Oct. 10, which turns out to be a Thursday
I have an instinctive belief that if I can capture the view in front of me using my chief weapon—words—then I will own that scene. I will be its master.
But I’m dwarfed today. I don’t have the skills.
Thanks to time zones, I have temporarily become something very surprising: A Morning Person. I was awake by four or so, luxuriating in eight full hours of sleep (almost). I was lying in bed playing a cracking good game of solitaire (right) when a bird began singing outside.
Singing loudly.
The longer it sang, the more I giggled. That bird was making a hell of a racket.
And so was that bird. And that bird. Pretty soon it sounded like a jungle out there.
What kind of bird was that, so damned cheeky when the sky is barely growing lighter? Wish I had that app that my sister Lexie uses at her camp. She sets the phone down beside her and it listens and then announces which birds she’s hearing.
Wait—that’s the Merlin app. I HAVE THAT!
So I went out to my tiny terrace and sat in the wicker chair and found the app. Identify by sound? Yes, please.
Then, while it was listening, I took in the world I was sitting in.
Fuck.
That is really pretty.
The Sheraton is a maze of buildings set in a carefully-tended garden. I’m looking across a lawn dotted with towering palm trees. The lawn ends at the ocean. (There’s a rock breakwater, but it’s not in my line of sight.) The ocean stretches to the island opposite me. And the sky is lit by a sunrise I can’t see, edging the clouds in luminosity.
Jeezum crow.
The air is cool and rich with moisture.It’s still this morning—except there’s a soft breeze which is pushing palm fronds around in optical patterns—the two sides of a gracefully-bowing palm frond moving against each other and making tiny diamonds of light, no, oblongs, no, strips of light, back to oblongs, you are getting very sleepy. Over and over and over, a pattern repeated against the lightening sky in tiny details very easy to overlook.
As the sun has slowly made its presence known, the color of the ocean has become a gradient. Pale blue near the shore becoming darker in the middle and then a defining line of dark blue against the opposite island.
And the clouds! I’ve seen skies like this in Italian renaissance paintings; the ones where we’re meant to see beams of light as the finger of God. These paintings hang on the walls of famous museums…or stretch across the domed ceilings of palaces and castles. But now—in a startling, amazing contrast to my occidental eye—they stretch their pink and gold and cerulean blue past the crowns of palm trees, feathery fronds weaving their optical magic in the light morning wind.
I can hear the woosh of waves against the shore. It’s not regular; I don’t know why not. But every few moments the sound of water makes a surprising crescendo against the breakwater and then fades again. Just irregular enough to be noteworthy and pleasing in the cup of the ear.
And what does the Merlin app say? Yes—here it is. A red-vented bulbul. In fact, a LOT of red-vented bulbuls. And a lesser myna—that’s the yellow Zorro masked bird from breakfast yesterday. And now I know. I know that you can’t call it a minor myna—you have to go with lesser myna, which is far less likely to make amateur birders snigger in the zen garden.
I tried taking photos. I tried taking videos. I did what I could to own and capture the immense tranquility, and I think I failed. The only other thing to do is to take it in. Be in the now, man. Own it and experience it and wish that this early morning could be so common—so everyday—that it wasn’t worth the expenditure of the creative mojo to futilely attempt to capture the sound, the feeling, the sight in front of me.
We have a day of travel ahead of us to get to Honiara, in the Solomon Islands, where we’ll pick up the Orion. We met (or at least stared at) many of our fellow travelers last night at the reception. It’s a very Lindbladian collection, of course. Very white. Tending older. Hearty people, glad to shake a hand. Ready to get up and at ‘em. I roll my eyes at group travel—at having to go along and get along with strangers. On the other hand, I’ve met wonderful people on my two previous Lindblad events…
…and there is a very happy relaxation that comes from knowing that someone else is doing the thinking now. The Lindblad people are now my external brain. I follow along. Do as I’m told. Someone will feed me. Someone will get me to where we’re going. Someone will point out the interesting things I’m likely to miss otherwise. I heave a sigh of relief and set my emotional bags down. Good. YOU do it.
In less eventful news, I seem to have developed some very energetic blisters on the soles of both feet, right up next to the toes and centered between the two balls of my feet. Righty is more exuberant than lefty. Had to have been the rubber Croc sandals I’ve been wearing. I’ll be in sneakers for a while instead, since it seems more than likely that eventually Righty will be so swollen in her self-importance that she will burst and then I’m going to have a small and annoying mess on my hands. Or feet.
I add this primarily to point out that even in paradise, we have daily trials. But let us take a moment to be unfairly giddly that blisters in Fiji are better than blisters anywhere else.
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