Privacy Please

Privacy Please

For the last 5 years, I’ve been living in a hotel. My boyfriend, David, manages the resort, which is why we’ve lived on-property in one of the rooms all these years. It’s a very small island resort with only 8 guest rooms, a restaurant/bar, and a marina downstairs. And while it’s a lovely spot and the two-bedroom villa we reside in is quite cozy, it’s not as flashy as it sounds.

SR rooms pic_WWLOR

Most people become visibly envious when they hear I live at a resort. I can see in their widening eyes exactly what they’re picturing – a never-ending, luxurious tropical vacation which is somehow fortuitously my everyday life. This assumption is not entirely untrue (I can get room service whenever I don’t want to cook, which is often), but there are plenty of undesirable quirks to deal with as well that people don’t really realize when they’ve never called a hotel “home”.

My main grievance is the lack of privacy. When we step outside our door, we are in a public space (even worse for David – he is at his work). I’m not a very social person, so this has been particularly challenging for me. Sometimes I just really need some peace and quiet, but when you’re surrounded by drunken vacationers and unsupervised, shrieking children, peace is rare to come by. We try to regard our villa as our small patch of privacy, but the tourists have other ideas.

Much like their stubborn, water-rejecting equine counterparts, you can post a sign for a tourist but you can’t make them obey it. The “Hotel Guests Only” plaques in front of our rooms seem to be interpreted as more of a suggestion rather than a rule. Tourists visiting our restaurant/bar frequently wander into our hotel rooms, usually whenever a door is open while the housekeeper is cleaning. I used to enjoy having my own door open to allow in some breeze while I worked, but after too many instances of intruding tourists on their own self-led tour, I’ve had to forgo the breeze.

This seems to be just another case of the Paradise Induced Mental Relapse I have referenced in earlier posts. Nowhere else in the world have I experienced random people strolling into my hotel room. But here, I’ll be sitting at my desk and in come three couples, cocktails in-hand, flinging open my door and marching into my living room, saying all sing-songy, “Don’t mind us, we just want to see what the rooms look like.” Actually you fools, I DO mind. Even if this was just my hotel room and not my private residence, I still don’t give a shit if you want to see what the rooms look like. Ask to see a VACANT room. This one is occupied.

After the most recent obnoxious invasion of my privacy just yesterday, I figured I’d share a couple of examples of the less-than-charming side of island hotel room living:

EXHIBIT A

I am working on the computer when I hear loud Spanish chattering and the banging of keys trying to be forced into my door’s keyhole. I get up to open the door and am faced with two 30-something Puerto Rican women who do not say, “Oops, excuse us” but rather, immediately become red with anger and shout, “What are you doing in OUR room?!”

I swallow my own rising aggravation and inform them as politely as I can muster that it is 100% impossible that this is their room. I ask which room they were assigned at Registration but instead of replying, the larger of the two ladies attempts to move past me, body-checking me with her over-sized bedazzled beach bag. Now they are storming into my home, telling me it is, in fact, their room (how could I be so stupid?). I have now officially moved past asking and demand to see their room key. Sure enough (I’m not that stupid!), it is for the room named “Bequia” and not my room, which is named “St. Barths”. I coerce them back out the door, point out the name discrepancy between the room placard and their engraved room key, speculate that perhaps this was why their key wasn’t fitting into my door’s lock, and point them in the direction of their (yes, THEIR) guest room. They mutter something in Spanish I am certain is not an apology.

EXHIBIT B

Our bedroom wall is shared with the guest room beside us. There is a group of 6 adults who have weaseled their way into sharing a room whose max occupancy is 4. It is 2 am and they have returned from the bar, sloppy drunk, and are playing loud country music and arguing with each other in slurred Southern drawls. While I am typically a deep sleeper, I am unable to ignore the ruckus and lay fuming in bed, making futile attempts to calm myself with breathing exercises.

Suddenly, the screaming and crying is on our patio and the sliding glass door to our bedroom is flung open. A naked woman is now entering our room, apparently thinking it is her room. This is where I lose it.

I am yelling (because it is the only way to reason with drunk people and it is 2 am), “This is not your room, GET OUT!” The buck-naked woman and her half-naked friend remain on our patio arguing. While this drunk ass woman somehow managed to crawl across the roof from her patio to ours, like a cat up a tree, she cannot get herself back where she belongs. We are forced to walk the nude women through our bedroom, across our living room and kitchen, out our front door, and lead them back to their room.

For some reason, David is not as upset about this as I am.

EXHIBIT C

Just yesterday, I am taking a midday nap on the couch and am awakened by crinkling sounds. I look up to find a woman in my room, rifling through my purse on the kitchen table. Still foggy from sleep, all I can muster is a stunned, “What the HELL are you doing?!”

She is old, leathery, and British. She looks at me, continues to fumble through my belongings, and says, “I’m just looking at the rooms.” I am forced to get up, physically remove her hands from my bag, and lead her out of my home. This bat-shit crazy woman had not only opened my closed door to enter my room, but had closed it behind her, presumably, for privacy. I explain to her that: a) my purse is not a part of “the room”; b) she better not have stolen anything and I’m calling the manager now; and c) if she ever wants to tour the rooms at ANY hotel in the future, she needs to do so with a hotel employee.

~

I have got to start locking my door. Or, you know, move.

Wax On, Wax Off

Wax On, Wax Off

Caveat: For those of you who read the title above and found yourself hoping to attain some sort of Mr. Miyagi-esque sagacity from this post, I feel compelled to provide full disclosure – the aforementioned wax is not the karate skill-inspiring car polishing variety, but rather, this post is about bikini wax.

~

Many of the basic services people take for granted out there in the real world are the little things I often long for. From dry cleaning, to a good tailor, to a cobbler (both the kind made of peaches and the man who fixes your shoes), to food delivery options (seriously – nothing fancy – I would dance in the streets if I could get a pizza delivered) are all on the list. But no matter how much I yearn for a proper bakery and the like, I would stop whining about it all if only I could have a good bikini waxer.

Once upon a time in my past life in The Land of Convenience, I used to get fantastic bikini waxes on a regular basis. And while I realize “fantastic” may seem like a bizarre word choice to describe the procedure of having scalding hot liquid poured on your lady parts and ripped off whilst attached to your hairs by the root, I now know just how fantastic  my experience truly was. Each month, I would visit my favorite chamomile-scented day spa and see an efficient French woman named Françoise. Not only was she quick, she skillfully minimized the pain in what can be a torturous enterprise and I left there with skin so smooth and hair-free, if I wasn’t 5’3″ (and, you know, womanly) you’d think I’d just been born.

Having lived in the islands now for close to 8 years, I am disappointed to report that I still do not have a waxologist who I can trust. It is a cruel injustice to live in a place where you wear bikinis year-round and not be able to get a good bikini wax. In my fruitless search for The One, I have been burned, ripped, and pulled in ways that still make me shudder. Commiserating with my fellow women on rocks, the tales of disappointment in waxdom abound – one friend even had the top layer of her skin inadvertently pulled off. Down there. It bled for days. I wish I was exaggerating this in some way, but I am not.

And it’s not just that these so-called estheticians lack an aptitude for depilatory treatments, but I have yet to even find one that actually uses the appropriate type of wax. Why is it me telling them, the “professionals”, that they’re using the wrong wax? They look at me with the same feigned patience I would give some random patron telling me they could do my job better, but really – I could do their job better. It’s my sensitive lady skin that is being punished here and I feel like this is not one of those situations where you can just grin and bear it. Let me just tell you – there is NOTHING like a bad bikini wax.

Life on a rock often motivates you to start taking matters into your own hands. I have become much more resourceful living down here; when something I desperately want is unavailable, I have been known to try to fill the void on my own. I have learned how to make all sorts of shit I would never have attempted if it were readily available – I make my own whole-grain bread, veggie burgers, sorbet…hell, I even made my own hair serum. I’m not quite sure why it has taken me so long to decide to start doing my own bikini waxes, but in a fit of frustration after my most recent waxing debacle, I finally made the decision to go at it on my own.

I decided that if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. I researched and shipped in the right kind of wax and even got myself a salon-quality wax heater. I figured it was best to not complicate things by adding the microwave into the equation.

On the day of my waxing appointment with myself, I was already smug before I had heated the wax. I imagined that I would emerge from my first self-bikini wax with the same victory I experienced when I realized I could make my own almond butter. It’s so easy! And cheap! I can’t believe I’ve been paying $27 a jar for it all these years!  Spoiler alert: doing your own bikini wax is nothing like making almond butter.

Conducting a self-bikini wax is quite literally a sticky situation. Gravity is working against you and despite your best intentions, you end up dripping a considerable amount of wax on inopportune places – in between your toes, for example. And sadly, the “Wax Removing Lotion” you lavishly purchased along with your Easy Bake Waxer does not, in fact, remove wax. It is also safe to say that I am now in need of a new set of bath towels, as the ones I sagely used to protect the floor are crusted in what looks like a honey explosion.

I will not go into the specific details of my bikini wax endeavor, not because I am shy, mind you, but more due to the fact that my brother reads this. I will say it wasn’t a total fail, but the ease I had so arrogantly anticipated was illusory. An experience that typically takes around 20 minutes at the spa consumed 2 1/2 hours of my Saturday and it was nowhere near complete; it turns out, I am not as bend-y as I like to believe. Another unpleasant side effect was the unrelenting crick in my neck that lingered for 3 days following due to all of my below-the-navel gazing.

Alas, bikini waxing remains a service I still wish I could pay somebody else to do. I suspect I will improve as a self-waxer with time, but it’s a lot tougher than I presumed and there’s only so much you can do with one set of hands. Until I can work up the courage to try someone new again, I may just have to make it more of a festive affair by adding music and copious amounts of wine to my self-waxing Saturdays. But I would like to send out this S.O.S. – if you live in the big world and are an adept esthetician looking for an island adventure, pack your bags, friend, and head for the tropics. You can stay at my house. The wax is already warm.

Words of Wisdom from my Housekeeper

Words of Wisdom from my Housekeeper

I have a confession to make: for the most part, I have stopped cleaning my own house. I’ll still keep the kitchen from getting unsightly and straighten up here and there (clutter, in particular, makes me feel unhinged), but I have since outsourced* the heavy lifting to a fastidious housekeeper named Edwina.

~

*Side note: Can I just take a moment and say how much I love using the word “outsourced”? I got the word slash concept from a book I read recently, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, and have since begun to implement its ingenious time management tactics in my life. To say I am outsourcing my cleaning duties makes me feel disproportionately important, like I’m some high-tech corporation who has decided their bottom line is better off having workers in a small village in Beijing deal with their wretched complain-y customers. Though in my case, I have determined it is a better use of my time to have a lovely woman who is a much more skilled cleaner than I deal with my dust and grime.

~

In the beginning, Edwina used to scare me. A short, yet sturdy, militant woman with a scowl that can melt faces, I always tried to stay out of her way and made sure I didn’t do anything to piss her off. She works part-time for the resort we live at and was born and raised in the Caribbean. She grew up on one of the rougher islands – the kind that has yet to be refined for tourism and where people, until very recently, used to get hacked with machetes at the bus stop (or so I’ve been told).

Our first real encounter, or “meet cute” as they say in show business, really set the tone for the rest of our relationship. She was cleaning our louvered windows and had been going in and out of the front door to dust them from both sides. I was doing the dishes when I suddenly felt her presence directly behind me as she yelled, “Pussy Lady!”. I dropped the pot I was scrubbing and turned to face her with trepidation, shaking when I saw her finger pointed at my face.

“Why you need so much pussy?!” she growled and abruptly stalked off.

As I stood in my kitchen, frozen with soap suds dripping off my hands, I racked my brain for what she could possibly be referring to. Were there rumors being spread at the resort about me having lesbian tendencies? Was she under the impression that I was not only a lesbian, but a slutty one at that? Seeing as how I reside with my boyfriend/her boss, it seemed unlikely that she would draw this conclusion. I later cornered her niece for an explanation and it turns out Edwina was admonishing me not for my supposed sexual escapades, but for my contemptible life choice in having not just one, but two cats. Either way, I was hooked. Anyone who can scream borderline offensive decrees laced with sexual innuendos at a relative stranger is a friend of mine.

pussy_WWLOR

Edwina now comes to clean every other week or so. David and I aren’t super messy, we just need the detritus of everyday life smoothed over from time to time. It’s really a win-win for everyone: I have more time to spend on the work that is really important to me without feeling guilty or lazy for neglecting our house and Edwina gets to make some extra cash and do what she loves most – cleaning. Early on, she told me her favorite things are cleaning, ironing, and cooking; so much so that even after working as a housekeeper all day she still doesn’t mind going home and cleaning her own house. And because I hate those things, I knew we would complement each other immensely. Yin and yang.

I cherish the days Edwina comes; not only is my house magically clean at the end of the day thanks to zero effort on my part, but she is also fantastic company. Always ready to dispense her own personal brand of wisdom, I sit at the computer working and she goes about her cleaning, interjecting from time to time as though we were already in the midst of a conversation.  Some of her most recent gems include:

Edwina on Dust

When Edwina first began cleaning our house, she was appalled at the state of my screens, blinds, and ceiling fan blades. I agree that they had a fair amount of dust coating their surfaces, but I didn’t feel it was out of control. And in my defense, I tried to clean them all once and it ended up being a 3-day tedious affair so, of course, I never did it again. To her, this was a potentially lethal mistake:

“You know wha’ happen when all ‘dis dust get in you lungs? You get sick. An’ ‘den you die. D’is dust, it kills.”

Edwina on Diseases

I enjoy a house with a jungle-y feel and tend to decorate with a lot of houseplants. While I am proud of my ability to keep them alive and green, Edwina has nothing but disdain for my reckless decision to keep them in my home. Each time she mops the floors, she moves the plants around and warns me of their inherent danger:

“D’ese plants – you water ‘dem – that’s when de mosquitoes come. You know wha’ mosquitoes do? D’ey lay egg in de water. Dem baby hatch. D’en they bite you and you get dengue fever. And you die.”

Edwina on Children

In the Caribbean, for a woman my age to not have her own gaggle of children is a bit of an anomaly. Edwina frequently inquires about my future child-bearing plans and when I remind her that I don’t like kids and have never wanted any, she tries to change my mind with a numbers game:

“You tink you don’ like dem kids? No matter. Jus’ have one anyway. You never know if you like dem til you try. Me – I have 5 chil’ren. I only hate one.”

On her her most recent visit, she asked if she could warm her lunch in my microwave before she left. I ran over to the kitchen, embarrassed for her to open it, remembering the cupcake frosting meltdown that David and I were too tired to clean up the previous night. I began apologizing in advance for the bright red, sugary state of affairs that was my microwave when she grabbed my arm to stop me.

“Listen,” she said, “don’ try to impress me. Don’ try to be perfect. D’ere no such ting.”

So wise. And my fan blades are so shiny, I can see myself in them. Yup, she’s a keeper.

Arriving by Boat is Often not as Glamorous as it Sounds

Arriving by Boat is Often not as Glamorous as it Sounds

We humans are incredibly adaptable creatures. No matter how wonderful (or awful) a change is in our lives, we quickly grow accustomed to it and often forget what life was like before the change occurred. The same is true of island living. Things that were once novel to you become old hat before you know it.

Take, for example, the pervasive presence of lizards. I am reminded of a few years ago when I was moving into my first apartment on St Thomas. In an attempt to offset the kitschy white wicker lounge décor in my new living room, I went to remove an especially hideous painting of the landlord’s from the wall. As I lifted the seashell monstrosity off its nail, three little lizards burst out from their hiding spot behind the frame and were sent scurrying in different directions – one particularly bold soul dashed up my forearm at a concerning clip. The island-newbie that I was dropped the picture with a crash and flailed my arms wildly, screaming in a manner that can only be described as “someone poured acid on my face and now I’ll never be a teen model”.

My relationship with the lizards has since transitioned from fear, to novelty (I spent 3 years naming each and every one that crossed my path), to aggravation (their tiny poops on the walls are a never-ending cleaning nuisance), to a commonplace backdrop of my island life. Now, I am loathe to admit that I only tend to take notice of their existence when they happen to fall from a tree and land with a smack on my forehead. Even then, I snatch them up with an all-too-blasé sigh, removing them lest they make a home in my hair.

I do try to make an effort to not take advantage of the beauty that surrounds me though, as it’s easier than you’d imagine to allow the tropical wonderland slip away when you’re in the midst of the mundane detritus of daily life. I find that the best reminders always come when spending time with people who don’t  live on an island. You get a peek into your world from their fresh perspective and can enjoy the reminder of how you once thought it all magical, when your brain was sharp and had yet to be rusted from the omnipotently corrosive sea salted air.

I was recently in the states attending a workshop attended by mostly stateside people. As per usual in these types of situations, it will be revealed in those initial getting-to-know-you conversations that I live on an island and my life is not normal. From there, the inevitable string of follow-up questions ensues. Among them, one of the most frequently asked has to do with transportation. It seems to blow people’s minds that I haven’t driven a car with regularity in years and instead, have to drive a boat anytime I go anywhere off my rock of residence. The way their eyes light up at the mention of a boat, I inherently know exactly what they’re picturing:

'The Tourist' Continues Filming in Venice

Okay, fine – so they’re most likely not picturing me as Angelina Jolie (although, it sure would be charitable of them if they could) but their minds are definitely conjuring up a similarly fantastical image. Windswept hair, shiny boat, sparkly ocean, French-stripey sailor girl shirt – the works. I know, because that is exactly how I pictured myself before I began riding around in boats all the time in real life.

But more often, arriving by boat is not as glamorous as it sounds. Unless of course by “boat” you mean mega-yacht and in that case, I’m certain it is exactly as glamorous as it sounds. Otherwise, in the average island girl’s life, you ride in a boat much like you ride in a car, except you don’t have the protection of the wind-free, climate-controlled interior. In a boat, you’re out in the elements and on your way somewhere with the hopes of arriving dry, sweat-free, and with a minimal amount of rat’s nest tangles in your hair. Sometimes it works out. Other times, the boating elements get the better of you.

power boat bvi

On a recent trip to the big island, one of my main errand goals was a haircut. The thing I love most about getting my hair cut is that someone else who isn’t me puts in the muscle to wash, dry, and straighten the untamable curly beast that is my hair. Then, if I’m lucky, I can enjoy a salon blowout for a couple of days before I have to go back to doing it myself. As I left the salon that fateful day feeling fresh out of a Pantene commercial, I carefully swept my hair back in a loose bun and covered it with a scarf in hopes that it wouldn’t frizz on the boat ride home.

All went according to plan for about 20 minutes before the boat began to hiss and groan. I nervously adjusted my scarf as my captain/boyfriend David went to investigate. But before he could diagnose the inevitable, the starboard engine went out with a bang, jerking us to a halt. I could give you mechanical reasons for why the motor quit that day, but why don’t we just call it like it is – that boat can be a spiteful bitch and she was set on sabotaging my hair.

For the next 3 hours, we chugged home on one engine, all the while being blasted with black diesel exhaust. The wind had changed its course to just the right direction conducive for creating a vortex of smoke at the helm station, enveloping us in its sooty embrace. Not to be outdone, the choppy sea splashed over our side rail intermittently, soaking me in the face with the accuracy of a direct water gun assault.

David medicated my fury with what remained in our cooler – a tonic of sauvignon blanc and Red Stripe, when the former ran dry. This explains the only possible reason I allowed him to snap these pictures of me before I got in the shower to scrub my skin furiously in an effort to remove the heavy coating of soot that was now covering every exposed piece of my flesh.

So there you have it. When traveling by boat, some days you get to be Angelina and some days you end up looking like a pitiful Dickensonian character who moonlights as a chimney sweep. Sometimes it’s glamorous and sometimes you end up blowing a worrisome amount of black liquid out of your nose for a week. Either way, I’d prefer it if you could still picture me as Angelina Jolie.

Women Who Live On Rocks
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