled along the shore where kites fly in the morning and sentences run on for days, you will find the Moonraker Beach Hotel. Well, I say hotel, but is that what the Moonraker is, really? Imagine a two-story motel you can't drive up to, painted in bright Caribbean primary colors, and all the doors open to the world. This is a spot for surfers and kite-surfers and foilers to enjoy a spare living space between bouts of fighting the wind and sea. Formerly, it was a hotel, that is true. But to save on a cleaning staff and a receptionist, the owner of the property decided to make these rooms into "apartments." He did what he could with what was left after selling anything that could fetch value. A propane tank to power the stove. Mattresses with sheets for you to sleep and square tile...

Post #23

“Right here is a good place to find your focus for class. We’re here for ninety seconds.” I’m being urged to find that mental space between “you can do this” and “sweet tea, just kill me” by a woman in outstanding shape. She has a soothing voice and a wireless headset. For the next 55 minutes, she is going to execute some of the most complicated stretching and positioning techniques I've seen in my life. She is going to do these things with an ease that startles and confounds me. Physically, my body does not believe that the words coming out of this woman’s mouth correspond to actions that it is capable of. So I kind of laugh. Ninety seconds? She may as well have said two weeks. I am the one man in a room of seventeen to twenty women. They’re here for the same reason I am: to get into better shape. Outwardly, the place looks nothing like a gym. You don’t hear weights clanging together. You don’t hear the pou...

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