Category Archives: life

Island Time and Farm Animals

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I can’t think of any predictions or expectations, ambitions or dreams for the upcoming year. I feel numbed from reading the innumerable, estimable 2010 articles. Partly it’s being on this island and feeling removed from the world, and even from time. I got to the boardwalk in Phillipsburg on New Year’s Eve just in time to see the fireworks at midnight. My friends and I got drinks and walked over to the beach. We waited. Someone had 4 minutes until midnight, the other two had 2 minutes. 2 minutes went by and nothing happened. Then another 2 went by and nothing happened. Nobody around us seemed concerned, and nobody was counting down. Then a rocket went spiraling up in the air. “Happy New Year!” I cried, figuring somebody had to call it. “Happy New Year” my friends said. Here even 2010 is on island time.


For New Year’s day, we had a big, fortifying breakfast and went to the beach. The weather was idyllic and I had some supremely Caribbean-themed light reading. Walking back to the car at the end of the day, we saw a baby donkey. It was just standing there, nibbling grass then walking down into the sand. While the island boasts more farm animals than I ever saw growing up in Georgia, a donkey roaming the beach was a whole new thing! We started to take photos when it’s perturbed owner appeared. He called to it and tried to grab its harness, but the donkey gaily trotted away through families of prone French tourists. All the beach-goers were startled, and the owner walked fast to herd (eventually) the donkey into the parking lot and away from the beach. It was very funny and very strange. It’s hard to think seriously about life when you’re laughing at donkeys.


So I’m on island time, distracted and amused by a new place, and, to top it off, hot. It’s very difficult to think when you are hot. While watching the long fireworks show, I felt that I really didn’t care about doing too much–that I was quite happy with things just as they are. I’m like a fat cat being scratched and purring. It’s a little ridiculous, and it certainly won’t last, but I am utterly relaxed. In fact, I might just take a mid-morning cat nap.

This is the Daily Herald

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It’s the newspaper for the Dutch side, where we live. It covers international and local news, but it especially brims with stories about Sint Maarten being slated to attain country statuson 10/10/10 rather than be part of the Netherland Antilles.

It is also full of these:

Clarivoyants.

Mediums.

People with supernatural knacks.

Occult Scientists.

This is less than half of those advertising clairvoyant services to those seeking love, fidelity among couples, impotence, come back of affections, sales, power, and setting and removal of spells. Some study the occult, some are men of god. I thought this was paradise, but I didn’t know I could come here and solve all my problems by means of spells. There go my New Year’s resolutions–I’m hiring Professor Mamadou instead.

Also fun:


Stop Motion Sunrise

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Mosquitoes woke me up just in time for the sunrise yesterday. I can’t think when the last time I saw one of those was. I expected the sun to rise up in a burst of glory, but instead it came up rather slowly, in a series of moments. So here I played with stop motion animation– not that the sun needed help from me in rising, but because it gives a better sense of movement and perception. Now I wish I had taken the photos from a fixed point, like a tripod, and taken more of them, but you get the idea.

It’s a beautiful and peaceful way to begin the day. I’d like to rouse myself out of bed one morning to see it again, without any prodding little biters helping me along.