the Dig and Flow

We Are Definitely Here

We stepped down from the plane into the steamy heat on the tarmac of Maurice Bishop International Airport, then went inside, got our passports stamped, and grabbed our suitcases—all there—then rolled our suitcases back into the heat. Ray’s Taxi & Tours Service loaded us up and honked our way out of the airport. At the right turn onto Gray Stones Road, he stopped and put the little van into four-wheel drive to navigate the road’s steep pitch.

The Villa at Gray Stones Road is the second house on the right, a small cheerful yellow and blue house up on concrete blocks. A palm tree full of coconuts and anoles grows in the yard. We are nestled in a neighborhood of Grenadians. People walk by our open gate to catch a bus to work or get kids to school. Loose chickens patrol the yards.

Last evening, we walked back down to the curvy main road and followed it for five minutes to the nearest beach. To our rural sentiments, the traffic is bonkers. Chaos reigns the road, but people who are not us seem to understand the game, which involves a code of honks and shouts. The sidewalk is skinny and often tilted and sometimes there is a car parked on it and you need to wait for a break in traffic to dodge around it. Pressed against the sidewalk is a cement block wall part of the way, and some houses with tiny bars or shops or just porches adorned by laundry.

We walked single-file with Andrew leading and me in the rear with my cortisol surging. We turned down a paved road past a yard full of fruit trees—banana, breadfruit, mango—then emerged onto Mount Pandy beach. At least I think that’s what it’s called. Unlike the pure white sand of the famous Grand Anse beach, this one has some white sand and tiny dark pebbles. Just about ten feet from shore is some coral reef teeming with multi-colored fish, to our complete delight. Also unlike Grand Anse, this beach is littered with shells and occasional trash instead of sun-baked tourists. The only beach-goers besides us were a handful of Grenadians.

After swimming, we walked back to our Villa to change, then walked about half a mile to the FoodFair. We bought a few items, mostly jugs of water, since it’s not recommended to drink tap water here. Our day had started at three a.m., so the kids barely stayed awake long enough to eat mac & cheese before crashing. Andrew fell asleep fast, too, but I lay awake a long time listening to the dogs barking just outside our windows.

On Day two, we walked the same road, opposite direction towards Grand Anse beach. We walked until a woman on a porch hollered and waved for us to turn right there to get to the beach, which was very obviously the destination of this white family. A pathway took us downhill onto the very nearest end of Grand Anse.

Stripping off shoes and socks, we followed the white sand as it curved towards the resorts and their umbrella chairs. We declined offers of chairs and drinks then spread our towels under a seagrape tree. We swam and sat. This beach is undeniably beautiful, but the kids were hungry. We walked off the beach past the Spiceland Mall to get some roti—a Grenadian classic that’s kind of a burrito with fillings of curried potatoes and meat.

To get home, we got the number one bus, which runs the main road between St. George’s and Grand Anse, right past our road. The bus is a white minivan. It has four rows of seats behind the driver. Four people per row, plus two passengers in front with the driver. Plus the guy I’m calling the Hustler, who handles the sliding door and jumps in and out to wrangle passengers. So that’s a full load of nineteen. When you get where you want, you tap a coin on the window, and the Hustler snaps his fingers at the driver who stops immediately. Then the passengers rearrange, getting out as needed to let people out, then squeezing back in. These buses go fast and honk a lot and lurch around corners, but other people’s shoulders hold you in place.

Crammed in and jostling along, I feel something beginning to shake loose in me. Maybe it’s the tight grip I keep on life’s details. The need for control. Maybe it’s the roti. These first days have been a full sensory overload. Each moment shouts at me: We are definitely here.

A Few Curveballs

Just before Christmas, there was a damp smell in Stella’s room. It smelled vaguely of pee, which neither of us acknowledged out loud. We stood in the middle of the room, pivoting. Calling on my notoriously sensitive nose, Stella said, “Mom. Find the smell.” I sniffed around until my nose led me into her brand-new suitcase, sitting empty and open, ready to pack. Our cat, Flower, had urinated in it. I felt like this was a red-alert level threat to our departure in two weeks.

After various enzymatic sprays and airing outdoors, the suitcase still smelled bad from across the room. Finally, I stood it in the shower, sudsed it with laundry soap and borax, and rinsed and rinsed it. After drying by the woodstove for two days, it was declared fully rehabilitated. My trip threat level returned to green.

Meanwhile, Covid derailed our Landis family Christmas gathering, and we awaited the New Year at home alone. Sprout demonstrated a burning hatred for our house sitter’s beagle upon introductions, so my parents heroically agreed to keep him during our absence. Then we found our sheep, Rhubarb, laterally recumbent with grave neurological abnormalities and euthanized her that evening. After some discussion, we planned to rehome her friend, Parsnip, so she wouldn’t be lonely.

The snow receded into January rains—a thaw that allowed Andrew to dig a sheep-sized grave in our field while I worked a particularly emotional 14-hour emergency shift on Sunday. It was the first day of 2023 and my last shift there. I hugged everyone who stood still long enough since I’ll really miss them and that work, even with all the intensity of it.

This Monday, we met my parents at the enormous Cabela’s in Pennsylvania to trade Sprout for Christmas presents, which we opened in the parking lot gathered around the open tailgate. As we browsed the crowded store, Sprout was relaxed and sweet to everyone—perfectly behaved until he hunched over beside a rack of fishing rods and defecated on the tile floor. I still cried when I kissed him goodbye. He has settled right into life on my parents’ laps, relishing their low sunroom windows and punctual mealtimes.

On Wednesday, Flower projectile vomited in the bathroom and refused breakfast. I took her to my last shift at the local veterinary clinic and ended up performing surgery that afternoon with my kind coworkers. I removed a large hairball plugging her small intestine just beyond the stomach. I left her—still groggy—in our bathroom right before going to Sam’s last wrestling meet, where I sweated and yelled through him wrestling three intense matches. We drove home through fog that swallowed everything around us, wondering if we would stay on the road.

On Thursday morning, I took Sam to the orthodontist, where I had to explain for the fourth time that we would not be able to return in eight weeks for a recheck. After lunch, Andrew and I wedged our enormous Romney sheep into the Honda CRV for a ride to her lovely new home. The roofers here replacing our sunporch roof, so they probably had a good view of our sheep wrangling antics but were kind enough not to mention it.

At three this morning, I lay awake on red alert, convinced that the roof was done wrong, that Flower would be dead by morning, that one of us would get Covid in the next 72 hours, or the wheels would generally come off our plans. None of this has happened yet.

My alert level is back on green this afternoon, at least for the moment. Our last few days are devoted to details like refilling prescription medications and making Verizon plan arrangements and buying toiletries. We’ve started weighing suitcases to determine how much we can cram into the corners. We are crossing off our lists, from underwear to snorkels. Skip is keeping her stuffed platypus close while she watches all of our nonsense. It seems impossible that in four days we will be in our little island house near the beach, ready to re-invent ourselves for a while.

What We’re Up To Now…

Eight years ago, we bought a run-down, 53-acre farm and have devoted ourselves to fixing it up. I documented the first several years of this endeavor in this blog before the endeavoring itself subsumed the blogging. Now I’m returning to this site to chronicle our upcoming adventure: A sabbatical semester.

Our kids are now thirteen and eleven, and we decided to pursue this long-held idea of spending time in another country. Like owning a farm, this idea once seemed unattainable but has now become a real thing we’re doing. In early January, the four of us will fly to the Caribbean and live there until May. Andrew will be on sabbatical as a visiting professor. The kids will attend local schools. I will live in the ocean, emerging sometimes to write.

Right now, I’m facing our woodstove in the living room with snowsuits and gloves heaped beside it. To our delight, it snowed enough already for sledding, snowshoeing, and an epic snowfort. My enormous cat drools on my lap while I skim a Rolling Stone article about the best eco-friendly sunscreens, trying to make mental calculations: Multiply the value of coral reefs by my guilt in contributing to their demise and subtract the $20 tube of mineral paste our kids will probably refuse to apply on their bodies, plus the cost of replacing it with their preferred regular spray-on sunscreen purchased on the island of Grenada.

By way of a guidebook introduction, Grenada (kind of rhymes with cicada) is a volcanic island where they grow nutmeg, bananas, cocoa, and mostly tourism. White sand beaches adorn the shoreline. Coral reefs teeming with marine life and an underwater sculpture park offer prime snorkeling. Interior mountains are covered with forests and waterfalls. Grenada’s national football (soccer) team is nicknamed The Spice Boys, and the national dish is a one-pot meal called oil down, featuring coconut milk, breadfruit, and salty meat.

Most of Grenada—population ~120,000—speaks English, with several dialects. Their history includes a familiar story of indigenous inhabitants who, despite their resistance, were obliterated by Europeans who then abducted ships full of African people to enslave for their plantations. The late 20^th century included a people’s revolution ending in tragedy and an invasion by United States military forces. In the current democracy, Grenada runs under a parliament and prime minister. The government schools, which our kids will attend, have a British-style system, complete with a headmaster and uniforms.

We have rented a little house in the capital, St. George’s—a small city of about 35,000, which is almost ten times bigger than our upstate NY town. From the house, it’ll be about a 15-minute walk to each of the kids’ schools and the beach. Andrew will take a short bus ride to St. George’s University, where he’ll teach in the Department of Biology, Ecology and Conservation. Basically, we have no idea what we’re getting into, but I’ll try to write about it here.

She Throws Up Her Hands

The grass these days stays wet enough for frogs to migrate from the water into the fields. I pull on tall rubber boots to move the sheep to new, deep pasture. Right now they live in a sheep tractor of our invention, a pen on wooden skids, which we pull forward every few hours. The ewes move towards the front and start snatching mouthfuls as fresh grass appears under their feet. They are safe and content.

It seems tedious, moving the sheep so often, but I relish the job. Here is one thing I can do. Among all the ways I fumble through tough parenting or veterinary cases or marriage moments or attempts at being a strong and kind citizen in discouraging times, here is one easy win.

I walk out into the dew-soaked field, while Rhubarb and Parsnip bleat their greetings. The ewes are small and fuzzy since I sheared them two weeks ago, and they lean their shoulders into my scratching fingers. I lift the water bucket over their fence panel. Taking one dog leash in each hand—each leash snapped to one bottom corner of the pen—I set my feet walking backwards. There. I have made two someones completely happy.

As I walk down towards the house, a frog darts between grass tufts. Aha! I think. Now I can make two more happy someones when I show this frog to the kids. I bend and grab. Three times, missing. This frog zigzags fast. On a fourth try, my wet hands trap the frog from front and behind, and I lift her in my palm. She is stunning—bright green with glistening dark spots.

As I raise my hand cupped over her, I see that she is flattening her body against my skin. Then, she flings both front legs over her head, palms up. I see fear. This gesture is universal—don’t hurt me. It is an instinctive plea. My heart lurches as I realize that this frog is at my mercy, and seems—at some level—to know it.

“Oh no I’m sorry it’s okay you’re okay. I’m so sorry.”

All thought of showing the kids vanishes as I lower the frog back onto the ground, where she crouches. Arms over her head, her toes splayed to shield her eyes.

For one moment, I could be the cop with the gun, the ICE agent taking away a child, the young man pinning a younger woman. Is this too big a leap? Power and empathy affect our actions in ways that translate across many moments, many opportunities for mercy.

As I back away, the frog places her front toes on the ground and launches into the grass, immediately invisible. She stays with me, though. I look up ‘green frog with spots’ and decide she is a northern leopard frog. I can find no image of a frog cowering under its hands, except the one burned in my brain.

Every time I move the sheep, I look for the leopard frog. Maybe I have a strange urge to apologize again. To replace my image of the frightened frog with a calm image, maybe a photo of her poised under a grass tuft. I don’t really need to see her. I am just learning to observe the beauty of other lives without messing with them.

The Ombre Between Us

In yet another reminder of how much I do not know, I recently learned about ombre. At first, I pronounced it wrong—om-burr. Now, since it is French, I am still pronouncing it slightly wrong, despite the Internet’s best assistance. Its real sound is somewhere between om-bray and oom-bruh.

Ombre is French for shading—a marvelous word implying the fade from one color to another, darker to lighter, a gradual shift. Ombre is also a three-person card game that Europe loved in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, but I have failed to connect those definitions. I have also failed to stop thinking about the gradual shift in shades of color since my exposure to ombre.

Ombre seems to capture the passage of time in one frame. On a single wall, you can paint the sky changing from dark to dawn to daylight. The ombre hairstyle, dark near the scalp and light at the ends, is like a time-lapse of growing your blonde dye job back into your natural brunette, but where you choose to have both colors coexist. Across the spring days, the trees shift from grey to green, but for an hour on a single morning, the fog paints ombre on the woods. I am now watching everywhere for shading, changing.

A woman turning forty might contain her own ombre—the darker weight of her thirties easing into a lightness of loving herself even when she disappoints people. A nation holds many gradients in a single moment, all of the literal and metaphorical light and dark—seeming sharply divided, but perhaps more mingled, with more intermediate, connecting shades than we tend to realize.

Ombre seems also to describe the space between the living and the dead. Voices blend at this Saturday’s memorial service. Their music translates ombre into sound, filling our heads and chests with the harmonies of How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place, folding and fading. People speak, painting my uncle’s life in words, some heavier or deeper with color, others brighter, glowing.

A handful of cousins meet afterwards in a restaurant, barely knowing each other, but we laugh together and taste each other’s drinks. We are comfortable in the gradient of our beliefs and experiences, connected in the space between our unique lives and our shared grandparents.

This morning, I paint our kitchen cabinets and listen to virtuoso musician Edgar Meyer, unaccompanied on the double bass. I ride the music from growling low to trembling high, soft to intense, slow to buzzingly fast. I am rolling pale grey and darker grey across the wooden doors. Between one tone and another, I find the richness in ombre.