Perspective Again, Island-Style

There are many reasons I love to travel but one of the most seminal at this point in my life is that it enlargens my world. Although I live in one of the world's largest cities, in which a person should theoretically be able to exist anonymously, sometimes I feel as though it is the most inward-looking, clubbiest, cliquiest, narrowest place I have ever lived, which I guess says good things about Sudbury, Massachusetts and Poughkeepsie, New York.

Lately, I have been feeling not exactly blase about New York--I don't think it will ever go that far for me--but a little jaded, I guess. Part of this is my increasing awareness of what is New York's increasing tendency to be a place where only very rich people can afford to live. This has been true to some extent since I have been here, almost 14 years, but now that I have children it is harder to ignore.

People without children can avoid this feeling a little more easily, I think, when I look back on my own experience, think about those I know now. If you have children and you deny this feeling, this awareness of the all the money, you are in denial. And it's not just the money, not even mostly the money: it's the closing in of the walls in terms of almost everything. I am so rarely surprised in New York these days, by people's politics, cultural references, clothing choices, anything. I almost feel as though each day is a script I have already written. And it's not always a flattering portrayal.

I have more to say about this, and I can tell already that as was true with some of my earlier gender posts I will regret the brevity and lack of careful forethought. But I am, after all, away--really away, on a little tiny island shaped like an elongated backward letter "C" where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Carribean--and I am doing my best under the circumstances.

I guess what I wanted to say initially, before all the treading water in a pool of platitudes about Manhattan money, was that being away, really and truly away, makes me realize like a slap in the face that other people live rich and meaningful lives in vastly different ways than I do, in vastly different places, and that the existence of these millions if not billions of people renders about 98% of my daily anxieties irrelevant.

That's not really being fair to myself. I can't realistically expect to have anxieties that don't stem from my personal experience, the world I inhabit, by choice I may add. And my anxities are nothing but relevant, but they are also, at least in part, a choice, in that I allow myself sometimes to see my little corner of the world as a web, in which I am constantly getting stuck. Does this make any sense or does it sound like the rum talking?

Just kidding. I don't even like rum. But today, Jeremy and I took the two older girls for a walk down along the beach and through the little township of Governor's Harbour. I was carrying a bottle of beer, and Jeremy said, "Aim, can we do that?" I shrugged. He ran in and got one too. We walked in silence as the girls, arms linked, skipped ahead, past three young men on the beach cleaning a fish, an old man whistling on a wooden bench, a group of kids playing stickball, a pickup truck with a bed full of laughing teenagers: in short, a random assortment of people who live here and whose lives, superficially--in the details--have nothing in common with mine.

How can I say this, not knowing these people as individuals? Because I know it, knew it after an hour here. There are no stores here, really, no advertising, few cars, few strangers, few rules. Nobody stopped us with our open beers becasue nobody cares. There is little crime. There are few starving people and few rich people; most people seem to have, as Mick Jagger would say, maybe not what they want but what they need.

It is a cliche, and an embarrassing one, to be the American tourist who visits a place like this and patronizingly, ignorantly, and yes wistfully extols the simplicity of life. This has been written about, and well, many times before, and I have no desire to take on the task myself or to open myself to the many, and obvious retorts and reactions. I know what they are. And actually, to be fair to myself again, that's not actually what I am getting at, exactly.

I don't want to live here, wouldn't be able to tolerate it for more than a couple of weeks, I suspect. And I don't think life--with the ups and downs of human relationships, desires, and disappointments--is simpler here or anywhere else. It is always hard and easy, simple and complex. And, and, and I am the world's biggest believer in the quote: Wherever you go, there you are. Ask anyone: I say this all the time.

It's just that being here--and really anywhere that isn't or ever will be home--makes me look at home a little differently, sometimes a lot differently. I like to think that some of that ability to shift perspective, or gain some, travels home with me. This time, I'd like to remember that walks don't always have destinations, that a dead starfish won't come back to life if resubmerged in water, as Lily somberly informed me at the edge of a tidal pool, and that getting away--even when I bring (drag) my weary, whiny self along--is always always worth it.