Fitting In

A life without tourists. Without sunscreen bottles or ill-conceived islandy outfits. No seagulls. No acid spiders. My clothes will not mold, and I won't feel with my skin every whim of the sky. Looking out the window will show me a 14,000 foot mountain capped in snow. If the sun is shining just the right way, that mountain will glow pink and I will wonder why I ever left Colorado.
Then I'll remember that the view I left that mountain for was just as beautiful.
You don't see too many rainbows in the Rockies, but there a whole season full of them here. The islands got the sweet side of that gene pool, huh? Hibiscus blooms and mango trees and elkhorn coral and parrotfish and bougainvillea. As if the universe had an excess of its most striking colors and decided to drop all of them in one place.
You know what else likes all of these colors? Mosquitoes. But being ready for something does not necessarily make it any easier, does it?
Days like today are terrifying because they're perfect. This island is so damn crafty. It rained just enough this morning to cool everything down a little and now the sun is here. It's the right time of year for the butterflies, who ride on the scent of plumeria that weaves itself into the breeze. And the breeze is a specific kind, gentle and warm and intimate. I feel like I am being dared to leave. Like St. John is betting me twenty bucks that I won't really be able to do it.
This island woos you to stay even as it is pushing you away. If St. John were a dude, I would dump him for sending so many mixed signals.
As it stands, I think the break up is more mutual than that. When people ask why I'm leaving (And they do. All the time.), all I can do is smile and that that it is just time. Too simple for most, but the truth just the same.
So, a life without sunscreen. I will be able to go downtown and not see anyone that I know. I won't have to stand in line for every meal. My work life and my personal life will actually exist in different places.
Fitting back in will be a feat, won't it? Part of what is so great about St. John is that there really are no taboos. The only think people will judge you for is judging other people unfairly. There are three prominent bumper stickers pasted on all of the local cars; One says, "St. John: The world's largest open air asylum." Another, "We're all here 'cause we're not all there." And my favorite says only "Coexist."
Weirdness is sought after and wildly, loudly celebrated. In a world like this, inhibitions and social filters are few. So few, in fact, that we have all pretty much lost track of what our own weirdnesses are. Everything feels normal when nothing is identified as strange. So, plop us back into a world of image-consciousness and we become the "off" people who paint their toenails a million different colors and think it's funny when we accidentally clean our whole houses in wind shield wiper fluid (That WAS funny, by the way. Vineyard people just thought it was..well..weird.) I am quite sure that nothing I own can be considered fashionable beyond just being beachy, and beachy does not work in Colorado in October. I will probably still take cold showers and you will be able to follow flip flop prints in the snow if you want to find me, shivering in a corner somewhere wondering what the hell I was thinking when I decided to come back.
I'll get sinus infections from climate control and I won't have any clue what music/movies/TV shows people are talking about. I will show up at the downtown Friday night clubs in denim cut-offs again, and I will not understand why everyone looks at me like I'm crazy. And then I'll try to walk out of one of those bars with a beer I have not finished yet and it will be my turn to look at them like they're crazy when they tell me no.
I am probably not that apt to fit in anywhere, maybe ever again. I'm ok with that, but I will meet people who are not.
There is no back-up plan, here. It will all work out and I am better for having spent these years on this island. But this is about to be a very different road than the one I have been on...