Day 5: COVID calls

Saturday, April 30th

For the first time in my life, my sleep is interrupted every night. In part due to the music of the night – new sounds I’ve not yet heard before, except for the lullaby of ocean waves on Spotify. The other part being a side effect of uprooting ones life completely. Adjusting to a new life, completely outside of my comfort zone. I left that zone when I left my apartment back in Buffalo. And when I left my lover.

Exposed, my defense mechanism becomes a high alertness, fear, and paranoia, which wakes me in the night, privy to all new sounds and senses. I think it’s healthy to have a level of fear. But mine is border-lining paranoia.

I remind myself, the young and naive are the only ones completely confident. Naive, I no longer am. I am a seasoned vet, having had my fair share of heartache and loss.

I don’t want to beat around the bush while I’m here, pretending there are no problems in paradise. That would be false advertisement. This is, afterall, “not a facade”. So, taking a step away from the day to day tasks, I want to dive in a top to paint the picture of the real things I am experiencing, on top of wonderful views, people, and learning experiences.

In a tropical island, biodiversity is rampent. Tons of grasshoppers, crickets, bugs, ants, frogs, bats, and more. There’s one sound last night that is more bothersome than the rest. which disturbs me in the middle of the night. A high frequency sound jolts me out of bed at 11:30pm, at least two hours after I’ve fallen deep into sleep.

Eyes wide, survival instincts swelling; I’m scanning the tamarind room from left to right and beyond the shutter for any flashing lights to chaperone the alarm. The sound, a constant high tone sound, is like the ones your dog loves to hate. It sounds like maybe it’s the fan that’s went hay-wire so I unplug it waiting for the sound to subside, but it remains. It stops for 5 seconds before it starts again, this time lasting longer than 10 minutes. I wonder, can that be some sort of cruel feral insect?! I am in the jungle after all…

I text Corina if she hears it and ask if it’s a bug. Other hotel guests call her, concerned about the alarm. She quickly and non chalantly tells everyone it’s a very strange bug. A bug. A freakin bug. I research, needing to identify the perpetrator. I find out it is a very loud cricket. Yes, a teeny little cricket that is looking to attract a mate, which it seeks to do in the middle of the night.

I am stunned by the complexity of nature that resides outside my window. Even in Costa Rica, I don’t remember hearing as many exotic sounds as I’ve experienced here in St. Croix. I put my mystery to bed and accept I have so much to learn about this place. I stick cotton balls in my ears and wake a few more times through the night. I wake at 8:00 this morning, feeling fatigue from several nights of interrupted sleep.

Awake for the day I put all the night’s nonsense behind me and take the covid test. I’m negative. And now I’m free to roam without a mask.

The morning sun fades to gloom as rain showers dust the island for the remainder of the day. More on the topic of fear. I am housing a new, healthy fear of the ocean. Upon arrival, I am warned about the sea urchins and the stone fish that live in the rocks close to shore. Not sure what a stonefish is? Allow me to enlighten you. A stonefish is the most venomous fish known to man. Stonefish resemble a “stone” and if stepped on, can very likely be fatal to humans. I read about the stonefish in the ‘welcome packet’ and now am terrified of entering the ocean via the rocky shores.

I am told to swim as soon as you can when entering the water which I do. But getting out, I refuse to put my feet down and instead wash up on shore like a beached whale. My dignity compromised by the ocean, I sit on the rocks on the shore and breathe in the ocean air. I wonder how I could develop a fear of something I once so deeply loved. I think about the dumping in the ocean and now worry of contamination as well.

I walk on the road along the coastline, embraced by the smell of rainfall and its mist collected on my skin. “What a perfect day for a swim” I think, as I walk back up the hill to the confines of what’s becoming my new comfort zone.