This is my music-writing station. Perhaps it looks a bit strange or inelegant to the untrained eye. But believe it or not, this configuration took me weeks to work out: Good lighting, spaciousness, appropriately flat surfaces in a triangle, a good chair for my back, and an object that's just the right size and height for elevating the keyboard. (It may seem eccentric, but if the height-ratios are wrong, I can end up hurting myself, tiring too quickly, or just feeling unsettled and uninspired.) Thanks in large part to this new setup, I am having a fantastic time composing. I brought a new notebook of manuscript paper and turn to a fresh page each day, so I can just start playing and scribbling down my ideas. I had my doubts about whether this puny, light-weight keyboard would cut the mustard. Actually, I barely touched it for the first few weeks here. But this new setup has made all the difference. It's functional, and it's always ready for me. Now I find that instead of being limited by the short range of the keys, the barebones simplicity helps me focus. I don't drift off in aimless playing, lost in pretty sound. The sound isn't pretty - the keyboard is just a tool. Because of that, I also don't feel any pressure to write any particular way or to polish and perfect. I just let my whims carry me and my ears direct me. When I get home, I hope to have a notebook full of ideas to play with and flesh out. I can't believe what a difference it makes to my life to be writing. (How easy it is to forget.) I feel content and fulfilled but also sort of recharged and excited. It's sort of a simmering energy that follows me around and gives me an unshakeable sense of purpose.
Well, friends. Not much to report these days. Back at Playa Bonita, back to walking up and down the beach, horsing around in the waves, sitting on the veranda and exercising a lovely routine. Life is still slow and simple. Sometimes there are novel little scenes - like the pups pictured above - but mostly the variations are minor - weather and sea changes, a sailboat on the horizon or frigate bird in the sky. One variation has been the presence of film crews on our peninsula these last couple of days. (We were able to ignore them until today, when they came between us and two well-deserved pina coladas.) This morning, after an hour's walk along the beach to our favourite spot, we found our fish shack closed, and the area occupied by a film crew, 2 policia, and a half dozen life-size barbie dolls in thick makeup. Our desert island oasis of elderly bikini-clad Europeans had been transformed into a holding pen for would-be reality t.v. stars. Insupportable! Turns out they were filming a new NBC show called "Love in the Wild." Just what we all need. But it was all right, really. A local man from the fish shack gave us a couple of cold sodas when he saw our downcast, thirsty faces and in typical Dominican style (I love this about the people here) he told us just to pay another time because we didn't have the right change. We left the strange scene, and one of us plucked down a coconut from a tree and hacked it open with his new machete (guess who?) and we scooped out the flesh with our fingers like hungry shipwreck survivors. And then, of course, we hallooed in the waves for a good long time. Beat that, Love in the Wild.
There’s a beach here called Playa Rincon that is all the rage. Everyone seems to want to go there. It’s outside of town, so the locals operate a little water-taxi service (of fishing boats) for the tourists. You can’t walk down to the beach in town without getting hustled by one of these guys trying to sell you on a trip to Rincon. Because of this, we were set on giving it a pass. But, well, we ended up going today anyhow. (It’s a Saturday and I have a cold, ok?)
Anyhow, we arrived at Rincon and decided in less than an hour that we were done. A big beach, sure – pretty water, sure. But no snorkelling, no waves – all rather dull, actually. I hate to admit it, but the fact is, we’ve become beach snobs. My camera didn’t even come out of the case. We wandered back to the boat area and discovered that the next boat back wasn’t leaving for a couple of hours. We sat on a couple of empty beach chairs and a man came to collect payment. Beach chairs, umbrellas – all for ‘reasonable’ price... We looked around; nowhere to go except into one of the exclusive over-priced restaurants or the dull-oh, vendor-ridden beach. We had walked right into the ultimate tourist trap! Such a clever scheme: three or four hours in the hot sun - just enough time for tourists to get thirsty and hungry and desperate.
[I haven't blogged about the all-inclusive resort in Las Galeras yet. It deserves to be mentioned, because it's pretty obvious that the Rincon-trap is designed for the resort-folk, who come with lots of money, and expectations of being entertained with organised excursions and tropical adventures. We have to walk through the resort beach to get to town, and I always have the vague sense that I'm walking through a holodeck, or some kind of artificial, fabricated world. There's always some kind of music blasting out over the resort beach (pictured below: Morning Acqasize, to Caribbean Techno beats!), and prone, baking bodies lie in neat rows along the groomed sand. Photo staff wander around, encouraging people to pose with parrots in their bikinis, and activity staff lure people to the archery field or into yoga circles.... Anyways, I have to be careful not to be judgemental about all that. Let the people do what they want to do!]
Back to the story:
We hailed one of the boat captains and announced that we were going to walk back. It did not go over well. Soon we were surrounded by a half-dozen arguing Dominicans – all talking at once in Spanish, telling us it was impossible to walk back, that we would be robbed, that it was impossibly far, that men with machetes would attack us. Finally, one of them broke away and waved us over, swearing back at them. He led us over to a dude at the bar, and more rapid discussions in Spanish ensued. One of the boat captains reappeared and continued his harangue, incensed about losing our return fares. We were tempted to leave the scene, just walk away into the jungle, but the drama was too entertaining.... and, truth be told, I was not keen on walking a couple of hours back home in the mid-day heat, machetes or no machetes.
In the end, we rode back to Las Galeras on horseback. The dude at the bar happened to have a half dozen horses there at the beach. It was the end of the day for him (giving tours I guess) and time to take the horses back to town anyways. So, barefoot and semi-clad we went, casting a last gleeful look back at the scowling boat captains.
Incredible animals, horses are. The trail was spectacular but horrendous -climbing and plunging steeply through jungle, over beaches, and through deep, deep mud. (It’s true, it would have been unwalkable.) The Dominican cowboy who led us was kind and calm and gracious, and we paid him as much as we had on us – about $8 each for our 45 minute ride. what a stroke of luck to flee the trap, and step from artificial-paradise into the muddy, bumpy, earthy joy of riding on the back of a powerful animal.
On this piece of land, there is no pace. 'Pace' would imply the need to go somewhere or to do something. The only impetus here is the subtly constant change of time, position of the sun, clouds drifting, animals grazing; it doesn't push one into a flurry of activity, nor does it inspire laziness. Work arises as a natural part of the day, in its due place, balanced with play, contemplation, communication, the need to nourish the body, exercise the body, rest the body. There is a backdrop of clucking hens, songbirds, bleating goats from a neighbouring farm... it soothes me as much as any music. I awaken in the night with ideas.
It’s raining steadily today. You almost wouldn’t believe that yesterday was hot and perfect, but it was.
We got up early and caught a gua gua to Las Galeras – we were only too happy to get out of stifling Samana, where we were constantly hassled as tourist targets by everyone selling something. Gua guas are the local ‘buses’ in the DR. Either beat-up old minivans or pick-up trucks, they’re super cheap, easy to find and easy to catch – they honk at anyone at the side of the road, looking for fares, and if you want a ride you just wave. I’ve seen them bursting at the seams with people, but yesterday it was mostly just us, 2 Italian ladies and 2 Dominican boys in the back of the pickup. One of the boys was carrying an iguana inside a cage. He took it out and let me hold it. (It was a strangely tender moment, holding that wee dinosaur.) The other boy, with a gleam in his eye, opened up his duffle bag to reveal a boa constrictor. Seems they work for an aquarium/zoo in Punta Cana, and were taking the creatures to various resorts for a show-and-tell. A little later, a lady with a variety of buckets and bundles climbed in with us and offered round pieces of fresh baked, still warm, coconut bread. The Italian dames went crazy for it - well, and so did we; the atmosphere in the back of that pickup truck, with the blue sky overhead and greenery all around, was that of a festive picnic. A festive picnic without much conversation. The best kind.
The beaches here are essentially stunning. I won't even put pictures of them in this post - it's too much. Yet, Las Galeras is a simple fishing town. There's one road with basic shops and eateries that terminates at the beach with Modesta's Restaurant and bar (owned by the same lady with the pan de coco in the gua gua). There are a few upscale places run by Europeans of course - but essentially, it's all very authentically Dominican.
The land surrounding "La Hacienda", our new digs, is gorgeous, peaceful, bucolic. Horses and open fields, all very green. The fields are full of squash, watermelon, peppers, yuka, sweet potatoes, papayas, almond trees, mango trees, lime trees, sour oranges, etc etc. (All of these foods grow at La Hacienda, and we are told to help ourselves.) There are also plenty of horses here; one room of this house is full of saddles. I hope to ride one of these days....
[A side note for Rose: This farmland borders jungle, and apparently TARANTULAS march down the roads at night, huge furry legs casting long shadows... There aren't any other dangerous little critters here. I had a frog in my shower yesterday, and of course the geckos are always around, here and there on the walls, but that's all pretty tame for a tropical country.]
The best thing about this country setting is that it's only 10 minutes from the closest beach. There are several beaches, each more beautiful than the last, within walking distance. You can walk for half an hour through the jungle, or an hour through farmlands, or a couple of hours through jungle and fields - depending on what you fancy - for different, totally private, pristine and deserted beaches. Next blog post will be all beach pics, so be prepared!
To add to the list of things I've seen people carrying on their motorbikes:
1. a very long ladder
2. panes of glass
3. guns
4. a live chicken (tucked under the arm)
From Feb 11:In Samana town now - it's smaller somehow, but bigger somehow, than Las Terrenas. Roads are wider, there seems to be more money here. Some of the motoconchos are in fact motorbikes pulling carriages. But it also feels less rich culturally. Maybe because it's not as dense and chaotic. What's for sure is that the air was still and stifling today, unlike in Las Terrenas, where the long beach that skirts the town brings in a near-constant fresh breeze. Las Terrenas is on the Northern coast of the Samana peninsula and technically, it's on the Atlantic. Samana town sits on the bay of Samana, on the Southern coast of the peninsula; it's on the Caribbean and the water is discernibly warmer. But, my friends, there are no beaches here! Well, okay, there's one - we swam there today - but it's a 'blue flag' beach, trademark of a resort. Neat rows of reclining beach chairs occupy a tidy parcel of sand and face a swimming area sectioned off with a string of buoys. (I don't call that a beach.) We spend just enough time there to soak up the atmosphere, overhead trivial complaints about minor deviations from perfect luxury, and I confess I felt a wave of satisfaction to be seeing the country from outside the walls of a tourist tank.
This is the beautiful pedestrian bridge connecting two small islands to Samana. The resort signs emphatically warn guests against crossing them. Consequently, they were tourist-free. It's true, there are no railings on the steep flights of stairs, the bridgedeck and supports are eroding away, and on the islands themselves the structures resemble Aztec ruins. But as far as I can see from my short time here, the bridges could be/probably were the gem of Samana. With all that ocean stretching away to one side, and the bay and town on the other, it's an obvious tourist magnet. Seems to be a typical failing of the Dominican government to create but not maintain such impressive structures and buildings. Curious and sad.
This hostel room is a bit cell-like. It's quieting down outside, to my surprise. An hour ago, you could distinctly hear 3 or 4 separate sound systems blasting merengue. (And by 'sound system' I mean the flatbed of a parked pickup truck stacked 3 high and 3 wide with amps - about what you'd need for a small stadium.) Are people just being considerate or is there some kind of noise curfew? Hard to imagine the latter, in a place where there don't seem to be any rules. Earlier, the whole town was a thrumming dance floor, young and old people moving un-self-consciously to the music. Maybe they've just moved inside the merengue halls.
Not half an hour after I wrote that last blog I started to feel a bit off..... and an hour after that, I was making sick like crazy. I don't know if it was food-poisoning, or a trace of tap water accidentally consumed, or some tropical bug - it seemed to just come from nowhere. It was an absolutely horrible night, my body purging every last drop of my stomach's contents. And yesterday was the same. I couldn't keep anything down and my whole abdomen hurt like crazy. Kind of scary. The Germans came to the rescue with some mystery medication (they said they'd had the exact same thing) and peppermint tea... Anyways, I'm attempting little nibbles of food this evening - fingers crossed! I hate feeling so weak like this. Especially hate stomach bugs. Really, really hate throwing up. I'm so glad that I'm not here by myself. ..
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
These are the mysterious sea-snail-shells I mentioned...
We switched to a different cottage today since another party had already booked our place for this week. It's set a wee bit farther back from the water, but is much quieter and more commodious. The cabinet doors are bright orange, and the floor tiles are a warm brown. You might not think it, but it's quite pleasing to the eye. The terrace, surrounded by garden, makes for a fine office and viewing place of unusual birds.I'm growing more fond of this place by the day. I love this area, but specifically, love this micro-Euro-village. Our little cottage is surrounded by other little cottages, separated by pleasant gardens and pathways, and the feeling is communal and quaint somehow. When we look out our window at the neighbours on the left, they are sitting on their terrace, reading books. On the other side, strains of conversation in German drift in through the open door. It's a soft version of German - a Caribbean version - peppered with deep chuckles. There's a sweet smell in the air, and it's from a pipe being puffed on at the cottage opposite. No children running about, no yahoos sitting on patios drinking and raving, no yappy dogs, no blasting music. Esta buenissimo! We ran into a fellow Canadian down the beach yesterday, and he told us about another place 'that would be much more suitable' for us - a place full of young people. Hostia, no no no! I am much happier in the quiet, respectful, and highly interesting company of these elderly Europeans, where I can wander around in my night-dress and take pictures of bougainvillea and rocking chairs if I choose.
I don't need, or like, big loud fast excitement. I find too much pleasure in small things, in simple things. I was cutting up some papaya in front of the kitchen window when a flickering movement outside caught my eye. It was a bird, about the size of a Northern Flicker, but with long speckled tail feathers, a smooth grey body, a long thin beak (hooked I think), and round red reptilian eyes. It was stalking a tiny gecko... tilting its head to scan the palm tree for signs of movement, and then launching itself with murderous speed. They chased round and round the trunk, up and down - until the gecko disappeared and the bird - a Hispaniolan Lizard Cuckoo, I later learned - gave up. It really was a pleasure to see.
The days are treating me so well here. They go by quickly even though the pace is slow. Everything that is not important is slipping away - things that at home feel pressing or obligatory. I have not yet needed to play my keyboard. I'm fully content to just recharge and contemplate music. By giving myself permission not to compose, and by letting go of the accompanying guilt and anxiety, I've regained some perspective and remembered that periods of rest and internal development are just as important for my art as periods of fervent practice. Also, I haven't blogged much in months, and it feels good to write again.
This is my 2nd annual winter escape, and I just can't describe how wonderful it is to relocate for a couple of months to a beautiful and warm place. It's the time of year when everyone at home begins to take on the look of road-weary travellers in search of a warm hearth. To shift from an atmosphere of stress, strain and darkness to a place where life is bursting forth from all sides and the earth herself seems to want to nourish and take care of you... well, it's too good to even absorb for the first couple of weeks. But now that my skin is turning brown, I think my mind too is starting to lose its pasty glare. It's more content with this simplicity. It's content finding mysterious snail-shells on the beach and playing chicken with the incoming waves. Which doesn't mean that I'll forget about my work or become an ambitiousness beach bunny (I don't think)... rather, it means that my work/music has more meaning and that the work/music that IS meaningless can settle on the bottom where it belongs. I love this life so much.
This is my music-writing station. Perhaps it looks a bit strange or inelegant to the untrained eye. But believe it or not, this configuration took me weeks to work out: Good lighting, spaciousness, appropriately flat surfaces in a triangle, a good chair for my back, and an object that's just the right size and height for elevating the keyboard. (It may seem eccentric, but if the height-ratios are wrong, I can end up hurting myself, tiring too quickly, or just feeling unsettled and uninspired.)
