Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Quiet times....shhhhhh



Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears
lyrics from: Fiddler on the Roof


Life has been pretty quiet around Culebra lately. But today is the beginning of July, the month we have holidays from pretty much start to finish. Here's the list:

July 4 Día de la Independencia de Estados Unidos (Independence Day)
July 20 Conmemoración del Natalicio de Luis Muñoz Rivera (Luis Muñoz Rivera's Birthday)
(third Monday in July)
July 25 Conmemoración del Estado Libre Asociado (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico)
July 27 Conmemoración del Natalicio de José Celso Barbosa (José Celso Barbosa Birthday)
Don't let those gaps fool you. In between are Patron Saint days all over the place and a few others that I always forget. But what it means is that Culebra gets busy with beachgoer's, campers, off season visitors who figure July is a good month to be here before things start really shutting down for off season and the odd and assorted who meander in and out all of the time anyway.

The fourth of July isn't really a huge holiday around here. There are fireworks, I've heard, but I've never seen them. Usually a mixed bag of us head/sail/motor/straggle out to a friend's houseboat to feast and swim the day away. If someone can find sparklers, that is about the amount of energy we put into a display. We've made our independence and settled into our own sort of freedom, a colony mixing within a much larger community that is only a speck in the eyes of the world.

A woman asked me yesterday where I was from. I know that means, where in America are you from? I told her and then she asked how long I'd lived here. I told her that and then she asked, how does it feel when you go home? I know she saw the weird look on my face and she figured it out even before I did..."Oh, I mean, how does it feel when you go back to the States?" I told her that it's always good to come home. I didn't tell her that I start missing this place as I'm flying out of here, even while I might have been craving getting away. And that getting to Isla Grande feels like *almost home, almost home* while trying to finagle my way onto an earlier flight back here.

Independence. Home. Freedom. Friends. Maybe I will try to scrounge up a firework or two...

My parking spot

Boys of Summer

Through the canal and out to sea

Just another life in Paradox.

2 comments:

  1. Whoa!! New look to the blog - much cleaner and pleasing to the eye. As are the beautiful shots you posted. I often tell my friends that leaving Culebra is like leaving my Grandmother's house was as a child. Part of my heart is left behind and part of it breaks outright.

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  2. Yes, I was feeling a lot cluttered. Thanks, I like it better too. I understand how you feel, a few dozen times.

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