25 June 1999, 776 words
Living at the beach is very different from not living at the beach. For one thing, there's more sand. At Mayaro, beach sand follows you even closer than the paparazzi used to follow Princess Di before she became the past tense of her name, gathering at the front door like Jehovah's Witnesses. However, sand is at least easily swept out and doesn't try to sell you pamphlets for a dollar.
Until last August, I hadn't spent an entire week in Mayaro for years, and I'd forgotten how relaxing it can be. I don't know if you've noticed, but Mayaro has the peculiar advantage of staying sunny even when the rest of the island resembles a broken fountain. At least, that was my experience last August, when every day dawned bright and sunny. (Well, it was always bright and sunny when I eventually got out of bed, which was usually around eight.)
Since I was there with my mother, two aunts, several cousins and their wives, I didn't have to worry about making breakfast or any other meals. (My modern and liberated attitude is entirely self-taught. My aunts are all traditional women, so even if I'd wanted to make my own breakfast, my Auntie Dolly woulda boof me bad bad.)
So my schedule was to wake up and, after meditating on life for a bit, get up. I would move slowly in order to let the joints warm up. It wasn't cold at Mayaro, just balmy, but the wind never stopped. At the beachfront house we rented for the week, I slept in a room facing the sea and I never needed insect repellent because the little bloodsuckers couldn't even get a proboscis-hold on my flesh. What with the wind and the lulling sound of the waves, I slept like the dead. So it was only natural that when I awoke, I'd be stiff. When I did finally get to my feet, I'd stagger to the sink to massage the creases out of my face with cold water. That done, I felt like a new and better man, as though I'd given up cigarettes or red meat.
With a cup of coffee in hand, I'd go out to the front porch and squint at the sparkling sea. There would be fishermen now pulling in their seine or their pirogues on to the beach. They would have been out since four a.m. or earlier, and I'd watch their sweating muscular bodies and hear their lively shouts and feel glad it wasn't me.
After meditating on life a bit more, my stomach would wake up, so I'd wander inside to see what was on the breakfast table. Two fried eggs, a slice of toast and another cup of coffee later, I felt ready to fight a lion. However, I would usually settle for a dip in the sea, braving possible jellyfish.
My half-hour soak would usually be followed by a game of beach racquet or volleyball or small goal with my cousins. I always tried to encourage them to play the first two, since nobody else in the house could beat me. With football, however, my only effective tactic is to kick my opponent's shins in order to get the ball. It works pretty well, unless my opponent's shins are harder than mines. My daily shedule at the beach was a very active one. By the third day there, my body had that ache which feels like sore muscles but is actually recently departed fat.
At night, we would play cards or board games like Pictionary or Scrabble or Boggle. One night, in the middle of a Boggle game in the living-room, I looked down and saw a crab staring up at me. I don't know if crabs actually are supercilious - my only relationship with them has been curried with dumplings - but they certainly look supercilious. Though maybe it's hard to look any other way when your eyes grow at the ends of stalks. This particular specimen, when my brother Daren got a broom to sweep him out, calmly walked off sideways with what seemed like deliberate contempt.
That was the most exciting thing that happened all week. It was very relaxing. I did no deep thinking, other than deciding if to have a third cup of coffee or not. The salt had sculpted my hair into more-than-usually-perfect curls. I would have looked like a Greek statue, if I'd had more muscles, lost some arms and been made of marble. I would have liked to stay longer. But it is not possible to live every day with sand in your swim trunks.
Copyright ©1999 Kevin Baldeosingh