January 15, 2012

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Overslept this morning, but not so much that I missed church.  Thank goodness!  They have ‘Beach Church” here  on Sunday’s which I absolutely loved!  You come barefoot, or shoes dress or bathing suit, and they supply the message!  Perfect!  The kids perch in the trees and are appropriately names “Tree Urchins” leaving the benches for us older folk.  They even have a choir and music.  Two young ladies played their violins with the choir and later a gentleman played a song “Today” which was his mother’s last request before she passed.  Brought tears to my eyes.  By this time I was ready to get on my hands and knees and crawl to the altar.  The sermon was about heritage and being grateful.  PERFECT!  Because I was missing my family and not being very grateful about things.  I somehow lost it these past few days.  Actually, I was thinking a trip home would have been really nice about now.  Although I am loving this trip life goes on and there are good days and bad days.  I try to snap out of the bad moments and think of the positive.  Sometimes that doesn’t work, I get in slumps just as we all do, and all things are not always as they seem.  These past few days have been just that.  Then it hit me.  I found I really had something to work on...me...and I did that for sure.  Things were hard and I had to do a complete new inventory on my attitude.  Turns out that when I stray from the Lord, I get cranky.  The perspective on things change and I get selfish or something close to in and end up in a war with myself.  It’s hard to let anyone in and here I was on a sail boat in the middle of nowhere and taking it all out on Fred, poor guy.  It’s an amazing thing when I find out that most of my problems are really my problems and I get to work on them.  It’s not fun until I can identify them and then the fun begins.  The best thing about waiting for tomorrow is being grateful for everything I have today, even if it is difficulty throughout the day.  I feel like a new person when I get done with myself.  Go figure.  Fred, bless his heart has so much patience and does really well watching me heal.  He has so many great assets, that being one of them.  He’s a keeper.

Later on I went to Volleyball beach and learned to weave and plat palm fronds.  I first had to get the fronds and had a quick refresher lesson, on making sure I got the correct ones as well as being able to identify the poisonwood tree, which are pretty abundant here.  Bill, from “Nice and Easy” (I think) gave Fred and I a quick trek in the bush to make sure we knew what it looked like.  Poison wood tree looks to me, like a ficus, 5 shiny leaves, but Bill said that the back of it had tiny brown spots on it like little bugs.  The bark is blotched and I would have never guessed that tree was a no touch because it would make a great filler in a flower arrangement.  He told us that a few years ago some cruiser kids made a tree house here and it just happened to be in a poison wood tree.  They were pretty bad off as it has the same oil as poison ivy.  Guess they abandoned it and today, still, that tree house stands as no one had volunteered to tear it out of the tree.  It is marked with a warning sign though.  What a story they had to tell their grandchildren.  We discussed trails here on Stocking Island and he gave us a map of the island with all the trails marked.  Bill suggested a trail called Treasure Trail and said it was really pretty.  We decided to take the hike and what a hike it was.  I believe we went through nearly every type of landscape there is to offer in these islands including a wet area of pretty soggy mud.  The end of the trail was the gift!  Oh what a view.  There is just no way to describe any of this and even a camera doesn’t do it justice.  It’s the salt air, the island breeze, the pristine beaches, the rainbow of colors in the crystal clear waters, it’s just something I’m sure at one time everywhere was like this.  A pause is necessary to think what we are doing to this environment back in the states. I don’t understand how this place has survived in retaining the beauty it possesses.  It just takes my breath away.  Just short of the peak we did in fact fins the right palms and cut some for the afternoon lesson.  They are not easy to find, quite an art in just identifying them in the first place.  They cannot “zip” when they are torn apart, they cannot break if knotted and they need to be the new growth, a certain length with a bottom stem, no fuzzy stuff on the base.  I now have a new prospective on all palm weaving products on the market.  It’s quite a task just finding the materials.  I am glad Bill mentioned this path.  I personally think he knew we would find some there but chose not to reveal it.  It was a great find in itself, and yes, there were poison wood trees on that path.

At 2:00 we were on the beach with our supplies which consisted of palm fronds, scissors, a sail needle a wine cork, which fortunately I found on the beach and picked up, because I don’t drink and my glasses.  I had a realy hard time grasping the method because I am dyslexic and need to see things done and not just told.  I finally got it and slowly weaved along, stitch by stitch.  I loved it.  Tedious but rewarding as it grew about an inch in 2 hours.   I have been really wanting to learn how to make bracelets for all my friends back home and couldn’t find anyone who knew how to do that.  I had seen one and that was it.  Then right behind me a wonderful local gal named Janiese was platting.  I placed my wonderful piece of art down and turned around to observe her project she was teaching.  She taught me how to plat three patterns, which , like the weaving, took a certain rhythm and coordination.  Pretty soon I got that too.  I was so excited and explained to the others who were having a bit of trouble also, it was very similar to learning the cha cha and counting.  Worked for me anyway. 

As the afternoon faded into a hint of orange hues, cruisers began to pack up their things and head back to their boats.  I stayed behind, interested in Janice and her background as a local native of the islands.  I have never come up short of curiosity and the conversation grew.  I liked her.  We talked a bit about history, her heritage, island traditions, fruits of the land, cuisine, crafts and shelling.  I mentioned I would love to learn how to make a conch horn.  Conchs are about as plentiful around here as trash along the highways in the states, sorry to say.  I have learned not to want every one I see, although I do have my heart set of searching for a few types when I get to the more deserted islands along our adventure.  She told me how to make one but again, I am more the show kind of learner than the tell kind.  She asked me if I was going to be here next Sunday and I said yes.  “I will bring conch and teach you how to make earrings and necklaces out of them, and I will teach you how to make bracelets, cocoanut baskets, and, in fact I will bring a sample of all my crafts” she said excitedly.  I asked what time and she said 10:30 Sunday.  ‘That would be right after church’ I thought.  I was excited.  She also said she would even bring me some of her coconut cake,  coconut bread and white bread with recipes.  I came back to the boat a different person, full of faith and hope, knowing this attitude change was teaching me things I had never known.  I am looking forward to next Sunday, not only for Church but also, more time with Jeneice.  I found Fred and got on the dink with my bible the beach church gave me and my palm supplies and thanked the Lord for a wonderful day as well as giving me lessons to learn about myself.  I am no different than the next person, I just have learned to listen to what God is teaching me, and am willing to put it out there that I too, have bad days, but there is always hope!