Thoughts from a warm country

Sunday 10th January 2010, day 450, 7,772 miles. 17° 00’.85 N, 061° 46’.49 W. Falmouth Harbour, Antigua

Here I am, back in the sunshine, back to our life of simplicity and pleasure. The contrast between life here and that in the UK is accentuated this time by the weather conditions – a few hours separating shivering in five layers of wool and down from basking in a bikini; a monochrome palette from one bursting with colour – but in a way they only serve to mark the even greater distinctions between two different ways of life.

The oddest thing about coming back here is that it is so different from England, and yet now feels so known. A Caribbean lifestyle is no longer exotic or alien, not something that exists only as a day dream on the walk to the tube, or a two week holiday cut off from real life. It has become, for us, a perfectly normal way of existing.

Living with heat and colour, and greeting strangers with warmth, and pacing ourselves to the heat of the day; running a rhythm of life that makes the most of the cool fresh hours of early morning and sunset; pausing to chat with someone who hails us from the side of the road. Grabbing a roti from a roadside stall, hopping on a pulsing bus, twitching our noses away from the scent of drains, heading over to the supermarket when we see a container off–loaded at the dock; all just part of everyday life. We know the vegetation well enough to recognise it cycling through the seasons, and bananaquits and frigate birds have taken the place of robins and gulls. We are not, and will never be, locals, but we can slip into the local way of living like putting on a well-worn coat.

We still carry round with us, tucked away, the knowledge of how to live in a cold, crowded country. When we return, may we not forget the way of life in a warm and spacious one.

When we first started planning this trip, it was going to be a quick jaunt, taking almost two months away from career and responsibilities, sailing across the Atlantic, and seeing a palm tree or two as a bonus. That was a pretty big adventure. Then it expanded into a year out – how exciting, how risk-taking, how brave – and having got here the urgency of a return to our previous lives has just gradually faded away …

I had supper with a school friend before coming back, and she (quite rightly, and very tactfully) wondered that anyone could find a life of such relative ease and lack of mental challenge satisfying. I agree, and two years ago would have argued the same. From her point of view, with four sparky, fun and intelligent children being guided on the path to university and beyond, with a crowd of clients who are grateful for the work she does, and a husband doing useful work in the national interest, how could she think otherwise?
By rights, I should be pacing the deck with frustration, snarling at one and all because of forced inactivity – the reality is, as you know, a long way off that, and largely suffused with contentment.

And yet, and yet …

It is not that we are bored or run out of things to do. Far from it. There is always a long list, quite apart from the routine of keeping the boat going. There new friendships to make, old friends to greet and exchange tales with, Spanish to learn, and various musical instruments to play around on, clothes to mend and make, books to read and emails to write, and, foremost and always, the islands with all their varied attractions to explore. We leave each island with regret for all the beauties we haven’t seen.

But … there are nagging and growing voices that mutter that this is all very well, and if one wants a life of pure pleasure and little responsibility, apart from the day to day boat chores, it can certainly be found. And enjoyed. However, continue the voices, is this really a life? Creating nothing, contributing nothing, is this really what you want to look back on?

Up until we left, it seemed that our choices were relatively circumscribed: of course we had to get on, achieve, make money, save money, advance in our careers. Breaking away from that way of thinking – or rather, breaking away from that way of life while still living with that way of thinking – was terrifying. Walking away from a respectable job felt like walking straight off the edge of a precipice, with just a steep drop into nothingness to come.

The complication now is that our choices have increased. Ways of living have opened up to us which were previously outside our ambit. No longer “which job in order to further my career and make as much money as possible” but “how do we want to balance off money, family, peace of mind, time, and that wonderful commodity, sunshine?”

And back we cycle to the question of what makes a truly satisfying, well-lived life. Success? Service? Achieving one’s full potential? Or is just waking up each morning, happy to be alive, enough?