One reason I would have trouble living in the tropics year round is that I do enjoy the change of seasons. Even Seattle doesn’t have enough seasonal change for this east coast woman to be honest. I love blizzards in the winter. The kind that keep you inside, huddled by the fire, looking out the window in wonder at nature’s power and then hunkering down with a warm drink because there is nothing else to be done. I love hot, sunny summers. Beach time, tank tops, cold beers with lime squeezed into and dripping down the bottle’s neck.
I’m a walker. During the months we are in Seattle (April through December), I monitor the seasonal changes on my daily three mile walks. Part neighborhood, part woods, part beach, I observe the changes as they happen. They seem infinitesimal at first but then – all of a sudden – the season – whichever season is making its way towards us – has arrived.
Yesterday, I chanced a three mile walk during what I thought was a break in the rain. Half way through my hike – right about the time I took the photo of the trees you see here, the break ended and a substantial “mist” surrounded me. It felt nice. As I trod on damp leaves and dark earth and my face dripped with the moisture surrounding me I thought, “This is good. It’s good for my skin to live in a place that is damp and misty.”
I descended the considerable hill and reached the beach. By now the soft, sweet mist had definitely changed. Thin, sleety rain picked up in its intensity thanks to a strong southerly wind into which, of course, I was headed as I strode – south – towards my dock. It felt like sharp, cold needles were stabbing my face and thighs in rapid fire. I had no choice but to keep walking.
The killer was that I needed a piece of paper I had meant to bring with me to fax at the mail service office which I would pass on my way home. A piece of paper which, naturally, I had left on the boat. This deed could not be postponed because it was Friday and we are leaving for Panama at the end of this month and I have to make sure all of my business-y things get taken care of before we leave. One business day could make a significant difference.
I knew that what I had to do in this now very strong, knife-like wind and rain, was get back to my dock, walk the quarter mile west to our boat (with the wind at my left), get the paper and then go back up the dock (wind at my right) and get to the office which was now very much out of my way. Taking shelter in one of the marina bathroom buildings, I called Dan, and asked him to find the paper, put it in a baggie and have it ready to hand off when I got there. As I continued on my walk, I noticed that my thighs felt tight. But not in a good way. I was beginning to lose feeling in my soaked, frozen thighs. But onward.
I arrived at last at the office and, dripping all over the counter and the fax cover sheet I had to fill out, I got the deed done before 5:00. Relieved, I knew that the next order of business was a hot shower.
We don’t have a shower on our boat. Which means I had to get in my car and drive to the only shower at Shilshole Bay Marina that I can stomach. The new, modern one that is at the other end of the marina from where our boat is moored. The one that I don’t have to feed quarters to. The one that is not thirty years old, co-ed and sullied with disgusting remnants of previous showerers.
As I sat down in the seat of my car I felt, not relief, but a cold feeling in my crotch – like I had peed myself, but a little while ago and it had cooled. As the water from my body and my wet jacket pooled on my seat, I turned the defroster on high because the moisture coming off my clothes was fogging up the window.
I took the longest, hottest shower of my life and, as I was the only one in the shower room, I didn’t have to hold back my groans of pleasure. They gushed out of me – long and loud.
Dressed in dry clothes, wet shoes and a wet coat, I headed back out into the pelting rain and got to my car, sitting once again in that wet, cold puddle of water on my seat. Almost there…. almost there… so cold….
Quick little steps down the dock. Looking up occasionally to see how much further I had to go. Then down so the rain could drip out of my eyes.
Home at last, I looked at the calendar. 25 days until we leave for Panama. Yesterday I talked to a friend in Panama who said “It finally stopped raining! It rained every day in November.” Which means that it is now warm and it’s dry. And will be when we are there – for the entire three months.
What was that I said about loving the change of seasons? About not wanting to live full time in a tropical climate?
I forget.
While the rains pelted Panama during what is commonly called the rainy season, a big Pacific Storm, the remnant of a large typhoon, raged through Seattle. Living on a sailboat I felt the storm quite literally as it swirled around me. When big gusts hit, the boat lurched and shuddered. The wind was incredibly loud as it whistled and whirred through the halyards, sounding like sustained screams. It was a dramatic sound track to the storm, and one that let us know that we were definitely not in control.
Anticipating the storm a day or two before, our neighbors lashed down lines and secured loose items on boat decks and on the dock. Folks worked together to be sure everyone was prepared. By the time we finished, our boat looked like a bug caught in a giant spider web. And all that remained was to watch the storm and marvel at the power of nature. Knowing that, eventually, it would end.
I wish I could say the same for another storm that has been raging around us for months.
(Full disclosure: I am about to go all political on you so if you want to stop here, it’s perfectly fine.)
One of the candidates is a walking, talking typhoon of racism, misogyny, xenophobia and narcissism. And unlike the weather turbulence that will abate, it seems he can’t be shaken. Despite revelations of behavior unfitting a human being, never mind a U.S. Presidential candidate, and regardless of his former supporters flying away like leaves in the wind, he continues to hold his place in the polls. His attitude towards half of the people in this country – women and girls – is unacceptable. Would anyone want his or her mother, daughters or sisters viewed, discussed and treated in the manner that we have been witnessing? Would you trust him – potentially President of the United States – to give your daughter a ride home from school? I wouldn’t.
Racial and religious intolerance have no place in our country either. But this man has been a poster boy for both and has done some real damage. Damage that will continue to stick around long after the election, regardless of whom we elect. The Southern Poverty Law Center conducted a survey of educators in which one third of teachers said that they have noticed a rise in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment among their students. Even more disturbing are reports of “…openly racist and vicious bullying of minorities, and more fear and anxiety among immigrants and minorities about what would happen to them if certain candidates for president are elected.” Two thirds of teachers surveyed for this report said that their students, mainly Muslims and children of immigrants, had expressed worry about what would happen to them and their families after the election.
This is damage that a lot of brave and good people have been trying to repair for a very long time. To name a few: women’s right to vote (1920); the 1965 voting rights act allowing people of color to vote; the end of school segregation and the desegregation of public places. The fight for civil rights has been going on since long before he who shall not be named was born. Society, I ask you, do you really want to go back that far?
I understand that people are unhappy with our current system. And with our current choices. I am, too. But this guy is definitely not the answer.
Last year, when this election was heating up, we were in Panama where people down there said the candidate’s last name in disbelief, rolling their R’s as they did so. And as their voices invariably crescendoed to a big question mark at the end, I knew we were in trouble. In danger of being an international laughing stock. If, on a tiny little island off the coast of Panama City, people were talking this way, I wondered what I would hear in other parts of the world.
Unlike nature’s storms over which we have no control, we do have control over the manufactured storms currently affecting our lives. It may not feel that we do, but we do. We are more powerful than we are led to believe.
We must reject the message and attitude of this ridiculous and frightening candidate. And then, come January, when hopefully anyone but him is in office, we have to fight for a transparent, honest government that is working on behalf of the people – all the people – of our country.
That way, working together, we can protect our future, tie it down securely and make sure there is something left to hand off to the folks coming up behind us once the storm has passed.
Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall. – F. Scott Fitzgerald
It’s fall in the Pacific Northwest. I can still break a sweat on my daily power walk. And my t-shirts haven’t been filed under “T” for Taboga quite yet. But the chill mornings and snuggle-under-a-blanket evenings are here. The leaves are turning orange and red and yellow and dropping to the ground. The fog lingers a bit longer into the day. School playgrounds are filled with the sounds of children at recess.
Fall has always felt more like the beginning of the year to me than January. There is a feeling of excitement in the air, like something is about to happen.
Something is about to happen. Sweaters are being resurrected from their summer hibernation. Soup and stew recipes float to the top of my recipe book. The holidays start peeking in the windows and whispering ideas for this year’s celebrations. As sorry as I am to see the summer end, I surprise myself with how ready I am for the coming season.
We spent the early part of September up in the San Juan Islands, north of Seattle, on our sailboat. The anchorages, normally filled with the sounds of kids swimming and playing on the beaches were quiet. Spots for boats were taken by those of us who don’t have to return to the city for school deadlines.
San Juan Island anchorages are wide open in September
Without lunches to make, homework to help with, packets of papers to fill out for the teachers and a job to run to after dropping kids off at school, fall has become a reflective time for me. A time to walk and smell the rich smell of leaves and damp dirt becoming mulch. To watch as flocks of birds take to the sky for their long journey south. To think about all the love I have in my life.
Fall was my father’s favorite season. He often quoted Keats’ Ode to Autumn, challenging us to name the author.“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness; close bosomed friend of the maturing sun,” he’d recite, asking, “Who wrote that?” To me he’d always add with a twinkle in his eye, “my English major.”
I miss him deeply during fall, but I in some ways he feels closer than during the other times of year. I can still hear his voice asking if I wanted to take a walk with him, or share a cup of Earl Grey tea, or, later in my life, a glass of scotch. This season is the time I get to spend with his memory and to appreciate the moments we would have shared were he still here.
September sunrise in the San Juans
Soon the Seattle rains will start. The sky will turn gray and the damp will begin to sink into our bones. But then, just when the holidays have ended and the long winter takes hold – lucky us – we will jump on a plane and head down to Isla Taboga, Panama. Lovely, sweet, warm, sunny Taboga. There’s room for you if you want to come!
Until then, I plan to take a little time each day to enjoy the beauty. To enjoy the way the sun at this time of year slants in golden loveliness and to feel the chill air on my face. To cook fall foods and wear warm socks and buy pumpkins.
Enjoy every minute. It’s all connected. It’s all beautiful. And it’s all a gift.
I’m writing this blog post from Reid Harbor on Stuart Island, one of Washington State’s beautiful San Juan Islands. As we anchored a couple of days ago, we noticed that four other boats from our dock at Shilshole Bay Marina were also here and soon we were all having drinks in one of the cockpits, visiting dinghies bouncing around happily behind the boat.
Friends from “E” Dock!
One of the boats is aptly named, Small World. Indeed, it is.
We live in Seattle where we cruise in the summers and then, when the cold, wet winter weather sets in, we head down to Panama where we live on Isla Taboga, a small island roughly 12 miles off the Pacific Coast, across from Panama City. Heading up the Strait earlier this week, one of the huge container ships we passed was named APL Antwerp. Homeport: Panama. The ship, loaded with hundreds of colorful containers, was likely ocean bound, heading south to Panama where it will anchor in the bay among the ships we observe from our terrace, waiting to transit the Panama Canal. I grabbed my camera and snapped photos to email to my south of the border friends with whom we are in regular contact.
A close friend spent the fall, winter and spring in Guatemala. On one Skype call (a miracle in itself) she told me about chatting with some guys at a local bar. They were traveling through Central America and their next stop was Panama. “Where in Panama,” asked my friend who had visited us there. “Isla Taboga,” they replied. The island we live on! And they were going to visit friends of ours – people she had met when visiting us a couple of years ago.
Isla Taboga from “The Cross”
What are the chances of all of these encounters? These days they are good. Very good indeed and getting better all the time. So much so that it’s not even that surprising anymore. As our world becomes smaller thanks to fast and convenient travel options and communication technology offers instant access to friends and family, it is not unusual to experience what may once have been too incredible to even imagine.
Even here in the cove, which has spotty reception at best, we heard about the tragedy in Nice. Yet another in an increasing series of incidents occurring in our world. We heard about Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton. Up to the minute political conversation happened during our spontaneous happy hour, despite being far from home. We are more connected than ever before and unless we really don’t want to be, we are in this together.
A friend across the bay is flying his one world flag instead of an American or Canadian flag, which is the regulated norm on the water. 
Rather than identifying as belonging to one country, this flag – we have one, too – is a picture of the globe from space, making the statement that this world IS our country now. We are a global community. We are facing a global mess when it comes to politics, climate change, and economic disparity. And, sadly, terrorist attacks on innocent people. 9/11 was a wake up call for the United States. Listening to Arundhati Roy address the United Nations following the World Trade Center attacks, I remember her saying that she meant no disrespect and no diminishment of what we were experiencing. But, she pointed out this sort of thing had been happening for a very long time all over the globe. “Welcome to the world,” she said, sadly.
Like any family, we share joys and heartaches. We are no longer isolated and travel is no longer, necessarily, just about vacation and fun. I have come to believe that travel is essential. However we can make it happen.
Mark Twain wrote: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
This is why we travel. This is why we live in another country for part of the year. Few of the people I have met doing these things are rich. Rarely do we hang out with people traveling in 4 Star luxury mode. But we are out there, doing what we can to see this world and be part of this life. To gain a better understanding of what our fellow earthlings are experiencing. To enhance our own life and give ourselves a more realistic view of our home.
The first step is… well, taking the first step. It’s about saying “yes.” And then doing the hard stuff of getting things started. Doing your homework, your research. Making sure that whatever it is you are thinking about doing will work for you. And then, making the commitment for better or worse.
I have been back in the States for just about two months now having left Taboga on April 6. We were so ready to go. Don’t get me wrong.. We love Taboga. But the heat was becoming tiresome (for us that is – we’re not really hot weather people, as it turns out). We missed our friends up north and the intellectual stimulation that our life in Seattle offers us. No tears were shed as we boarded the ferry for the last time. Just a wistful sigh and a glance back at the view we would be longing for in nine months.
One last glance… sigh… And we’re off!
We hit the Seattle ground running and began a marathon of catching up on the business of life that we leave behind when we head south for the winter. Taxes! Mail! Switch phone companies! New batteries for our dead cars! Easy stuff but still… stuff.
We traded 90+ degree heat and t-shirts for much cooler temps and sweaters. We traded our tiny, limited island tienditas (small grocery stores) for Trader Joe’s and Safeway and markets that offer massive choices. I traded my daily hike up the mountain through the hot and tangled jungle smelling of foreign, tropical flora for hikes through cool, pine scented woods, tinged with an occasional whiff of salt air.
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- The jungle on Taboga
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- Puget Sound view through the trees.
And instead of a view of boats waiting to transit the canal, our view in Seattle is of sailboats playing out in the sound.
Big boats in line for the Panama Canal.
Puget Sound sailing playground.
And so it goes. We enjoy our summer up north and slowly work our way towards the crisp, fall weather. And soon thereafter, the holidays. When it’s time to leave Seattle and head south, we are happy to do the trading in reverse. We thrill at the thought of leaving the rain and cold behind along with the mad pace of our lives up north – made more obvious during the holiday season. Taboga offers us quiet time, simplicity, and a change up from the nine months we spend in Seattle.
Main Street, Taboga.
Life is a series of trade offs. When I got married, I traded some of my independence for a chance to build a life with a person I loved. When we had kids, I traded my open-ended “what should I do with my life?” question for putting my children first. When we bought our house we traded a sort of freedom for security. When we sold the trade felt the same, but in reverse.
Many of our friends on Taboga live there full-time and love it. But there are an equal, if not greater number, who enjoy the variety. The back and forth. The trading of one climate and culture for another.
I feel very lucky to be able to do this. Not everyone can. But – we do have two condos so there is room for you if you want to see what it’s like! Brush up on your Spanish, stock up on sunscreen and come on down!
We have just four days to go before leaving this lovely island.
Today, I went on my usual morning walk. Down the scrabbly road from our gate to the main road. Sunscreened, caffeinated, frozen water bottle in hand with my trusty sidekick, Chili, by my side.
As I began the hike, my brain was noisy with to-do-lists, conversations with people from recent days, issues and business we have to take care of before we leave. But as I climbed, those annoying thoughts began to recede. As the incline became steeper, my heart beat faster and my breath became deeper. Soon, my thoughts were concentrated on each step and each breath. Up, up, up, keeping my eye on the path so I didn’t lose my footing on a loose rock.
Each time I wound around a curve, I saw Chili up in the distance, looking back to make sure I was coming. Then off she’d go, satisfied that she hadn’t lost me.
Are you comin’ or what?!
Finally, the road reached the point where the U.S. Army had poured two cement tracks back in the days when they guarded the Panama Canal and during WWII.
These tracks are about jeep-wheel-width apart and make the going much easier all the way to the top. As I reached higher elevations, a welcome breeze blew like an offering. Each time I stopped, I took a sip of water, stretched my arms to the sky, massaged my sore hip and took in the beauty. It was quiet and still up there. Not another soul but the two of us.
I stopped to examine the leaves, the trees, the tangled vines reaching skyward and spiraling down deeper into the jungle, beyond anyplace I wish to explore. I thought about people who live here on this island – and people who lived here long ago – and for whom this flora is second nature. As familiar to them as the pine trees and laurel hedges are to us back north.
I could never have imagined choosing this island as a place to spend lengthy amounts of time. Or to go someplace where I would be hiking in 90 degree heat. It just isn’t “me.” But we did choose it. And I do hike here (very early in the morning). And I am grateful to look into that strange, strangled jungle and climb this mountain with all its history – going all the way back to pre-Columbian Days. I thought of the indigenous people who lived here and had families and survived and didn’t know anything beyond this place and this heat and this view and this vegetation. I wondered if their ghosts were accompanying me on my ascent.
Reaching the summit, I climbed atop an old WWII bunker for a 360 degree view. I could hear the waves crashing against the shore far below and saw the water churning in places. I saw the boats waiting to transit the canal out in the mist, looking more like ghost ships in the haze, just floating and waiting – for what? 
I saw the old transponder at the other side of the summit, still signaling to planes to verify their position in the sky above the island. I thought about the last three months and all we had done and seen and the sweetness of this now-familiar island.
Refreshed and ready to start the descent, I called to Chili who fairly flew down the steep metal stairs from the bunker. I passed remnants of buildings once inhabited by families who were stationed here. There is an old swing set and a tennis court that now looks like a giant jigsaw puzzle, weeds growing through the cracks. I thought about the families – particularly the women – who arrived here back then, knowing that this was it – for some time to come.
When the Pacific Steamship Company was headquartered on Taboga – out on El Morro Island – in the mid-1800’s, I wondered what that would have been like. Again, for the women especially. Wearing corsets and long dresses. No indoor plumbing going that far back. How did they manage? They must have been tougher women than I.
Heading down the hill, I felt lighter. My thoughts were floaty and less troublesome. Gone were the remnants of petty conversations and expat island politics. Instead, I continued to observe the beauty all around me, thought about a fruit smoothie for breakfast, a swim in the pool, a Spanish lesson and then some writing.
It’s a process. You climb… you struggle… you sweat… and then, slowly, you begin to breathe more easily, you let go of the old, paralyzing way of thinking, and you feel the breeze cooling you as you look ahead to what is next.
I walked with ghosts today. I felt them around me. I think Chili felt them, too, because she continued to check on me all the way down the hill. They took care of me. And so did she.
There is a moment from when I was about 8 or 9 that I remember very clearly. It stands out startlingly amidst many fuzzy childhood memories that my siblings weirdly remember entirely differently. This one is mine and mine alone. I was standing at my bedroom window looking out at our front yard. My finger rested lightly in the circle attached to the pull-string of the window shade. I would pull just far enough to feel the resistance either way and then stop, not actually raising or lowering the shade. Just feeling the sensation. I was wearing one of the matching Danskin short and top outfits that my mother favored for us because of their indestructibility and easy laundering. My hair had been tamed into place that morning and held back by a stretchy headband, made of the same material as my outfit. I stared out the window, unable to think of a thing to do.
Alone in my room I realized that I was, for the first time in my life, bored. “So this is what ‘bored’ means,” I thought. I now understood what the word meant, experientially. And I sat with my newfound state for a time.
I was an odd child that way. Always thinking about stuff like that. But let’s move on.
I had yet to learn that, in our culture, boredom is a bad word. Boredom is looked down upon. Akin to laziness. Wastefulness. If any of us made the mistake of whining to Mom, “I’m bored. I need something to do,” the response was never what we were hoping for. “Read a book!” she’d retort. “Clean your room!” Or, she might drag the broom, the vacuum or dusting supplies out of the kitchen closet and task us with cleaning the house. We quickly learned that boredom was something avoid. Or at least never to admit to.
I have been on Isla Taboga for just shy of three months now. When we first arrive each year, it is stimulating. We are happy to be back on this lovely island, to see friends and practice the Spanish we have been studying all year. I savor the warmth, hikes through the jungle and my daily swims. And I appreciate having space and time to write.
Our rental business keeps us busy, especially at the onset of the season. When tenants are on site, we have lots to do to keep things humming. And we earn money to offset our costs.
However, once the newness wears off and I settle into my routine there are hours and even days where I am strumming my fingers during my tiempo libre (free time), trying to think how to be productive, not wanting to waste precious time.
In past years, we planned side trips of ten days or more to another area of Panamá. We visited mountain towns, archipelagos, Panamá City, the Canal, the Azuero Peninsula and the Western Highlands. And returning to the island made it sweet and new again. Alas, this year, getting away was not possible, so we stayed put.
Strum, strum, strum…
Yesterday I woke up early, hiked up the mountain and back, had breakfast, swam some laps in the pool, made the bed, tidied the casita, did my Spanish lesson and then… I thought, “Now what?” It’s too hot to walk into the pueblo now. I could write, I should write, but I don’t really feel like it. We have dinner plans but dinner is hours away.
And then my eight-year-old self tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Guess what? You’re bored!”
I felt guilty. A knee jerk reaction. A habitual response. How could I be bored? It’s up to me, isn’t it? Within my control. And then I thought, is it truly boredom when I can stare at the water, watching pelicans dive?
Or look up into the jungle and see the trees – really see them? And the incredibly blue sky behind them?
So many things to see. If you take the time.
Is allowing my brain to follow its stream of consciousness the same as boredom? Is it wasteful to play a game of Scrabble with my husband. And then another one?
Here on this tiny island in the middle of the Bay of Panamá, where people have lived for a very long time and whose families go back generations, I have begun to realize that as long as people have food on the table, enough money to buy school uniforms for their children, a roof that doesn’t leak and, maybe, a TV, they are happy. They don’t need to work harder or make more money. Because they have what they need. They enjoy time in their hammocks and with their neighbors. Guilt free.
Hammock at home.
Hammocks in the mountains.
Siempre hammocks.
Visitors often ask, “Why don’t the islanders realize what they have here? They could be making so much money! They could start businesses and grow this place to a tourist mecca! Why don’t they see that?”
Such a different approach to life we have in our culture where being too busy to do the things one wants to do is considered valuable. We are forced to schedule “me” time, time to meditate, time to do nothing. We are barraged with sayings to the effect of life being short and taught not to waste time.
But does not wasting time mean being constantly busy? Producing? Accomplishing? Making money? Or is sitting still and coming into a place where you can think and look and pray and appreciate and be, just as valuable? More so? I’m beginning to thing that is the case.
Are the people here lazy? Are they lacking industry? No!
Are they bored? Definitely not!
They are simply living life. And they are living life simply. And, in many ways, they are getting more from their lives than we in all our busyness get from ours.
