Pixie in Paradise

Let’s get really honest with each other. Part of my god-given talent is the ability to tell a detailed, humorous and thrilling story, having experienced an event myself. What you read or hear that makes you smile or even belly laugh is the truth, but some things have been camouflaged. What becomes an entertaining story usually involves some real fear, anger, anxiety or uncertainty on my part before its conclusion, which I weave into a hilarious and incredibly entertaining tale. As Chow says in the movie, The Hangover, “But did you die?” Exactly: it’s a great story because I’m able to tell it.

The truth is that I’ve lived on La Isla Carinosa in Caye Caulker for 20 days and adventure and beautiful connection abounds for sure. What I haven’t shown you is any of the frustration or discomfort and sometimes pain that I’ve experienced so far.

Let’s start with the first world responsibilities – not all of them were left behind when I moved to this developing country (formerly known as a third world country). I still pay rent and utilities back home. I still have my beautiful sassy male cat in Tucson I need to order food and medications for and routinely check in on, to make sure he is still on his general path to enlightenment. I downsized and simplified as many financial commitments stateside as I could but there’s still some to be mindful of. There’s check-ins with all of my wonderful friends back home to make sure nobody is falling apart without me. As if. My badass bitches are all thriving. I’d say they barely know I’m gone but most everyone is so good about checking on me, especially while I’ve been sick. As I’ve said before and will continue to say, while I AM independent and wild and driven as an individual, it’s the loving support of my dear ones all over this world that allow me to fully be who I am and wander – and wonder – where I’m called.

But yesterday was a shit-ass day. Yes, even in paradise you can have those. It’s not like emotions or feelings are erased when you move from one location to another, even if that location seems like a dream. What many people don’t understand is that if you think moving to escape will make everything better, it doesn’t. However, sometimes moving is a good idea if it’s for new or better opportunities, and better mental or physical health, but you can’t run away from your problems: they travel with you until you’ve addressed them. With all of that in mind, I knew what I was doing when I moved from the US to Belize. I knew life would be challenging, going from a large American city to a very small tropical island with limited resources.

To be fair, yesterday was still a better day than most. Whatever set me up for the ennui I woke up with I still don’t know. All I knew was getting near the ocean was a must and absorbing some sun on this frighteningly beige body needed to happen. For once I didn’t need to make a friend or meet new people. I wanted my Sunday to include a beautiful, quiet ocean view, and a sunscreen-infused glow.

Little things had added up which set me in the mood I found myself in, compounded most likely with the fact that I had been sick for a week and still had some residual congestion and fatigue but still trying to make forward progress each day I was out of bed. Let’s still not forget a huge dose of culture shock mentally, physically and emotionally. My landlord told me the day before that the internet would be pulled from our apartment and moved to one in the back for the person who had previously lived in this location. He now lived in a smaller unit behind ours. This already royally pissed me off because I was very specific about my need for the internet wherever I lived and she said this apartment had it. I did also tell her I would get my own account so that my internet was more dedicated to just my place, allowing me to work with potentially minimal disruption. This seemed all very doable to both me and her so neither of us thought more of it.

I should have thought more of it. I’ve been here now three weeks and still have no personal internet account. Why? You need a Belizean social security card…and I Ieft that in my other pants. All sarcasm aside, it’s apparently more difficult than anticipated to get monthly internet service if foreign. Our solution was for Rasta to put the account in his name for me but the trick has been finding time when he is awake during the day before his next night shift and also before the internet sales office closes. That slim window of time has proved too challenging for us up until now but in a couple of days we are headed in to sign up, and the package also includes my new Belizean cell phone. At this point I need to remind you of the Caye Caulker motto which is, “Go Slow,” and realize that even as a driven, Type A Capricorn, who has the power of persuasion by showing Rasta my boobs from time to time, none of that is motivating enough to make anybody, including him, move faster on this island. Nobody. I still pray though that as I’m learning to slow down a lot, he will speed up a tiny bit so that I don’t lose my shit on him constantly, or push him down the stairs next to the garbage bin.

The other thing that brought my mood to a head this particular Sunday morning was the fact that our shower drain was starting to drain slower and slower, causing standing water which almost spilled out onto the bathroom floor. And if you’ll recall, water that spills onto our floors falls to the level below it and this time instead of water spilling from the master loft to the second bedroom in our apartment, water spilled in the bathroom heads straight down to the apartment below us. Should be fun.

Rasta has been fed his breakfast sandwich and is relaxing on the couch as we talk for a  few minutes before he lays down for daily sleep. I tell him about the shower drain. I’m sitting with my legs crossed facing him, hands on his knees. Not getting much of a response I ask him if they have Drano™ at the hardware stores to empty into the drain to unclog it. He says he’s never heard of it. At this point I’m starting to get a little “tweaky” and those who know me are acutely aware that this is a state I enter right before Tourette’s Syndrome and some brief ranting in a loud voice. (I don’t actually have Tourette’s Syndrome but it would more easily explain all the swearing). I try a different tack then asking him if I can buy a cheap drain snake at a hardware store to which he still looks pretty blank.

I guess this was the moment I wanted to give up. Saying nothing I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose with two fingers. In that moment I thought that was the action that would keep me from crying or screaming. Poor Rasta, so chill and slow to react, stays there with me – not that he can go anywhere since I’m half sitting on him. So we stay there in silence as I try to force myself to not react, not cry, not lose my absolute fucking shit, because I can’t seem to crack a magic code that will allow me to live like a civilized human in a country I truly know nothing about. Never thought a partially clogged drain is what would get me sent to a mental institution but here we find ourselves. 

We sit motionless as I try to stay as calm and composed as possible but when I realize that may not happen, I let go of my pinched nose bridge and open my eyes, tears streaming down my face. Rasta hugs me and tells me his usual, “Everything is going to be alright, babe,” and I get up, needing to get to the ocean now more than before. It’s almost 9am, way past his bedtime, so I send him off to sleep and grab my backpack to find a quiet beach to work through my feelings.

Arriving at a beach close to our apartment, I’m delighted to find no one. At least fifty blue lounge chairs are completely devoid of humans, the resort bar isn’t even open yet, and no one is in the water either. I’ve been to this beach once before during the first week after I arrived, grabbed a cocktail and a little sun. No one bothered me, the drink was strong and I even saw a couple huge stingrays in the water by my feet while enjoying small talk with a German tourist. This time, just the landscape guy was present and he told me I was only allowed to sit in the wood chairs, not the blue loungers. Giving him one of those looks that inevitably leads to a “Can I speak to your manager,” I didn’t want to accept his response. Questioning him due to the lack of bodies in any of the chairs, he reiterated that they were only for resort guests. Telling him I was going to buy drinks when the bar opened didn’t change his stance. He said I could take it up with the bar staff when it opened, or find a different beach. So I did.

I got back on my bike and headed for the split, the northernmost tip of the south side of our island. Jumping on the “Split to Split Ferry” with my bike, I arrived at the island’s north side, one minute later. I biked a short distance to a nice quiet private beach, worth spending $10 BZD ($5 USD) to inhabit. I was in the water watching small fish dance around my feet and drinking out of a coconut as I walked past a random sink in the water with the sign, “By the sea all worries wash away.” Really, do they though? Just like those waves we have to ride out our emotions. I already knew this. And instead of trying to keep them in like I did this morning – as if holding my face was going to keep the tears from flowing – I sat on a rope swing on one of the prettiest decks I’d ever seen and let my salty tears fall into the coconut water.