Day 1: The People We Meet

3am comes before I know it. I got three, maybe four hours of sleep before my alarm begins to chime. Today is the day!

I roll out of my Aunt’s guest room; my stomach swirling with mixed feelings of joy, fear, and anticipation. The last two months have led up to today and I’m prepared to embark on a journey with an indefinite timeline. For long moments, I already miss the guest room and the company of my Aunt.

Before I know it my Aunt and I are in the car cruising down the pitch black i89 South. My Aunt, the one who doesn’t sleep a blink that night, plops me off at the airport at 4:30 in the morning. Bless her soul. It’s not the first time she’s done this – being my drop off for my crazy adventures. Years prior, she plopped me off at a sketchy greyhound station in Albany in the wee hours of the morning.

Today before pulling off, it’s a different kind of trip – and she takes an obligatory pic from the drop off lane at the airport. I run around and give her a big hug before we part ways. I turn, facing the airport now, realizing t’s too late to turn back. Head up, I take my first courageous steps toward my future and continue on to check my bag and print two-out-of-three of my boarding passes. First stop Newark. Second Fort Lauderdale.

As I walk toward security, my eyes swell and my throat tightens as it hits me. There’s so much stirred up in the wake of this moment. I feel a huge cocktail of emotions swirling through me. I’m proud of myself at this moment. It’s taken a lot of guts. Guts I didn’t think I had. I smile, letting a few tears fall before I choke the rest back and walk on.

Security detects the bag of foreign currency I stashed last minute. It’s a mix of all the extra change I had from numerous trips in the past to Europe and Asia that I intend to exchange somewhere. I am more than happy to chat with the TSA agent who’s now rummaging through my bag as we both try to figure out what he’s looking for. I’m chipper this morning. But apparently not fully awake. I throw my bag on and I peer down at the time – it’s 4:28am. “Oh shit!” Panic strikes me as my flight leaves at 4:47am. I make a run for my gate, not trying to tarnish my schedule this early in the day. After a 4 minute dash I locate the gate – it’s empty and the doors are closed. The screen says 5:47am departure and I laugh out loud. I turn back and head toward the bathroom, passing those I just sprinted by. I make the flight on-time.

Arriving in Newark I have one hour to my connecting flight to Fort Lauderdale. And from my recent experience traveling to Costa Rica and missing a connecting flight, I know things can get messy real quick. I acknowledge that an hour is not nearly enough time and I’ll have to make some magic happen if I’m to make it so you can imagined how relieved I am to find that my gate is two down from the one I arrive at.

This flight is where things feel strangely connected. I’m boarding the plane searching for seat 35E – a middle seat. Grand. It’s a 3.5 hour flight and I’m sleep deprived. I don’t feel much like talking, or being the one to strike a conversation. As I approach row 35, shock fills my face as I locate a man that has an uncanny resemblance to Jay. He’s wearing a baseball cap, glasses, a blue shirt, and a face mask.

A year ago on a solo trip to California, I flew from Chicago to San Francisco where I sat next to Jay. We talked for hours all the way to San Francisco. Jay, 74, was forty seven years sober. He was also a tragic victim of grief, having lost his wife in recent years. I cried as I talked to Jay on that plane ride, wondering how serendipitous it was to meet him, I too, recently faced with grief and newly sober as well. This ‘coincidence’ was especially provoking because earlier in the day, I decided to change my seat for no good reason. I realized later, it was so I could be next to Jay. I needed to meet him. Jay would pass through Buffalo a month later and we’d meet up for lunch, this time bringing his new wife Hudi. Their presence in my life came just when they were supposed to.

So, walking down the isle in Newark, I am hit with a wave of skepticism. Is this a Jay doppelgänger? Is someone here trying to make a mockery? This isn’t funny, I thought.

I signal to my seat, slide my pack into the overhead compartment and mosey in. I thank the strange man in the aisle seat and he said “for what?” I kindly confess “for letting me into my seat”. 

I notice flash cards in his hand scribbled with Vietnamese characters. I ponder, trying to synthesize the man beside me. 

Before I know it I’m swept up in conversation with Bob and his Vietnamese flash cards. Any doubt now subsided. I realized Bob is not only not a doppleganger, but he has his own perilous stories that are intimately woven with lessons. Tired, antisocial ‘me’ vanishes. I realize subconsciously as we’re talking, that Bob has also been placed here for yet another reason. So I buckle up and put my listening cap on for what is apparently another scheduled appointment made by the man upstairs. Or, what Bob would come to refer to as “serendipity”. 

Bob is 74, Canadian-American and currently resides in New Jersey. He dates a Vietnamese woman he met online during the pandemic, explaining the flashcards. But what he tells me next takes me by surprise. He goes on to tell me that he is a widow of three years, having lost his wife to a despicable battle with cancer, taking with it their 45 years of marriage. My stomach’s in knots for his loss and I am again agasp at the theme of grief.

It’s no secret I have succumbed to grief many times this last year as I continue to learn how to move forward. I learn a lot from Bob, generously sharing stories about his life to include the topics of family, career, his self-proclaimed coping strategy for grief, and his encounters with the divine as he refers to as “serendipity”. 

I forget for awhile about my fear of the future as I sit with Bob for the next few hours. Nestled into these next words are my favorite lessons he shard.

I listen with moist eyes as he tells me about his wife Jenny and their life together. After her death, he sank to new depths, often wondering how to move forward with his life. His mother died at age 59 and 3 years passed before his father would take his own life. He recalled this and questioned if his fate would be that of his fathers. He shared he knew how cruel of an act it would be to his children. And so he found a better way to cope. Bob shared with me an acronym he created that helped him carry on. The acronym, FENLLL, stands for Family, Exercise, Nutrition, Laugh, Love, Learn. Together and separate, focusing on each letter helped to regain his purpose and showed him a way forward.

Shortly before her death, his wife, Jenny, who was Japanese Canadian, muttered three words to Bob on the day that she passed. “Shikata ga nai” – a Japanese phrase she stated many times throughout their marriage. It means “what’s done is done, move on”. Bob tells me he now wears a shirt with this phrase on it to bed each night- it’s this gift from his wife and the acronym FENLLL that have gotten him to today.

Phenomenal failures and how they have built up to serendipitous moments. He tells me of the time he claimed bankruptcy. At the time it felt like the end of his world as he knew it. Unable to sleep one night at 2am in Toronto, he moseyed down to the doughnut shop. At the time, Toronto was littered with 24hr donut shops. Feeling depleted drinking his coffee, he flipped through the Toronto Globe and Mail. Glancing at the Career Opportunities section, he read a job posting he said was specifically written for him. The listing was for an entrepreneur with business experience, specifically one who had tried and missed and has a wealth of experience to show for it. “The ad was talking to ME I couldn’t believe it” he said. He called the office as soon as they opened where they informed him the position had been accounted for – they were set to sign a contract with their new hire just that afternoon. Knowing deep down, Bob insisted they meet with him and that he was the person for the job. He went in and lo and behold – he was right. He WAS the person for the job. They let down the new hire and signed with Bob that afternoon. Serendipity was present at so many moments in his life he went on to conclude. I felt that, right then and there.

In what felt like an hour, the plane landed, putting a time stamp on our conversation. I thanked him, again, this time for sharing his stories with me. It was time to catch my last flight and continue onward. We exchanged information and with a new friend, I waved goodbye onto my next leg of my journey.

With goodluck, I made it through security and to my gate 10 minutes before boarding. On my next flight, I met Alberta; a resident of St. Croix who spoke creole and wore long beautiful braces that she tied at the nape of her neck. Alberta answered my queries of the island as our teeth chattered the whole way there; the air conditioning blasting like it was broken. She gave me her number before we parted and I stepped off the airplane basking in the heat giving me goosebumps.

Corina, one of the owners of Feather Leaf Inn, picked me up from the airport in her gray Tacoma that was furnished with purple racks that canopied the bed. The fact that she drives a truck is already winning over my heart. She pulled up and with a beautiful smile she waved. I walked over where she hopped out and brazenly lifted my suitcase into the bed. We turned right, driving on the left side of the road. She warned things would feel a bit backwards for a bit as we drove “home” on the opposite side of the road. Immediately, I notice Corina’s lightness to her energy. She radiates warmth and makes me feel at ease. She tells me of the island, tapping my knee with the backside of her palm as she goes into detail. We stop by a scuba shop in Frederiksted where she gets a tank for today’s dive and I inquire about the certification process.

A few minutes later we’re turning right onto a gravel road and up ahead, there’s a sign that reads “Welcome to Feather Leaf Inn”.

Ahead is a white building stooped with large arches across the facade. We pull up the gravel driveway which is lined with faun and trees with pink flowers. The building is old – at least 200 years old, with masonry work peaking out the sides and up the steps. The white facade is contrasted by large barn red shutters that are dressed with black hardware, probably to keep the hurricanes at bay. It’s beautiful.

I unload my suitcase and here I meet Ryan, the second half of Feather Leaf Inn and also, my liaison for the last month. I thank him for having me as he checks in a guest of the Inn and Corina shows me to my temporary room – the Tamarind room. Due to COVID precautions, I am “sanctioned” to my own room – which is not a sanction at all. It’s a lovely room with a mahogany canopy bed that stretched toward the high ceilings and four wooden shutter windows, all opening with views of the ocean. I’m slightly stunned that I’m here, in this place, right now. She gives me a brief tour of the immediate grounds and I’m left to unpack and settle in for awhile.

Before bed, I wander up to The Mill for dinner where I have the best, most flavorful beet burger of my life with the sunset straight in my face. It’s hot out, I have wonderful food, an incredible view, and lovely hosts. I’m waiting for someone to pinch me.

At dusk, I mosey back to the Tamarind room where I’m happy to relax, nestle my nose to book, enoying the northern breeze to my skin and the sounds of the sea beneath me.