Paradise Lost, Paradise Found?

Atlantis is an amazing resort. Ten plus water features, Ten marine exhibits and a dozen or so restaurants, not to mention the private beaches and sea ports. Once here, you never have to leave this man-made paradise. It is sucessful in making you believe there is nothing beyond its boundaries.....

But there is.

I am admittedly more than a little disappointed with myself that I didn't give enough attention to the true paradise:

Places like the "fish fry" a long row of small, open air shacks, painted in bright colors, here the natives will serve all types of seafood prepared for you all day and well into the night or the long tented flea market building that is packed so FULL of t-shirts, carved objects and jewelry that the air seems to literally hold you in place......until you buy something.

The Bahamians have the best smiles, they want nothing more than to share their island with the tourists, they are proud and welcoming....I might be remembering: our taxi driver with a bit of nostalgia as he drove up to this huge resort when we first arrived - knowing that he would be leaving us there at the feet of Atlantis, like its namesake, a world under water, out of reach, fantastical, fabricated....

I might be remembering, only now that I am home, having glimpsed out of the window of the bus that took me to the airport, the real place, as I should have experienced it, as it was before the big resort that sprouted out of the sea to cast it shadow on the simple...

I didn't look back, though I should have....

Sun is Shinin', the weather is sweet; make you want to move your dancin' feet...

A week away was just what I needed. Sometimes you don't realize how overwhelmed you really are until you are slouched in a lounge chair, staring up at the palm trees swaying in the wind, while the hot Bahamian sun beats itself into your skin...until you fall into a stupor of heat and sultry breeze.

The soft, constant lapping of the carribean sea fades as you breathe slower and every stress, every worry, every sadness you might have felt before vacation seeps out of sight, and all that was ever painful is carried away by the gecko at your feet that scampers, frightened, under the sea grape leaves . ...

This was me. I didn't know where to start, jump in the pool or jump into my book, finally I slept, jumping into nothingness or it jumping into me.

This is really an amazing place. Check out Lovely Obscurities for the beauty and intangibles and for the wonderful food and groovy sensations to Cassis et Cacao .

Rather I want to write about my friendship with T.T. here. Though one friendship had to slip away across the pond in order to make this one grow, I am grateful for the gift within the loss.

Now Nani can be, at times, shall we say, spaced out. It is a constant struggle to stay in orbit for me, and so tiresome - so sometimes I take brief sojourns from myself.

T.T. , my friend, my travel companion this week, understands my lapses, sighs but smiles at my dazes and yells out to me "BON VOYAGE! Enjoy the ride", "Say hello to the man on the moon for me!":

When I purposefully turn off the wireless and then fight with the computer for twenty minutes trying to pull up websites that can't be found...until she nudges me and reminds me that I need the wireless on....yeah, I knew that.

When several sentences in, poolside, she realizes that though looking right at her, unfocused, I am not listening to a word she is staying...so she clears her throat and starts again....but I heard some of the things you said....

When I have to go back to the hotel room again and again to get the eyeglasses that try as I might to find, I will not, as they are perched in my nest of hair, on top of my head...she shakes her head and smiles at me....I have too much hair, and those glasses are itty bitty anyway!

When she gently reminds me that I am in the Bahamas, that I have a beautiful bounty of life to blog about and that I need to feed my soul and write and write and write...but this book is so damn good I can't put it down!

Sometimes it isn't so much about where you are but about who you're with that makes the rest so good.

thank you my dear friend....

thank you T.T. !!!!

Bonjour Nani.....



So here I am agonizing for weeks as to what my first blog post will be about. Suddenly everywhere I went, every tiny most silly experience became spice for this place and little stories began to formulate themselves in my mind..... But nothing really felt right to start with. And my fear of just starting something new, kept bubbling up from this over-thinking mess I was letting myself believe was my creative thinking, but I wasn't creating.

Walking early one morning, Justin keeping a fast beat for me with "Love Stoned", pushing my body while the air was still cool and the days' happenings hadn't yet happened, it came to me. The monster had not fully awakened and I was in my own dream state as my muscles warmed up and the familiar ache took over. So simple, I realized, I will blog about this very thing: this blog world and why I want to live in it a little.


First, the how: My most beautiful, inspiring sister friend Belle of http://belleanddutch.blogspot.com/ mentioned to me that I should check out some cool blogs she had discovered. I should disclose that we both work in the same office. A particularly DRY and uninspired span of months has overtaken us in this place and we look forward to more of the same for at least the foreseeable future, so what can I say, we look for a little harmless distraction at times.

The why: These blogs offer a most wonderful thing: escape. After a very short time I found myself looking forward to checking out their next post. To follow a bit of drama, silliness, even just plain life. It was never a long narrative, just a blurp of funny, sad, crazy living. A short burst of "get away" in my day.....I thought I could do this.....why just be an observer, a reader, why not be the writer, be the written?


Hell Yes! So, I am not getting married, nor am I having a baby or surviving a tragedy or being inspiring through illness. No great revelation to be found here or awe instilling breakthrough to convey...but what I do have are my small moments, joys that are huge to me and significant too, and there are thousands of them. Because I love to laugh and so I vow (yes pookie, I do vow) to find more and more of the most happy, crazy times. Because they are all over us. When you just have to laugh at it, at them, at yourself. Then laugh all over again as you are typing away and re-living it, even through the tears sometimes......because every day has a thousand of them, and a small escape in each....


House of Folie, for the Nani friend - too funny not to have her own place.


Lovely Obscurities for my passion for reading and the artful things, different but no less significant escapes for me, in photography, a beautiful flower growing in my yard or a sound that feeds me in ways only someone that listens can know.

Cassis et Cacao for the things that are tangible, foolish but necessary, like a piece of chocolate that has the sweetest melting when I am most tired or a lotion with a name like "apricot and cilantro by the sea" that I might find in a magazine and that makes me pause with gladness for just one second.


These things are House of Nani and Nani is me.