Marc Chagall, Painter of Symbols

I Will Always Remember Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico effect begins and ends with startling blue water and swaying coconut palms, falling asleep to jungle sounds, and rain suddenly bursting through windows and open doors sounding like a thousand horses in full gallop. Puerto Rico is a green enormous wet. Even without an inkling of Spanish I believe people would guess that the name Puerto Rico means Port Something; the literal translation is Rich Port due to the plentiful gold found in the rivers that empty into the sea. From its tropical beauty to its friendly atmosphere, Puerto Rico is rich in so many ways. To me the place is more than a happy memory and more than its name. Puerto Rico is equal to the feeling it produces. Puerto Rico is easy. It’s easy on the spirit. It is easy on being.

There are places in everyone’s life that they will never forget. Then there are Puerto Rico places where the history of our experience is so extraordinary the memory of that place becomes a totem that we will forever carry with us. My brief time in Puerto Rico is one of those memories. Although my husband and I spent only a little over three months on the island, every time we tell the story of when we lived in Puerto Rico our stay becomes a little longer. The memory is like a good luck coin kept safely in the pocket of my trousers. *The kind where you unconsciously slip your hand in the pocket and rub your thumb over the familiar surface and smile at the memory it kindles.

My husband’s career in the United States Navy is the reason we were able to experience life in Puerto Rico. He was an IDC. The ID of IDC it is the important part. It stands for Independent Duty Corpsman. My husband likes to explain to people who have never heard of an IDC, “It means I got to practice medicine without a license.” A Corpsman, as most people understand it, is like a medic. An IDC is more like a Physician’s Assistant. He maintained a fully stocked pharmacy complete with narcotics, antibiotics, and other medications. On board ship he ran a fully operational emergency room and if necessary performed surgical procedures. No one called him Chief. He was the Doc, and even the captain of the ship called him Doc. He served on smaller ships, “U.S. Navy warships, specifically frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and submarines” that didn’t have full on medical doctors. He was trained to diagnose, prescribe medication, and perform minor surgery and dentistry. If there was a serious medical crisis the patient may be airlifted to the next level of care if it was nearby and available. His career has taken him, and sometimes me, to some amazing locations. Travel is an incredible source of education where one can experience adventure, culture, and history all while forming their own personal history.

A capsulized but thorough history of Puerto Rico can be gained by touring Castillo San Cristóbal and Castillo San Felipe del Morro in Old San Juan. The fortress and its impressive towers overlooking the Caribbean are like a 16^th century Acropolis. While touring the fort we came across a memorial plaque that was as informative about the mischievous humor of Puerto Rican as it was about the history of those who repeatedly tried to conquer them. At one point the plaque points out that the British, after many days of siege, took over the fort only to give up and go home after the troops developed a bad case of diarrhea.  Even when conquered they poked fun at their foes’ lack of stamina. The history of the British conquers’ fate was posted near a cannon ball embedded in a tower wall that was shot from a United States Navy vessel in 1898. It revealed how even in defeat they took pride in the strength of their fortress wall built three hundred years earlier. I personally think the cannon ball was left not as much as a historical relic but as a testament to their fortitude.

 Before being named Puerto Rico the island had two previous names, Boriken and San Juan Bautista. Boriken was the name given the island by the indigenous people, the Taíno. They called the island Boriken, which means "the great land of the valiant and noble Lord." Today Puerto Ricans still use this term to describe themselves and the island. Boriken was claimed for the Crown of Castile in 1493 by Christopher Columbus. A single decree executed with quill and ink erased who they were and told them who they shall be. Boriken was renamed San Juan Bautista, in tribute to Saint John the Baptist. Contrary to the declaration of Christopher Columbus, The King and Queen of Spain, and the Catholic Church, the island was nicknamed and became widely known as Puerto Rico. In later years Spain officially endorsed the nickname and the island became Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, literally "Free Associated State of Puerto Rico." To protect the Spanish interest against sea and land based attacks, Castillo San Felipe del Morro (known as El Morro) was built alongside Castillo San Cristóbal (known as Fort San Cristóbal). It stands proudly in what’s known as Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is part of the San Juan National Historic Site. Although a possession of Spain, the island endured invasion attempts from the French, Dutch, British, and later Americans. During the Spanish–American War, the United States invaded Puerto Rico. As an outcome of the war, Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States. It was renamed the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico by the United States government after the Treaty of Paris of 1898 was signed. Today Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States. Located in the northeast Caribbean Sea, Puerto Rico includes the main island of Puerto Rico and the smaller surrounding islands, Mona, Culebra, and Vieques.

In 1943 Roosevelt Roads Naval Station was built in Puerto Rico, and sixty-one years later Roosevelt Roads was being closed. By March 2004 pretty much all military personnel had left for their next duty stations and legally the base Roosevelt Roads needed a doctor present during the final months to take care of individuals who may still be there. My husband was asked to take an assignment of temporary additional duty and deploy to Puerto Rico for the last few months of final closure. This would be his third deployment in as many years. He agreed on the condition he could bring his wife. Spouses are not allowed on deployments. I don’t know how he finagled it, but they agreed. Apparently the Detail Officer needed an IDC more than he needed to follow protocol. I was delighted for the opportunity. Before we left San Diego I planned, packed, read up on where we were going. Before leaving San Diego I purchased three blank journals, a sketch book, and willow sticks. On the flight to Puerto Rico I wrote pre-arrival poetry. I was in full adventure mode.

Journal Entry March 16, 2004.
How It Will Be
I will go to this place and walk bare toed in the sand.
This is how it will be…
My sketchbook will be amazingly graced
with art inspired by the sea.

My hair will fall in windswept curls.
My face will not freckle, but tan
Weight will drop from my tummy and thighs
While my toes draw pictures in the sand.

I will write moving poetry and clever prose.
This is how it will be…
Words fit for a novel will bloom upon page.
Brilliantly penned by me

Hear ye, Hear ye one and all

This is how it will be…
I will go to this place
walk bare toed in the sand
and be inspired by the sea.

The Detail Officer had arranged for one of the few remaining Army Rangers living on base to pick us up at the airport. According to my husband, Rangers have a reputation for being a crazy bunch. From what I saw, my husband was not exaggerating and our ranger-driver was no exception. The Ranger who collected us from the airport bragged about how he was like a rock star at the local night clubs because he could dance. “To get the girls, you gotta know how to dance.” Okay, not really useful information for a married couple. He also surprised us on the drive back to the base with a sudden swerve to the side of the road, where he leaped out of the car. Without warning, or explanation, he was in pursuit of an iguana. He stalked it, crouched down and hands raised in some kind “Dances with Wolves” move. *Acting more like “The Men Who Stare at Goats” than a Rock Star. To his Army Ranger credit he caught the iguana. Then he placed the poor thing in the trunk of the car. I protested, and scolded him - surely sounding like his mother. My protests didn’t stop him. He assured me the iguana would be fine and explained how he needed it to plant it in his roommate’s car. “It will be great! It’s going to be hilarious!” I didn’t believe him. This was so not how I imagined it would be. Men Who Stare at Lizards guy dropped us off at the Navy Lodge. Before saying good bye I gave our Ranger a second warning about the heat and the poor iguana in his trunk.

Somehow in my pre-arrival preparation I missed the thing about the oppressive heat. I did not realize Puerto Rico would be so hot or that Roosevelt Roads was going to be a ghost town. Standing beside our luggage watching “Man Who Stares at Iguanas” drive away, I just couldn’t get over how hot and heavy the air was. I couldn’t assimilate how utterly desolate the base felt. It was eerie.  “Hear ye, Hear ye one and all - This is how it’s going to…” what? Evidently no one was aware that the Doc’s wife was traveling with him. There was no lodging arranged for a couple and the Detail Officer was suddenly unavailable. My husband rented us a room and promised we would figure something out the next day. I dozed off that night listening to el coqui, the tiny Puerto Rican frog with a big voice. That was nice. The following day Iguana guy picked us up and gave us a tour of the deserted base. I think the Detail Officer told him to show us around. He and the Rangers had salvaged discarded furniture and set up quarters in one of the base housing units. He gave us a tour of their house, army cots and dirty socks everywhere. It was a little stinky. Iguana guy suggested my husband get a cot or better yet find a discarded mattress and live in the abandoned unit with them. There was a free bedroom, so we could have privacy. I was still worried about the iguana. No sign of it anywhere. I might have been in shock. I was absolutely speechless. Matt was very diplomatic when he thanked, but no thanked him for the spare bedroom offer. Written in red and underlined, it was clear no one in all of Puerto Rico was aware I was coming. None of the Rangers knew who was in charge, nor did they care. These Rangers seemed to be an excessively blithe lot. The Detail Officer was still unavailable or not interested in these kind of details. At $60 a night the hotel was too pricey. We needed to make our own arrangements.

Matt and I decided we wanted to experience Puerto Rico. We wanted to live with the locals. Lucky for us the former Medical Clinic doctor had just lost his tenant and had the upstairs unit of a duplex available for rent in the nearby municipality of Huatulco. The soon to be lost tenant, also Navy, was leaving in just a few days. When the Doctor and I were introduced he didn’t understand my English name, Dove, so I reintroduced myself as Paloma. From then on he gushed over me like an uncle over a favorite niece. It seemed as if by virtue of my Spanish name we were now related. It felt good. He offered to show us the house. It was “Not more than ten houses from the beach, Paloma,” in the community of Punta Santiago and for “your conveniencia Paloma” the former tenant would leave a few essentials behind. There were a bed, a dresser, an old analog TV, a dining room table, a blender (that still had stale margaritas in it from a few nights before), and a sink full of dirty dishes. Doctor Ruiz was beaming and giving me Spanish lessons as he showed us around, the door, la puerta, and window, la ventana, were female, while the floor, el piso, and the ceiling, el techo, were male.  “Silly language” the doctor said with a big smile. Puerto Rico had some odd and endearing ways about it. I was quick to learn for “your conveniencia, Paloma” really meant that the sailor who was leaving didn’t want them and neither did he. My new found guardian angel wouldn’t have to deal with cleaning anything up. Ah, but in Puerto Rico what’s good for you is also good for me, and so it was. We tossed most of the pans left on the stove top because we were afraid of what we might find under the furry green stuff growing inside. We bought a crockpot from Walmart. Don’t get me wrong; the place wasn’t filthy. It’s just hot and wet in Puerto Rico and all manner of green things grow quickly. The departing sailor also offered to sell us his car, a brown Ford Tempo with expired Minnesota plates, no air conditioning and a tendency to overheat. At $200 it was cheaper than a rental car for three months. We were ready to live like the locals.

My husband has been deployed many times before and he knows the way things go. I on the other hand was full of idealistic excitement and adventure. I’d like to think my enthusiasm was endearing and my husband did everything in his power to make our Puerto Rico experience perfect. We were setting up house and things were kind-of-sort-of beginning to look like how I thought it would be.

Journal Entry late March 2004

We’ve been here for a few weeks and I now understand that in Puerto Rico there is no time. They are not on manana time, not daylight savings time, there is only now and not now. I have no idea what the date is, but I do know its late morning and it’s still March. Its either Tuesday or Wednesday. I’ve had two victories in a row. Yesterday I was able to translate inspiration into art. I’m very satisfied with a self-portrait in charcoal. I’ve incorporated symbolism through “artistic license” making my eyes larger and my lips fuller. The eyes represent understanding and the lips sensuality of this island. I actually sat in front of a mirror to see how the creases in my face appeared when I smiled and which direction the sun highlighted my chin. This took most the day. Victory number two was more substantial. I managed to get the mailman to take the post cards I’ve been trying to mail for three days. Hmmm, that must mean its Wednesday. Twice I put the postcards in the mailbox with the flag up and the next day the flag was down but the post cards remained. Today I saw him coming and handed them to him personally. That’s when I found the reason for leaving them behind.
“Too much postage.” he says.
 “I could save 7 cents” he says.
I told him not to worry and he shook his head like I was another crazy American and drove away. Things are different here.

            This bears repeating - Oh the heat! Spring in Puerto Rico is ungodly hot and very humid. Every morning I made Matt iced coffee in the blender and sent him off to work. Every day he came home around noon. Besides seeing a few patients, I didn’t know what he did at work. I was just happy he was home. Most days we would pack a lunch and head out to our favorite beach. We had a couple of inflatable rafts and we spent afternoons floating in the Caribbean. The water was warm and relaxing and paddling was way too much effort, so I would hold on to my husband’s big toe to keep the subtle current from causing us to drift apart. I think Puerto Rico was becoming part of us. We would float, drift, and people watch. There were happy families and squealing children on the beach, a man pushing an ice cream cart across the sand, and music blaring. *Always music. One day while floating I started making up stories, little stories about musicians and how they wrote whatever song the ice cream vendor was playing. My husband and I vividly remember the place and the feeling, but none of the made up stories that whiled away the hours. That’s what the island does to you; you float and you enjoy. Stay in the moment and don’t fight the heat.

Journal Entry sometime in April 2004

The heat makes you lethargic. Moving from one chair to another takes on a whole new meaning. It’s not just changing location, its manual labor. Depending on how low the chair you’re rising from and the location of the chair you’re moving to, it could be considered hard labor. We often spend our day thus engaged so that there isn’t room for other activities before we fall exhausted into bed at night. Yesterday Keisha, our downstairs neighbor, shamed us into walking to our local beach to take a dip.
“The water is clear today.”
Referring to the abundance of seaweed our beach is often clouded with.
“It felt great.”
She called up to us. We were recovering from the recent effort of moving from the living room to the deck and just smiled and nodded.
“Really you should go.” She says.
“There are about ten people swimming.”
Like that’s supposed to be a bonus. Ten people on our beach, we too hot and fussy for crowds. In order not to appear rude to our downstairs neighbor we both were compelled to respond. “Cool!” I say, “Sounds great!” he says.
True to the theory of the power of positive confession Matt and I look at each other with a “Well?” kind of look.  Being the man of the house he spoke first.
“You want to go down there?”
“Sure if you want too.” I respond unconvincingly.

On the island it’s a well-known fact, heat lethargy is terminal to motivation. A perhaps lesser known fact is it is also terminal to decision making. My wise and discerning husband must have realized how rapidly I had declined and as a redemptive measure volleyed the decision making ball into my court.
“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
He’s such a brilliant man, delivering an escape clause along with a release of his accountability in one sentence. We parleyed the ball of accountability until it was flat and we both realized it was time to change locations. Since we had to get up anyway we decided to take the few extra steps and go the beach. Keisha was right and the water was great. Matt and I floated and bobbed around in the waves, we hugged and kissed and agreed we should do this more often.

It appears as if one dip in the ocean had greatly diminished the effects of lethargy. Unless of course the “We should do this more often” agreement never bares fruit. Which would indicate that we have progressed to acute lethargy. Acute lethargy is like two old men sitting on the porch, where talking about a thing is as good as actually doing it.

An unexpected bonus came with taking a swim. The salt water was soothing to our numerous bug bites. Puerto Rico is the home of an invisible entity that is as tenacious as it is carnivorous. This flying piranha elected us as its all-time favorite Little Debbie Snack Cake. At first it was bewildering. We spent our evenings twitching and slapping ourselves. You never see this menacing insect. You only feel the painful bite, over, and over, and over. We asked Keisha, our down stairs neighbor, island translator, and personal 411 operator. “What is biting us?” We tried to downplay our exasperation, since we were living like islanders and all. Keisha told us the locals call them “no-see-ems.” I saw an unmistakable flicker of amusement in her eye when we asked, as if we just passed some secret island initiation. *No-see-ums, an innocent enough sounding name for invisible carnivorous beasts. Paradise comes with a price. From then on Matt and I spent our evenings shrouded in smoke from a citronella candle while we played card games.

Poker was one of the ways we spent our evenings. Many Navy deployments made Matt an expert poker player. I thought my dad had taught me a thing or two about poker, but I was a deer in the headlamps. I got weary of losing all my matchsticks and accused my husband of making up games and rules. Have you heard of any of these games “Aces and Jacks the Man with the Axe are Wild but a Pair of Natural Sevens Takes All,” “Mexican Stud’” or how about “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”? The only one I had heard before was “Texas Hold Um.” After my grumbling I think he started letting me win occasionally. *Which didn’t help because I would get all huffy and accuse him of letting me win. Then we would switch to Rummy, where I know I won fair and square. I’m much better at Rummy and my dad would have been proud. We played Poker, we played Rummy, and then we played more Poker and more Rummy. Life without T.V. is different. We tired of card games and started doing 5000 piece jigsaw puzzles from Walmart. I guess the former tenant left a card table, because we had one, and we spent hours hunkered over putting jigsaws together. I’m much better at jigsaw puzzles than poker. Sometimes Matt would come home and look at the puzzle and ask a little jealously if I had worked on it. I lied. I would downplay it and say “Oh, maybe just a little.” I felt like I just ate the last piece of chocolate cake. We bickered over our games like grade school siblings.

We needed a new game and I remember the day we found it.  We were at Walmart looking for a new puzzle when Matt noticed the Scrabble games. He launched into a nostalgic memory of playing Scrabble with his grandma Cochrane. He told me how she taught him, about how she was the best Scrabble player in Michigan. He told me playing Scrabble with her made him really good, and how ruthless she was. She never “let” you win. Sweet, smiley faced, grandma Cochrane sent me hand written letters every two weeks while Matt was deployed. It was hard to believe she was such a Scrabble Shark. I could tell my husband’s memory was treasured, but being dyslexic, Scrabble is not my favorite board game.  As a child I always liked playing with the little church like pews the letter tiles perched on, but individual letters meant nothing to me. Every single Scrabble game at the Walmart was “Edición Española.” I was almost off the hook when Matt spotted one lone English Edition of Scrabble perched on a shelf so high even he couldn’t reach it. Matt’s enthusiasm and sweet memories of his ruthless grandma Cochrane snared me. Together we tracked down an employee who tracked down a ladder who got the box for us. The angels sang and I don’t think Walmart had ever seen three happier people. People in Puerto Rico are ready to be happy.

On the winding two lane road back to our house traffic abruptly stopped. There was no one coming from the opposite direction and there were three or four cars in front of us at a standstill.  As people do, we wondered if there was an accident, was it a bad one? Traffic was not moving and people do drive really crazy around here. They drive insanely. We have wide-eyed watched as a person honked and drove down the wrong side of a divided road simply because their destination was on that side. By our standards the drivers are lunatics. In Puerto Rico as long as you honk your horn in warning, lunacy is ok and they give you a wide understanding berth. As far as I know honking the horn was never an expression of exasperation or anger. Honking was, as it should be, a warning. “Honk” means, “Heads-up everybody! I’m going to make a left turn from this far right-hand lane.” Nobody gets riled up over it. The guy needs to go left not right, let him go. We learned to good-naturedly pay attention to honking horns. In this case there were no honking horns and whatever the problem was it was just around the curve. I got out of the car and looked. I called to Matt, “It’s Keisha!” He said “Who?” “Keisha, our downstairs neighbor, in the middle of the road.” I could see her curly hair all wild and free. She was shuffling across the road making shooing gestures with her hands. Just as I caught a glimpse of an agitated iguana scurrying across the road, Keisha raised her arms in victory and the people in the waiting cars clapped and cheered. Unlike the rest of the island’s population, iguanas seem to always be agitated. Puerto Ricans are a people who don’t mind waiting in traffic while a kind lady shoos a distressed iguana across the road. We all need to learn to be a little more Puerto Rican.

The island isn’t all laid back and floating, it’s also parties. The only time I was truly frightened while we were in Puerto Rico was a Friday afternoon, and I was home alone. I heard a frantic bullhorn like announcement in the distance. I listened with alarm as it got closer. I stopped what I was doing and ran out on the deck, my heart pounding wildly. It was a male voice and the message was in Spanish. The announcer’s voice was getting louder and louder. My Spanish is poor but I can usually pick out a word or two. I couldn’t decipher a single word. I was leaning out over the back railing of the deck looking for whatever disaster was headed my way. From around the curve in the road appeared a flashy new white pickup-truck, all polish and chrome. The bed of the truck was full of speakers. This is no exaggeration. The speakers were as high as the truck cab and filled the bed. He was driving fast, speakers booming a message in Spanish. I didn’t know if a dam was about to burst, a hurricane was on the way, or if Jesus was coming! It was fully alarming and gone as quickly as it appeared. I looked around and no one in my neighborhood was evacuating. I didn’t see anyone drawing the blinds, no signs of panic. It was like it hadn’t happened. It scared the hell of me. I met Matt as was climbing the steps. I told him before he had a chance to walk in the door. I don’t believe he fully understood the impact. A couple of hours later the flashy truck was back and it scared the hell out of Matt too! He was calmer about it, being the man and all. We had no idea what was being broadcast. Keisha, thank goodness for the downstairs neighbor, waved it off saying, “They do that all the time. There’s probably a big party tonight.” It happened a few more times while we were there. It didn’t alarm us anymore but we still went out on the deck and watched in amazement.

There were so many things about the place that amazed us. The rain in Puerto Rico is worth mentioning. Sometimes it was sudden, like someone jumping out from behind the shrubbery and shouting “boo!” Then there were days that you longed for a shower to cool the air and all you got were sputters of promise, like the engine of a car turning over and over but failing to start. This time it had been raining for two days. It rained so hard you could not see the house next door. The house next door was two-story, pink, and sported a large Puerto Rican flag from its highest point. I could not even see the flag! I called Matt out to the deck so he could verify. “Nope,” he confirmed, “I cannot see the house next door.” He was indulgent and properly awed. Although I’m sure he had seen equally astounding rain in his many deployments, I’m sure Vietnam, Cambodia, Panama and Grenada got a little rain now and then. But for me, born and raised in Southern California, this was a first. The air inside the house couldn’t hold the moisture. The condensation caused the tile floor felt to feel wet under my bare feet. I’m surprised it didn’t rain inside too. We were pretty much housebound. We did try, but getting from the house to the car would soak you to the skin. If you dared to venture out, once on the road you were absolutely blinded by the torrential downpour and the narrow streets would be flooded so we stayed at home. After what seems like forty days and forty nights of rain I decided to give up on the limp playing cards and swelling jigsaw puzzle pieces and return to my journal.

Journal Entry April 2004

The trees are draped with kudzu, the vines so thickly covering them they look like absurd green ghosts. I will always remember the narrow roads that run through stagnant towns. Tired houses with flat roofs and million dollar ocean views, in the opposite direction green as far as the eye can see. On every porch there is an old man sitting in a straight back chair hoping to catch a cool breeze. There was always a brown dog sleeping in the middle of the road too hot to lift an attentive ear when we drive by. I will always remember the rain sometimes light and joyful like children laughing. I will remember the rain exhilarating. Roaring. Bursting. Dripping. Beautiful. I will remember the rain.

My journal was a place where I went to record my awes. I wrote the things I didn’t want to forget. By writing I tried to save the moment our laughter crystallized in the air around us. Even today when something whimsical or kooky happens, anything you can’t quite explain the why of, my husband and I look at each other and say Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is a place where all the stores are closed on Mother’s Day, because mothers are special and families stay home together. It was Mother’s Day, not long before we would leave the island, when our car broke down right in front of the Burger King. Jesús, the young man who worked there, tried to help. Jesús didn’t speak much English but he understood cars and dug through the janitor’s shed to find tools for my husband. He watched as if he wanted to get right in and help. I sat on the curb chatting on the cell phone with my mother. Mom was exceedingly impressed her daughter called all the way from Puerto Rico, as if it was a foreign country. I told her about the car, the island, and the eateries that were nothing more than picnic tables set up in a person’s back-garden. I told her how everyone warned about the coconut palms, don’t park under them, and don’t stand under them; as if they were serial offenders that would conk you on the head if you let your guard down. I told her in great detail about the cantankerous iguana that lived in a hole burrowed under our sidewalk. Matt was ready to give up on the car so I wished my mom Happy Mother’s Day and turned the phone over to him.

I didn’t realize I ran the phone battery down to zero. I’m pretty sure it was a Puerto Rico thing. On the island there is now and not now. Matt was hot and frustrated and I was guilty so I didn’t mention that I didn’t think he could get a taxi on Mother’s Day in the municipality of Huatulco. We were a good three miles from home and the “now” wasn’t looking real promising. Then a Puerto Rico thing happened! The police cruised by and offered to help. The police there actually “protect” and “serve” their community. They gave us a ride home and all this happened in a good natured volleying of broken English and my pitiful Spanish. When we got home my husband plugged the phone in and called for a rental car. They delivered it the following morning so he could get to work. That afternoon when he came home, he walked in the door, raised his hands in the air, and announced, “Well, I gave the car to Jesus.” It sounded like something my mom would say. “Just give over to Jesus honey.” It took a moment for me to catch on and I must have looked confused. Matt said, “We’ll be leaving in a couple of weeks and there is a young man at Burger King that could use a car.” Matt was getting Puerto Rican too. What’s good for me is good for you. Jesús with the help of an uncle and some cousins had the car running within twenty-four hours and the next time we saw him he was all grins and gladness. We would be leaving soon and I was going to miss this place and the people. Memories are a wonderful thing, where in most cases, misadventure and misery are transformed into laughter at the retelling.

Journal Entry - Pantoum

Two days relentless rain blew in through open doors

White tile was splattered with welcome change

I should have known paradise came with a price

The rain dripped on an empty chair and I thought of you

White tile was splattered with welcome change

Oppressive heat escaped through open windows

The rain dripped on an empty chair and I thought of you

I felt a chill, the first in 40 days

Oppressive heat escaped through open windows

Thunder roared a distant warning

I felt a chill, the first in 40 days 

Wet leaves drooped heavy with message

Thunder roared a distant warning

This will be finished too soon

Wet leaves drooped heavy with message

Outside a solitary bird trolled for its mate

This will be finished too soon

The fan moves heavy air with a steady drone

Outside a solitary bird trolled for its mate

The rain dripped on an empty chair, I will remember you

I learned that perfection is not always perfect. Throughout Puerto Rico there is an acceptance of how things and people are. There is a beautiful lack of judgment and once you get the hang of acceptance life is easy. We made friends, people that if we saw today would greet us like it had only been a few weeks, not thirteen years. But in Boriken, "the great land of the noble Lord," the spirit of what’s good for you is good for me prevails. The day we left, I admonished myself not to cry then Puerto Rico set free its rain. I thought how kind and poetic the gesture. Just as Puerto Rico left its mark on us, I believe we, in a small way, left our mark on Puerto Rico.