Blog

I’m on my way to the funeral of a Head Man who was murdered by witchcraft. I know so, because everybody says his death was so mysterious that it had to be so. Even the fancy doctors in the capital of Suva. Even all the villagers in Vulaga. Even the...

Here is my life in days….. TUESDAY I get a call. Jack Jack is ready to install my transmission. He brings wood planks and a ratchet puller and bangs on things with a hammer. The shaft gets pushed so far aft someone has so jump in the water to push...

I’m anchored off of Namotu Island. It’s five acres of sand in the shape of an avocado with bures (wood and straw huts) and boats and surfboards and baby turtles. The bottle blue surf of Swimming Pools breaks all over it. It’s a surfer’s slice of paradise. There are waves...

Hi. I’m still here. I didn’t disappear. The holidays were a plume. I saw snow in California and family in Arkansas and I orbited beneath a long full moon that made the dogs go ape and the humans sleep slow. After the festivities me and my five suitcases headed back...

I was naked on my deserted spit of silver sand until a longboat pulled up with two tourists, lounge chairs, an umbrella, a hot picnic, and a bottle of champagne. I was vogueing my way around the shape of the shoreline to get my clothes back on. Imagine their surprise...

I’m in the cockpit of Epiphany off an island called Mama (pronounced: Mana). I just blew the conch shell and said “goodnight sun.” Imagine the quack of a dying duck, that’s how the conch sounds when played by my lips. I see rolling jade hills against a salmon sky and...

It’s a downwind spinnaker ride back to Denarau. The kite is baby blue topped by a sea turtle and it’s catching buckets of wind. Moving us like a cloud. I’m in the galley of Seaglub flipping hot cakes and wondering about the souls of sea gods when a squall creeps...

PART 1- FUTURE CIVILIZATIONS The sail to The Great Astrolabe Reef of Kadavu is a total bash into the wind and it takes all night, but the stars are falling. We do three-hour watches between the two of us. It’s 2 a.m. and my eyes are like petals breaking beneath...

I could never get bored underwater. No saltwater landscape looks the same. I swim 100 yards and everything evolves like sky. The light. The coral. The creatures. The seagrass. The sand. The saltwater breaking against it all. Then again, nothing in nature is identical, from every cloud down to each...

People on the water; they think different. They do different. They are different. I’m gonna ocean my eyes and salt my honey for forever. I’m back in Musket Cove where everybody is on permanent vacation for the rest of their lives. Last night we had a birthday honky tonk with...

My life is far from vanilla. At the moment, I’m exploring the islands of Fiji, working full time, taking a writing course, and maintaining a boat. Boats aren’t easy. Taking care of one is like trying to hallow a hole into a mountain with a wooden toothpick… for me anyway...

I’m so high on life right now that I’m afraid of how hard it’s gonna hurt when I crash down. The other day a man said to me, “I wish I had your spirit.” I don’t know how my spirit got like this. All I can say is grab life...

My life is an aquarium and I am soaking in salt. I like my life. No, I love my life. It’s like a blue hole with honey it. And it doesn’t even matter that I’m almost out of shampoo and deodorant and vegetables and cooking oil. It also doesn’t matter...

MOONLIT I woke today all wild haired and rocket eyed. I’ve been on the archangels rollercoaster. It’s an endless ride. I feel raw but satisfied. Sunday was Fiji day. We planted 51 pieces of coral in a coral garden to celebrate 51 years of independence. The ones I planted looked...

I am 30 feet below the surface. Water rushes past me in cold currents. I see a pod of dolphins above. I see a humphead wrasse bigger than a pony. I see clownfish hiding inside a sea anemone forest. I see the rainbow, it’s getting brighter. I swim into a...

I followed the mountain to the moon, or did I follow the moon to the mountain? I can’t remember, but here I am, floating in Paradise. Every day on the Garden Island is a wild green dream with a runaway pulse. Beneath me, the water glows in the dark and...

People often ask me where my favorite place on earth is. I motorbiked through Nepal during the fall of the Maoist revolution, and drank ayahuasca in the jungles of the Amazon, and danced inside secret night clubs carved into the caves of Cuba. I communed with the slave-rebelling spirits in...

I kind of feel like I’m inside of a golden egg and I’m about to crack open and break out as something brand new, but I don’t know what that something is yet. You ever feel like that? I wonder what kind of gal is going to pop out? Maybe...

I’m anchored on a lagoon the blue of butterfly wings. I see sand beaches, long and empty. I hear the crack of coral. I feel the rush of the outer reef. Sea turtles slide by. Fish jump up doing the junebug. Slack-jaws hang on the surface, mouths open. And somewhere...

It’s not a cockroach on the $100 bill, it’s a cicada. Everyone told me that it was a roach, starting with three women in a grocery store and ending with someone from biosecurity. I don’t know if we were lost in translation or if everyone in Savusavu was lying to...

The first thing I did when I got to shore was hug a tree. I hugged that tree until it blushed, and the dirt beneath it shook, and the butterflies sang. I sang too and all the people stared because I’m no kind of singer, but my daddy is, which...