Ride around St Maarten

I was initially worried I wouldn't make it, not after my precious attempt at circumnavigating an island. The night before, I had a feeling my knee was going to start hurting. In fact I felt my knee going a bit funny and my muscles tense up just before sleeping...

But I woke up, ate, loaded up on carbs and water, and got going. A 30+km trip from Phillipsburg to Marigot in a counter clockwise direction. The lovely guy at the bike shop recommended how to bike and which routes to take. He said it's doable, despite several people telling me otherwise (even my friend who's been on the island for over a year said it's crazy because of the steep hills). But the guy at the bike shop said it takes about four, five hours. It took me under three.

I wasn't sure how. I just biked, and in low gear too. It was the first intensive bike ride since my injured knee back in August last year and twisted ankle in December. I was really anxious of biking in the middle of nowhere and having to stop suddenly and being lost and unable to go anywhere and needing to wait for rescue. Luckily, my mind and body triumphed, and I did it.

Sure, there were tough hills and gradients, but I stepped off and walked with my bike, getting on again close to the top of the hill for the thrill of the effortless ride and sound of the wind blowing in my face as I zipped downhill. And I was rewarded with tranquil, deserted beaches, and magnificent views of open bays, aquamarine waters and distant, mysterious islands rising from the horizon.

The roads were not in great condition, especially on the French side. A couple of times, I was suddenly surprised to notice a big van brush by within centimeters of me and speed off. If I had swayed just a little or erratically stretched out my arm or leg, I would have been hit and caught by the, or worse. Besides having pocketed roads, I came across two cats on the side of the road on the French side-- one just lying there not moving, another had its head run over. And I saw a flattened rat too. Seeing those poor, unfortunate creatures I realised why the guy at the bike shop warned me to be very careful biking in "France".

Along the way, I stopped a few times to take in the scenery, and once to refill. As bike guy told me when I asked if it were easy to get provisions on the way, there were many little stores ("depanneurs" as they would call it in Quebec...) run by Chinese immigrants. "Chinezen" (the Chinese) as the locals call them. I stopped at one run by a middle aged guy originally from Guangdong. Though his mandarin was difficult to decipher, we chatted a bit, and he told me around 10% of the island's population of 37,000 are Chinese immigrants. They usually run these corner stores or restaurants which have very Chinese sounding names. I even saw a supermarket with my surname, which made me smile as I took a picture of the sign (later I learned I was walking through a rough Dominican neighbourhood where "macamba's" (a derogatory name for white people in the local slang...) dare not venture into...).

What did I think of as I biked? Very little. Just about biking, and random things that I saw and passed along the way. Again I found my freedom in getting on the "steering bar" and peddling as fast and far as my feet could take me. I was careful not to push it too much, ever so vigilant and on the "feel-out" for sharp pains from the repetitive motion with my knees and ankle. But luckily I came away unscathed, sweaty, tanned but feeling so light and proud of myself.

I reached Marigot before midday, far earlier than I had expected. What was I to do when I could not yet check into the hotel? I boarded the ferry bound for Anguilla.

It was planned for the day after, but why leave till tomorrow what can be done today? Passing through immigration was a breeze. I had to pay a $5 departure tax, filled in a customs declaration form issued by HM Customs, and onto the boat I went with my bike. Within half an hour, the shores of this tiny British overseas territory were beckoning me.

There was to be honest little to do or see on Anguilla. It's famed for empty and undisturbed white beaches and villas full of retirees.
I biked around, initially on the right (and therefore wrong!!) side of the road and had to continually remind myself to keep left and stay left throughout my three hour stay there. I mailed two postcards, to my ex and his parents of all people, as I thought they would appreciate a little warm greeting from the most remote of places, and most interestingly delivered by Royal Mail.

I returned to Saint Martin (French side now!) and still the adrenaline from biking had not subsided, so after checking into my room, I got into my bike again and headed to the south-westerly tip of the island which is renowned for its sunsets.

I biked and biked, rounding off this lagoon and passed beautiful villas and gated mansion estates. Cupecoy Bay is not only famous for its dazzling sunsets, but also for its nudists and gay beaches

There was a cliff edge that overlooked the sea, and you needed to descend at least ten, fifteen metres before you come to the water. I approached the cliff cautiously and quietly and indeed saw several sunbathers lying and sitting naked on the beach below. I don't know if it was me seeing and interpreting things, but men were just looking around and walking up and down. Cruising most likely, seeing if they'd get lucky tonight. It's exciting to think about, so very arousing, so very tempting... But also very creepy. I stayed on the cliff and watched the sun set with my three stuffed animal companions.

I felt my slightly sore muscles, hands and legs, and stared into the distance. A great ball of bright orange was dangling above the water and being lowered ever so slowly closer and closer to the waves rising toward the clear blue skies. I felt a pang of loneliness, I so wanted to share this moment, this view with someone... The loneliness turned to sadness, to sorrow, to longing.

I took out a bar of chocolate and my energy drink and sat for a while as the day was about to end.
The chocolate soothed my emotions, and I reassured myself I am alright. I feel alright, and I reminded myself how far I've come and how long I've been biking all alone and did not seem to mind being alone.

There is a quiet bliss, a subtle contentment being alone and telling yourself you are your own best companion. For I am the only thing I have to a truly close and trustworthy friend at this moment.

Dream: kicking

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They say don't kick a man when he is already down. In my dream, I was kicked and kicked and kicked again in the ribs.

I begged for forgiveness, begged not to be kicked, but there was such anger and rage in his eyes. He was the beast of my childhood reincarnated, and I felt small and like a victim again...

I cried out for help. But who will help me?

Try

I try...

I do try.

All I do in life is try. Try despite circumstances, try to be myself, try to help those around me, try to be more kind, more patient, more caring and compassionate.

What is there in this life to do but try? What is there to live for but the hope of being loved and loving in return?

Try...
Try...
Try...

Email from the ex

Email from the ex

On my birthday, he wrote to me. Wishing me much peace and happiness, telling me how much he cares and wishes to be there for me.

Later in the afternoon, as I was sitting alone on the beach, he caught me on my phone. We videocammed, he played a birthday song with singing and dancing squirrels. He said happy birthday to me many many times. I was indifferent. This birthday is so meaningless. I said I wished someone were by my side to share it. I wished someone were here to hold my hand and show me how much they care.

My friend seemed to be making so much effort to reach me, to try to make me smile. I was not sure what to think. Here was someone who left me for someone else, who is still with someone else and continues to tell me how much he cares about and loves me.

 Perhaps that is all I will ever receive from him: love in this mysterious way that only he can understand, that is limited seemingly in words and repeated attempts to reach me and make me happy. Nothing more, nothing less, despite my wishes that we can one day be that strong, loving dynamic duo we once were and thought we would be for a long, long time to come...

Morning walk

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Woke up to the sound of a cock calling. Seven in the morning, missed the sunrise, but it's still tranquil and the sun is still rising.

I went down to the sea, mere a minute or two from my resort. I sat down, and my feet made tracks. Tracks I made hours earlier, around midnight, have been washed away, gone as if I was never there.

And I realised... It's been ages since I last stood on a beach and let the and tickle my feet. It's been far too long since I heard the sea wave and watched it ebb and flow. It's been far too long since I last heard such gentle, soothing sounds...

What a beautiful way to start the day, start a new day in my life.

Birthday eve

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Twenty minutes past eleven on my birthday eve. Sitting in the lobby of the resort I checked myself into, in the background laughter and karaoke blasting away in the bar. I'm alone. There's mystery in being anonymous, and strangely also some sort of comfort. It feels lonely, for sure, and dining alone while being surrounded by couples and families made me so self conscious. But I chose to be here, chose to be here all alone.

I do wish I had company. I tried, even went as far as asking the ex. He said he could not. i did not insist more than necessary. I may be lonely, may crave for human contact and intimacy, but I should not go around begging for it. Given the circumstances, it is perhaps best that I am alone.

There is a soft and gentle breeze blowing into the lobby. The Caribbean Sea continually combs the white sandy beaches. It is beautiful here, and I am so fortunate to be here, to be able to afford all this. But with the abundance and wealth and all that that has been left to me, there is terrible terrible void and emptiness...

I'm hiding, I know I am. From what though I don't know. From friends? From the fear of being given a surprise party with gifts and well wishes and such none sense that go with birthday celebrations? Or perhaps hiding from the fear of not being able to laugh and smile and enjoy myself despite the good intentions of others? Sometimes it is easier, much simpler, to be alone, because you do not have to care about what other people think. You do not have to make yourself smile when you don't have to and don't want to. Nowadays I feel people want me to be happy, expect to be happy... But they don't realise how difficult it is, even after so long.

Twenty eight years are almost up. I remember my birthday last year. My braved her pains and tiredness and accompanied me (and my uncle and her friends) and we went to the seaside. We enjoyed a sumptuous meal of lobster and assorted seafood. Then we went to the shore and set off sky lanterns. I made so many wishes... For good health, happiness, freedom from suffering... All for mum, for the world, for the people in my life, for the love of my life (then, at least I thought...), for my late dad...

"I would do anything for love...
But I won't do that..." (is playing now)

And now...? With a dozen minutes to go till I turn 29, what do I wish for? Something for myself? More love for myself? wish for peace, and for the rediscovery of the ability to love and to laugh again after such great losses in my life?

The alcohol is setting in. I must be blushing like an apple ready for plucking. But in hiding nobody knows me, nobody is here to judge someone sitting on a high chair away from the crowd tapping away on his phone with his head down...

I'm heading to the beach... Let nature, let the wind and the ocean wash me and usher me into a new year... Let the sounds of the waves drown away the sounds of my sorrow and crying.

Goodbye 28,
Hello life.

One last look...

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One last look at the view from the living room window of the house my mum last lived in. She moved there around four years ago. I've stayed at that house for months, weeks, many, many days. Most of those days were difficult, as it was through a period when life was toughest on mum, and death seemed always lurking around the corner. Some days were so beautiful, filled with memories of family gathered together, filled with laughter and smiles, filled with the sound of tv in the background, or the echo of mum chatting with my brother and skyping with my nephew on the computer.

I didn't realise the last time I saw that house would be the last time. Over the past few weeks, much of mum's possessions have been "dealt with". Most donated, some given away, and the rest--- I don't know what happened to most things. I only got a phone call two days ago to say the house has been emptied and that my belongings, or what I have previously said I wanted, have been packaged in boxes and shipped. They will be shipped to me here in Canada. What is inside them I will not know...

In the meantime, after two weeks of little contact, my brother told me the painter came to give the place a new coat of paint, so did an estate agent. Soon, it is the hope, the place will be rented out.

I don't know when it happened or how it happened. But my share in the house my mum last lived in was sold. All I know is an amount of money is now "mine".

I am sitting on an amount of money. Several figures, more than I have ever seen and perhaps will ever see. It feels so empty to have a sum on my bank account, so meaningless. And that sim is supposed to represent the value of the home I lost, the home which holds so many memories, mumories and so much more.

All sold, all packaged in boxes, all in the past now...

At SXM

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The plane circles the sea several times, each time the flight attendant said would the final approach. The runway at Princess Juliana International does not have a taxiway. So basically as soon as a plane lands, it must do a u-turn and taxi on the runway toward the terminal. This causes delays in take off and landings, especially as it is one of the most used airports in the Caribbean.

Pristine, tranquil aquamarine waters cuddled the the shores. The sense of anticipation and numb excitement grew in me. I hardly slept two hours as I was woken up by a phone call. The two flights were short, but I was drifting in and out of consciousness and disoriented. The birthday get away had finally begun, but I was so very exhausted, so drained of energy and feeling, especially after yesterday's group counseling session.

I never imagined I'd be in the Caribbean region, much less find myself on Dutch soil where it doesn't rain (as often) and where people of all races live in relative harmony. There was a special line at immigration, for citizens of St Maarten/St Martin and Dutch citizens. I literally whizzed through it while all the rest waited in huge queues. I did have difficulty understanding what the immigration officer was saying, for we accent was so heavy and I wasn't sure if she Dutch or English to me.

I took a taxi to get to my hotel. The man, not much older than me, ranted and raved about the dispatcher giving him only one customer for such a long distance drive. He's a relatively new taxi driver, and says those dispatchers are corrupt in that they give their friends and family more customers, and also give more business to those willing to "pay". He's not like that, he said.

We chatted about local life and life as an Antillean. Turns out, he went to the Netherlands to study to be an electrician. They put him to work as a gardener at a zoo instead. He did have one good thing to say about the Dutch, except perhaps that they are extremely xenophobic and racist. Antilleans indeed get the brunt of blame for all social ills, are treated like second class citizens, even though they have full citizenship rights.

I looked out the window, at the many bays and mountains, at the vast open sea and imagined the "motherland" so far far away. This is a part of the Netherlands, and yet it is anything but Dutch. The weather to begin with, and the people too. Though its only been two hours or so, I feel this is a special place that can grow on you...

The new normal

There were a lot of tears shed today. Between the eight of us, a lot of tears have been shed throughout each of our lives, a lot of pain and longing and loss have been undergone... And no doubt more is to come. For how else can grief and pain be dealt with other than going through it and facing it full on? There is no way about it. Sometimes to feel better you must feel worse. Sometimes to appreciate and experience real joy and letting go, one must remember and remind yourself what you have gone through and why it hurts so...

One lost a mother, merely days before mine... One lost a long term companion... One lost a series of loved one, and did not really grief until the latest loss of her father... Another lost her husband of fifty-seven years... Imagine all that pain, imagine the severity of the longing and grief put together! Imagine how all these wry individual, and yet shared, experiences have affected us all...

The feelings described by all of us were so strikingly common. Though the relationships between our loved ones are invariably different, though our pain and grief, including their depths and lengths, vary, there are similarities. Feelings of emptiness, loss, feelings of being lost, feelings of nobody being able to understand you and feelings of frustration that even friends after a while become dismissive and see you as a freak or a nutcase. Everything takes so much effort, everything can suddenly break you down
And leave you howling and crying. Anything can be a reminder, trigger an emotion, a memory, a flood of tears.

But in sharing our stories we know we are not alone, we know we are not crazy and that we've not lost it as people seem to think we have. It is all perfectly normal. Perhaps not the "normal" strong and confident and coherent self we used to e or we used to know. But we are working towards establishing and accepting a "new normal". How can a deep experience of loss and deep grief not change someone? How can the exhausting and very traumatic experience of caregiving and seeing your loved one deteriorate not affect you? How can people except you to be the same old self and criticize or judge you when you are feeling down and not performing or functioning like before? There is a new normal we need to find, a new normal we need to adapt to, and others must leave to be there to support and accept you as you are.

"Random things"

A wonderful morning at the zoo, even though we slept only a few hours the night before. Crying, pouring out my emotions, pain and what kills me so. My ex stayed the night and we slept on the same bed, back to back... How beautiful it is to feel the warmth of another person's body... It means so much to me, so much after so many lonely and teary nights...

He was due to return to his city. Earlier he expressed how lonely it is there, how it's only him in a city where he knows few people.

It was a hurried goodbye, a most strained and unpleasant one. I helped him carry some things he had in my office, and once we for back he revealed his boyfriend is in the neighborhood.

I quickly said goodbye and left... But I ran and ran and ran home because there were a few things I wanted to give him before he left. God only knows how long it will be till we see each other. I got to the apartment he was staying at, and there by the door was a guy standing there and waiting. His boyfriend. The reason for all the tensions between my ex and I, the very reason why a four year friendship soured and the source of so much gossip and amusement amongst mutual friends...
I saw him, but he did not see me. I'm just the invisible ex, the third wheel and thorn in a relationship that I have for too long come in between.

I had in my hands a bag with my ex's shoes and tennis racquet... And some "random things" (as I heard them later described...). Notes, little messages and smiles from me to him.

But they are redundant now. I am redundant now.

I turned away and walked home, saddened, hurting again and despondent. Who knows of my pain? Does my ex, someone who has proclaimed again and again he is my best friend and who loves and cares about me so, really know or understand what pain and hurt he puts me through?

Or perhaps I should blame myself. Blame myself for being attached to someone who others have repeatedly told me is not worth it-- do I not deserve more?

I turned away and walked away. The notes, messages of encouragements and care, and love (dare I say...) mean so little. They may as well be burnt and destroyed.

I left my neighborhood with a friend and happen to call me up and offered me a drive around town.

I drank myself silly and got so drunk I felt asleep in the car. I got so drunk that I did not feel lonely, did not feel pain... Just this temporary bliss and joy that was so high, and that would send me crashing down the next morning...