We have been in the BVI for eight weeks now and the days have flowed by – and flown by – like the rhythmic movement of the ever-present sea.
Wherever you look she is there, a great shifting, amorphous being, that breathes and moves around the lumps of rock we cling to. Movement, colour, light, shadow, glittering, moving, rolling, always moving, lulling – lulling. I feel lulled, not in a bad way. I don’t think. More in a gentle flowing with our day kind of way. It’s quite exquisite actually.
Art classes roll around twice a week, in two different schools and I find that I have an affinity for it. These classes mark the passage of time around which we weave the threads of our lives here.
Eli does school somewhat willingly. There are considerable petitions for double art and double writing instead of other subjects. I can understand this, they are his best and favourite subjects, along with math.
He still exclusively draws dragons and extraordinarily detailed magical realms, but they are developing into something quite good. And his writing skills? Today, I was blown away. He’s come along in leaps and bounds.
Eli has a mind brimming with imaginary worlds, vivid imaginary worlds, full of magic, crystals, amulets and of course, dragons – and now we also have cats as protagonists so this could get interesting. He translates them to the page in his art, which is becoming more precise and detailed, but also in his stories, which are complex, dynastic, multi-planetary sagas that are surprisingly very well written.
He is writing one now about cats and asked me to read what he had recently worked on, and I did and then proceeded to have one of my laughing fits that I always get when I see or read something excellent by one of my students.
God, how they must have hated me. It didn’t happen all the time but sometimes, someone or a group would perform or do something so fricking beautifully, that it would make me laugh, hysterically. I mean, hysterically.
When I explained why I was laughing he looked genuinely pleased with himself.
We do school with the sea as our backdrop and spend what time we can swimming.
For both of us these are the best moments. Playing superhero-ninjas with the waves, snorkelling, practising my mermaid skills, free diving, just being in the water, merging with the sea. It can never get old, I don’t believe that for a second, because the sea is alive, always shifting.
For Eli, getting ice cream from Dolce Vita is probably high up there on the best moments list. It’s one of the main reasons on his list for wanting to move back here. Although the unsuitability of Ragdoll cats for this climate was almost a deal-breaker.
And so, the threads of our days weave together in a gentle rise and fall that mimics the sea breathing.
Everything else falls away. I closed my twitter account. I barely go on Instagram. I have little inclination to post anything. This will change at some point but for now I am content to shrink my world to the immediate, to the here and now. To revel in the cocoon of our making.
In my mind’s eye, I see an old Taino rocking on a woven hammock, eyes half shut watching the waves roll in. He looks at me and says, “The coconut falls when it is ready.”
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