January 17, 2017 at 9:00 pm (art, caribbean islands, Carriacou, meditation, Poetry, Prose, short story, St Vincent and the Grenadines)
The rain falls at a 45 degree angle as I think of dinosaurs and watch pelicans diving for fish.
The earth will wash itself of humanity with bright indifference.
The styrofoam cup will become oily sand on empty beaches with water so clear you can see the soul of the universe.
December 31, 2016 at 12:51 pm (caribbean islands, Carriacou, Cemetery, Climate change, ghost, gravestone, graveyard, short story, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Travel, West Indies)
The taxi driver repeated it back. “You want to go to the Tibeau Cemetery?” He seemed confused and probably suspicious.
The previous day, I asked the innkeeper about the cemetery.
Someone who grew up in these islands told us about it and I was very curious.
Climate change. The innkeeper said, “You must have noticed since your last trip here, we are losing land.”
The cook overheard me ask, “Are people going to be upset if we’re down there taking a bunch of pictures?”
“We’ve had some trouble, you know.” She said, “They are stealing identities of the dead.”
“Oh, really?” I said, “I think that’s how Trump won the election.” She doubled over laughing.
Some of the dates on the graves were old.
But some of the ones in the water were as recent as the 1980s.
I saw a bone.
It could have been from an animal.
I thought I should take a picture of the bone because no one would believe me.
But it felt disrespectful, so I didn’t do it.
(no photo)
Photos by: Daniel Overberger and Nancy Winebarger
January 2, 2016 at 9:36 am (Carriacou, short story, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Travel, West Indies)
Tags: Carriacou, St Vincent and the Grenadines, travel, West Indies
It rained every day but we barely noticed.
We waited between downpours under the overhangs of unattended bodegas on Boxing Day.
We walked past a cemetery and took pictures of goats tied to graves. I told Nancy that if anyone asked, we would say we were taking photos so we would remember to pray for the dead when we returned to America. Having grown up a Catholic, I am aware of superstition, the possibility of misunderstanding and the appearance of a lack of respect.
The pelicans don’t care about the rain… they dive for fish all day long and into the night.
Four young boys sing us Christmas songs, one keeping time with a shaker. Ironically, it’s a tourist shakedown. We give them one dollar (US) to make them go away. But under the influence of rum, I decide we should follow them. For half a mile, they look back over their shoulders trying to figure out why we won’t go away. Turnabout is fair play. At the end of that half mile, I thought about asking them to sing again so we could film it. I didn’t ask, knowing it would have blown their little minds wondering if we were going to continue following them and asking them to sing from time to time.
The rum brought out the ghost of my grandfather. He would have asked and followed them into their homes demanding more songs and commenting on their pitch and timing, telling them they should practice more and maybe get matching outfits.
N would have never let this happen. But for me, it is often just as fun—if not more fun—to imagine the what ifs.
The rain has stopped. My shoes, socks, pants, shirt and paper are moist. But in 85 degrees, it hardly seems like a problem. A bird sings a song I think of stealing until at last I have forgotten the melody.
The locals set up speakers in the street outside the bar. The bass thunders across the entire island. It would not be possible to hear or think anything else. The bottom is big and tight.
January 2, 2016 at 7:47 am (Carriacou, Homless, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Travel, Uncategorized, West Indies)
Tags: abandoned house, derelict house
I found this house on the island of Carriacou. There are many structures like this around the island… much of it due to the hurricanes of the past.
I have a deep attraction to these abandoned…things. It is a reminder to me that the earth will take everything back… eventually.
I’ve always thought that if humanity abuses the earth enough, it will just evict us and start over with very little trouble.
It’s a beautiful message of impermanence and mortality.
How long will it take the vines to pull all of it back down into the soil?
The rhythm of insects singing in the distance.
January 2, 2015 at 9:39 am (Carriacou, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Travel, West Indies)
Sometimes my favorite time is breakfast. It’s the beginning of the day and maybe you don’t know what’s coming.
We walked a couple blocks down the street to access Hillsborough Beach. It’s a one mile stretch of beach that runs the west side of Carriacou island. We walked the long beach with our backs a little sore from the sunburn we got snorkeling in the Tobago Cays the day before on Dave’s Boat tour.
This being our second snorkeling experience — plus a refresher in shallow water the day before — made it extremely cool. I don’t know what I was thinking on the first trip when I just jumped off the boat in the middle of the sea thinking, “Yeah, I’ll just figure this out as I go.” I drank a whole lot of the Caribbean Sea that time.
Anyway, at the end of our mile long walk on the beach — completely empty because it was Christmas day — we found a ship that had run aground years ago.
As we approached the ship it instantly reminded me of the final scene in the 1968 “Planet of the Apes” film. The closer we got to the ship, The Gulf Coast III, I seemed to be taking on more and more strange emotions. Something very connected to mortality. The ship had a large hole cut in the side of it that I very slowly crawled into. A couple feet of murky water stood in the bottom of the ship and I felt almost panicked standing inside in the low light, balancing on a piece of metal that hovered just above the dark water. I had trouble catching my breath and tried to breathe slowly. I felt as if somehow I could be swallowed up and dragged down into the dark abyss of time long gone. I felt a big, strange, exciting fear. I took many pictures and looking at them now I am definitely getting a sense memory of that feeling of mortality I felt while I was there. (See more pictures here.)
After our walk, we returned to the Green Roof Inn. They have a great staff. The chef, Leslie Ann, prepared me a vegetarian meal that was not on the menu. It’s an island, so everything we ate was mostly local. I didn’t eat the fish but Nancy did. It was pulled straight out of the water we walked along an hour ago. The eggs we would have for breakfast were from the chickens that ran around the yard under our room that overlooked the sea.
I had a couple rum punches with dinner. In the Caribbean you never have to ask, “What would a pirate do/drink?”
The next morning, near 5 am, the rooster started his calls.
“Cock-a-doodle-do!”
“Cock-a-doodle-do!”
I rolled over and said, “Alright, mother fucker!” And Nancy said,
“Cock-a-doodle-don’t.”
We laughed and went back to bed.
There are emotions and feelings that we can experience but cannot express. These are the moments that connect us to the universal Truth that cannot be written into a sentence, a paragraph or a book. These are the things to swim in like the deep pool that is the collective. No life rafts, no safety bars. Just the stillness of primitive man looking to the skies and knowing nothing is explainable.
Leaving Stress Behind 