Once again we are glued to the television watching the weather channel tracking a hurricane. Once again that hurricane is not threatening us here on our little Caribbean island but is heading to the northeastern United States. The irony in this is not lost on us. And we can only hope that the predictions of horrific devastation and destruction from this “Frankenstorm” turn out to be overblown and that the impact will not be nearly as bad as the experts fear.
Meanwhile, we are sitting here enjoying glorious weather. The last storm that passed by a couple of weeks ago brought not only much-needed rain but also a much-appreciated break in the doldrums. Summer seems to have finally given way to Caribbean autumn. Our walk on the beach yesterday was idyllic: clear sky, pleasant breeze and perfect water. Life is good.
In fact, it’s nice enough now that I could comfortably put on some real clothes and go out somewhere to celebrate. The only problem is that most restaurants are still closed. The months of September and October are REALLY quiet here on island. This is beyond the ‘off season’. It’s literally the ‘turned off season.” That hurricane risk keeps folks away. As a result, most resorts and restaurants close down for some part, if not all, of these two months. For weeks on end it’s a challenge to find any place that’s open for business.
For us it’s not a big problem since we really don’t go out that much anyway. We love our house. We have a gorgeous view, a typically lovely breeze, and we enjoy cooking. The drinks are cheaper at our house, and we can listen to our own playlists. So we tend to just have folks over for dinner rather than go out and split a check. That means that even when every place on island is open for business you won’t see us out and about all that often. We might want to consider making an effort to venture out a wee bit more, however, as we may be taking the hermit existence to a bit of an extreme. It’s always been the case that we would occasionally run into somebody who would ask us when we got back on island – assuming that since they hadn’t seen us we must have been away.
The other day, however, we were running errands and ran into an acquaintance who was clearly surprised to see us. It had been so long since she’d seen us that she had apparently concluded that we must have left the island for good! That was certainly a new twist, but she wasn’t a close friend (obviously)so we pretty much dismissed the comment. That is until we went to the grocery store and ran right into someone else who said the same thing. Now we had a disturbing coincidence. Of course, as you know it is really unusual for us to find everything on our grocery list in only one store. So we had to make one more stop at another store. Sure enough, there was someone else we hadn’t seen in a while, and darn if he didn’t voice the same surprise at finding us still living on island.
It was just a bit disconcerting having to explain our existence at every turn. That must have been how Mark Twain felt when a reporter came to his house to do research for his obituary and Twain was put in the peculiar position of having to proclaim, “the report of my death was an exaggeration.” So as a new day dawns, I’d just like to point out that, like tropical storm winds, you may not be able to see us, but we are still here.
In the meantime, stay safe everyone.
