last day in Curacao...

Before I left for Curacao, a physic informed me that “on an island surrounded by water,” my “third eye” would open. At the time I imagined a dramatic flourishing, a lightening bolt from the sky and striking me religious.

But of course, what happened was unexpected, and what was expected never happened. As is the way of the world. The awakening was more subtle, more graceful – like the slow and delicate opening of a flower.

Every morning I wake up and the slate has been cleared by someone nameless, someone who slips through my window and kisses me calm. I can’t hold the emotions from the previous day. I awake before my eyes open, when my body is tense with the idea of awakening. I know I must rise, but I let myself drift in darkness a little longer – I am on vacation, I have the time.

I brush my teeth, I brush my hair, I pull on a tee shirt and shorts. I walk onto the white washed porch and watch rays of sun slash green water. My friend tinkers with something indoors, but I ignore him. I am obsessed with the clean slate: who and what is the cause?

Sometimes I make breakfast, most of the time I do not. I wait until my body informs me of hunger, then I eat. I write for thirty minutes to shake the night’s dreams from my head to the page. I sip coffee and wait for the sun to stand at it’s full height, yellow and burning in a blue arch of sky. I undress and lay on a porch chair, absorbing the heat with my burning body.

The day moves on, with and with out our knowing. We move to an internal rhythm. When we feel like drinking, we drink. When we feel like singing, we sing. Dancing, cooking, swimming, laughing.

Often we jump in our start-and-stop car for a drive through the country. We wave at passers-by and stick out our tongues at children in buses. We lose track of where we are and lose track of ourselves in the island city of mazes and nameless streets.

We always find our way back.

Every night ends with a feast we prepare in celebration of the day. Seltzer chills in the ice box while my friend strings shiskabobs and I chop vegetables. We eat outside on the porch. We light candles only to watch the island winds blow them out. My friend plays with his music until he settles on a playlist that always includes Van Morrison.

This island is a place for extremes. The rugged earth and charging ocean intensify once mundane affairs. Each moment the past and the future fade to gray, and I am left with the primary colors- the here, the now, and the breath.

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