Days 1 to 3: Writing in Vieques
I don’t know how many hours I spent in transit to Vieques. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. Let me write about the surprises.
I had forgotten how small the airport in San Juan feels and how confusing it is. If I hadn’t had a second surprise – Ian bought a ticket to fly out of San Juan to Vieques – then I totally would have missed my last flight, and that flight was gorgeous.
We flew in a small biplane, only 4 other people inside besides us and the pilot. The flight lasted about half an hour. A half hour over the turquoise and royal blue waters, glittering on a bright and sunny day. There were textured pools of green, all of the shades of green that danced in their greeting, cut at the shore lines and throughout the islands with pockets of steel, the signs of people gathered. The last time I had been such a small plane was on the flight from San Jose to Puerto Jimenez in Costa Rica. It was one of the most frightening flights that I had ever taken. Because of that experience, I expected a rough landing on our arrival to Vieques, but I was pleasantly surprised. Our pilot, Antwan, was certainly skills. We landed so lightly as to prompt me to think of setting on pillows.
Next surprise? My luggage was the first out. Any who know me know that it never fails when I check baggage: mine is always the last out. This time, it came out first, Ian grabbed it, and we were on our way: met Regina, learned about Dave who occasionally stays at Ian’s, chilled out and wrote.
That first night I was here I focused on my Glee article, which has been in the works for a LONG time now. It just needed (A whole lot of) final touches. I am really lucky that I had a colleague review it a while ago, so I had his remarks to build into it. I was just about finished … when my computer stalled. I don’t know why, but I did a force quit, which wiped out all of the changes of the last hour of work. Those just happened to be the most important changes, so as I have done in previous instances – I once lost a whole book of poetry this way and then there was the time when I lost a dissertation chapter this way, too – I just went to sleep. I was so angry that there was nothing to do, but go to bed. I would just have to remember what I had done in the morning.
Day 2: January 20, 2014
Rewriting what I had already written and then making the final changes were my first move of the agenda. Happily, since I had already thought through a lot of the work, it only needed about 3 hours of my attention, and then it was off to my editor for review. Emailing is problematic here, so I couldn’t do much other than weed out my email from the last few days (I lost a day in transit). After so much brain activity, I decided to take a nap. When I awakened, it was time to greet the day. Ian and I dropped Regina off at her place, did some grocery shopping, dropped them off and changed for the beach. We headed over to Sun Bay. He talked me in to going a tad beyond where I normally go (lately only up to my neck. I’m more of a pool person. My swimming skills are not the best), and tortured me with teasing me to go to the buoy just within site with him. I started out afraid, but then, with the relentless teasing, I just got annoyed. I respond to peer pressure by rooting in the ground. I am a bit stubborn that way. Eventually, it annoyed me so much that I went back to the shore to read, Jason Biyani’s book, Amulet, which is AWESOME! I want to write a review on that one, mainly because I need to read it three more times to have a grasp on it. He’s doing that much within the text.
Sun Bay done, we came back to the house. I showered to get the sand grit off of me. Dave came by with boxes for Ian’s move (he’s off to Rincón in a few weeks). I changed into bathing suit number two as we were going to the Bio Bay.
The Bio Bay deserves a short story written about it. Dave went with, but somewhere early we lost him. He ended up following the wrong group and ended up walking out of the brush to eventually get a ride. Crazy story.
It was the PERFECT night. It was a moonless night. The waters were only lit from above by the stars and from below by the organisms in the water, disturbed by the oars and our hands dragging. We had a two hour trip or so. It was super long compared to what Ian had done before. My arms were just starting to tired when we came back in. I think that the scene will make its way into a poem or two … when I get to the point that I can write poetry.
Day 3: January 21, 2014
Today I am concentrating on reworking a letters as inquiry article with a critical race theory lens. I’m trying to wrap my head around the approach right now, but I suppose it would be more helpful to just write.