Well, I tried...

9/25

Woke up so sore from yesterday's hike that I wasn't sure I would be able to take enough steps to get out the door this morning. A strong cup of coffee and some fresh passion fruit (and starfruit. So much effing starfruit.) and we were good to go.
We set out for the Champagne Beach, which we heard was good for snorkeling. It sounded not too strenuous, and thus pretty perfect. We drove South through Loubiere and Pointe Michel.
Try to drive to Dominican villages on a Sunday morning. I dare you. We found out what all the "Proud to be Catholic" bumper stickers mean to this island. So many tiny ladies in untiny hats.




Yikes, I think is this last thing I wrote when I was in Dominica. Now my job will be to look through the pictures and relive each day so I can construct this whole thing the way it should have been.



While I'm here, though...this whole situation begs a question. I am disappointed by how little I wrote on Dominica. I am equally disappointed by the lack of journal entries from Greece a few years before that, and then from the chaotic, barely planned Europe trip in 2010. But I question that feeling. I wasn't writing because I was there. Just there. The Europe trip is easily explained; how do you find time to write when you travel with five friends? There was no time to write. There was time to eat and drink and laugh and maybe plot to kill each other, but there was very little opportunity to be calm or cerebral. And the truth is, I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on what was about to happen so that I could sit down and try be eloquent about what had already happened.



And maybe that's it. I am not a travel writer. This is not my job. And while I would be happy to have worded reminders and stories to read so I could live it again, I should be happy with my decision in those moments to just be in those moments. Because let's be honest, living in the moment is a difficulty for me. That could be why I am so in love with travel, huh?. Aside from sitting in a hostel room at the end of a day with a dim lamp, my iPod, a pen and a notebook and Erin McNaught in the twin bed across the room from me, you live entirely in the moment when you travel. You hardly have a choice if you want to do it right.



Years ago, my favorite quote was, "Ditta dhamma sukha rihari." It means "Dwell happily in this moment in this life." So there it is.