Living on this beautiful island really has spoiled me for life. For example take my day yesterday. I woke up early and had coffee, which my husband made (very spoiled), and looked out my front window at the sailboats bobbing in prickly bay while growling at my husband, who good naturedly puts up with my morning alter ego (grumpiest woman alive before 9 am) , then I went for a run around our neighborhood which boasts ocean views around just about every corner, and if you can actually look up from the road while you are dying going around the HUGE hills it also boasts, you can see a stunning views of the Ocean. I usually am dying as I shuffle around so I mostly get a view of my tennis shoes. From there I headed to yoga which is thankfully at 9 am so I can converse like a normal person with all the other yogi wannabees. Somehow don't think growling would be acceptable by the Buddha.
Yesterday I did Kundalini Yoga which I am new too, and at first freaked me out a little as you chant a LOT and I thought it was useless because it didn't seem that hard at first. I belong to the school of workout that if you aren't sweating you're not working, but I am on a quest to become more imteresting in 2010 so I figured I would try it and stick with it for a few sessions. Not only is it challenging physically and mentally you do this crazy thing called 'breath of fire' that after a few weeks is supposed to give you more energy, clarity and focus. I won't do the explanation justice so to read more about it check out this site http://www.kundaliniyoga.org/pranayam.html . In order to do breath of fire you pant through your nose 'like a dog' it's weird and a little freaky, but the amazing thing is it works. What I've neglected to mention is I do breath of fire here www.lalulna.com looking at this view...you could ask me to stand on my head and hum Lady Gaga's 'Poker Face' and I would probably find it relaxing.
Anyway after 'panting like a dog' for an hour I suddenly really missed my mom. Maybe it was that she enjoyed doing yoga at Laluna or that 8 months earlier we were at Laluna getting ready for the wedding or maybe it was because I pass by BBC beach on my home, a place that we spent countless hours reading, collecting shells and giggling last May, that I missed her so much at that moment. But I think its more likely that I could imagine the hysterics we would be in after panting like a dog for an hour, and I miss laughing with my mom.
One thing my mom has taught me is that you shake things off so I didn't get mired down in homesickness I came home got to work, chatted with my friend Sarah on skype, I love skype....and then waited for Johno to come home. He had a 4:00 tennis date so I decided I had enough of work (I love part time work) and headed to Grand Anse to beach comb for seaglass, an activity that I did alot with my mom when she was here.
One of the more amusing yet defintely irritating things about the Caribbean is if you are a female alone on the beach the harrassment you receive is monumental. So while beach combing, missing my mom and generally minding my own business I had this encounter:
Random guy who from the corner of my eye looks to be about 18 but can't be sure because he is behind me and I don't want to make eye contact:
"pstt...hey beauty (i ignore) psst...hey, hey, beautiful. (i keep ignoring) psst..psst (this is the mating sound of Grenadian men, it must work as they all do it, but god help the woman who falls for pssst) hey, hey beauty, beauty what is your name?
I keep walking and ignoring the psst's. Mr. psst is still behind me. We haven't actually made eye contact yet, but here I make a rookie mistake. I keep walking with my eyes forward and don't slow down, but stupidly finally tell this rando my name. I then, and I promise you this is true, get an amazing proposition: "hey beauty take me back to your hotel room"
It crosses my mind to tell him that where I come from this proposition is usually preceded by eye contact and the offer to buy the woman a drink first...Howevere I don't do this and I resist the other thing I would like to tell him which is to "f'off" and I keep walking. From here I assume the tunnel vision posture as if I am three years old "if I don't look at you, you can't see me" He finally pisses off...some other beauty passed him and he presumably goes off to try his hotel room line on another woman. I wonder if this actually works...John reckons it must.
Anyway this encounter also reminds me of my mom. We were walking on the beach in Carricou and after we passed a group of about 5 surly looking pot smoking rum swigging youths (this behavior is entirely acceptable on the beaches of Grenada) who were giving us the obligatory psst's that Grenadian men must be programmed to utter when a white woman walks by. We kept ignoring their pssts. What happened next was amazing... We ignored them until one said surly looking youth launched his flip flop into the air where it landed a few feet in front of us. This was a mating ritual neither of us had encountered before...Now the logic behind this is baffling to me. You just threw your SHOE at me, in Iraq this is highly insulting (shades of George Bush) do you really think I will now come and chat you up? Let me just pause to give any man who may be under the misguided allusion that throwing a stinky shoe at a woman is an acceptable form of courting. It is not. My mom and I just looked at each other stepped over the shoe as if it was a dead fish and walked to the nearest bar had a vodka ting and howled with laughter.
I miss my mom, I miss her everyday. I miss her smile and her laugh.
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