....a feast

Yogis,
This morning I am again woken by the birds. I can sense that it is getting light but that’s where the similarities end.

I am under a sheet and warm blanket with long pajama bottoms. I hear the heat kick on and off. Rolling toward the window I open my eyes. An empty gray sky peers back at me….and a sea of brown. Early March brown. The starkness of the naked trees catches me by surprise. The wind rustles the remaining dried leaves that refuse to drop until spring arrives. I’m home.

Only yesterday the sun woke me in a place so different it’s hard to imagine I could already be back in my own bed. Late last night I returned from a week in a beautiful white clapboard house with sky blue shutters built into a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea. St Johns. An island that feeds my soul.

Within hours of arriving there by ferry I felt the shift. Shoulders dropping, face softening, feet finally free from the dark confines of shoes and my curls springing back to life after weeks of dry static. But there is also an inner shift that happens. I begin to feel more like me. More like the me deep within that gets buried at times but longs to be on the surface. The vibrancy of being in this place nourishes my senses. Every time…..

Instead of robin’s voices greeting the day, goats bleat and roosters crow. The sound of gentle waves lapping the shore sets the day’s rhythm and before long I swear my heart beats in time. The screech of gray tree frogs at sunset competes with our dinner music.

And the colors! Every shade of green imaginable carpets the mountains with polka dots of purple and yellow flowers. The water so blue and clear it looks like crystal. The hummingbird. The red of a chicken’s head and the brilliant fuchsia of the orchid on the balcony that watches us drink our morning coffee.  

Instead of watching for other cars, the eyes search for donkeys lazily congregating in the middle of the road right around the next sharp curve. Or the iguanas who hope to safely cross by camouflaging their skin. Being careful not to step on the hermit crab who pulls into his shell as my foot casts a shadow from above. The bearded goat who stands on the cliff overhanging our driveway each afternoon to watch us unload.

A feast……..

  

Life under the water as vibrant as above. I spent hours listening to only my own breath through the snorkel as I floated. Turtles who look me right in the eye.  Rays and needle nosed fish curious but going about their own business. A school of angel fish brush my side. When I’m not quite ready to make landfall, I float effortlessly on my back. Held by this place that offers me what I need.

And for the final course, each night before bed I stepped out onto the patio and gazed up. Millions of stars twinkling back at me through the darkness. Grateful for them. Grateful for this island.

I feel full……
SARAH