Following a truck that is transporting a large rock.
12:16PM St. Martin/St.Maartin airport.
Woke this morning and had to say au revoir. Everything was packed, for the most part. I got up, jumped in the pool for a last swim and said goodbye to John Shankie and then woke Douglas Gordon who was still asleep. Big hugs all around. Martina Ashbacher picked me up at the house at 8AM, always the good hostess. We stopped at the bakery at the foot of the hill in St. Jean to get one last, crab sandwich, but alas in true island form, it was still not open. Got to the tiny airport, said goodbye to Martina and then got on the tiny plane. There were six seats, plus the pilot. An American couple in front of me, seated next to me was a handsome guy with dark hair and long eye-lashes. Behind me was Terry, a woman I struck up a conversation with at the airport when we landed in St. Martin. She and I shared a taxi together as we had to cross the island from the French side, to the Dutch side to get to the bigger airport. She is originally from Maine and works somehow with hotels. She was staying in St. Barth for a week. I told her I was an artist and I was on the island for a month. I’m glad we started talking and shared the taxi, as the taxi situation was so sketchy in St. Martin. They are basically just regular, beat-up cars that drive you where you want to go and having never been there before it was hard to tell what was a taxi and what was just someone driving a car. She said she had called a taxi ahead of time, a woman she’s used before but after waiting for a half hour, we went with this man who asked us we we needed a ride. He was a cab driver named Mr. D. Charles. He gave me his card. The name of his business according to his card was, “JUSTICE Car Rental” The “T” in justice is drawn in the shape of a judge’s gavel. It looked like was affiliated with The People’s Court or Judge Judy. This guy, Mr. D. Charles was from the island, thick accent but spoke english very well, and he was about 45. Such a nice guy. The three of us chatted the entire drive. Terry said, “The French side is much nicer - the Dutch are just pigs”, I don’t quite know what she meant but I think she was talking about the appearance of the island, the Dutch side being less desirable than the French. We got to talking about politics, Terry asking me if I liked Mr. Bush, and I went out on a limb with some profanity to drive the point home and said, “Fuck no, are you kidding?” and they laughed and joined in on the Bush bashing. Mr. D. Charles said he loved America and goes to New York whenever he can, for visits. He said, “I loved that Clinton. I’d take a bullet for him any day”, actually, he said it twice, to convince us. Judging by the courtesy and hospitality he showed us, I really think he was serious. “There may be another Clinton in the White House soon”, I said, to which he replied, “INDEED”.
I want to continue writing but I have to start boarding the plane. American Airlines, to JFK airport. I’ll be in the city at 6PM and I’m looking forward to seeing Jonathan and giving him the gifts I got for him on the island, including an intact, dried, puffer fish I found at la Grand Fonde beach yesterday.
Good bye Caribbean.
4:42PM I’m in the very last aisle seat on the left hand side of an American Airlines flight back to NYC. I think we have about an hour left before we land. I doubt I’ll be able to write much when I get home tonight so whatever I don’t finish today I’ll be sure to write about tomorrow.
American Airlines sucks. The fact that they charge you $2 for the crappy headsets so you can watch the crappy movie they offer is reason enough to not like this airline. And they have offered no snacks whatsoever. I wouldn’t eat them anyway, but what about everyone else? They don’t have to serve a meal, we all know that’s a thing of the past, but they could offer a small snack just so people don’t pass out or get grouchy from low-blood sugar levels. After the bombings in Glasgow this past week, and the other car bombs in London that were related, and with the 4th of July in two days, I’m sure the airport in NY is going to be in lock-down.
The movie that is showing on the tv’s in the ceiling of the plane is a movie called, “Breech” with Laura Linney, Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillippe. It’s so predictable, that even without the sound (I didn’t pay $2 for the crappy headset) you can tell exactly what is happening, almost down to what the actors are saying to each other, with Hollywood body language that is so rote it’s depressing.
After being on the island for 32 days and meeting so many people that speak 2 and three and four languages and that have lived and traveled in so many places, I feel really American, and limited. Watching this American movie on the plane, with it’s predictable pantomime and story line, camera angles, timing, lighting....everything....somehow illustrates this feeling of being limited. I’ve lived in a many US cities and traveled a lot within the US. I’ve been to Europe three times, but I know only one language. This woman Terry that I met today, said she was originally from Maine, owns a home in Maryland but has lived in the Caribbean for over thirty years. I met a lot of people like that in St. Barth; people that were permanently or semi-permanently away from their home country for whatever reason, some just because they prefer the tropical climate and some for sketchier reasons. I don’t know what my point is, but it’s interesting to meet people who have much more of a global wanderlust than myself.
Anyway, I can’t concentrate very well on the plane so I should go. The pilot just made an announcement saying we are 80 miles away from JFK and we’ll be landing soon.
St. Barth this morning, New York this evening.
