Definitely ... Something to Write About ...

So I wasn't sure if I wanted to post this here ... but finally decided to go ahead and do it.

Here is a copy of an email I sent to a friend about my recent adventures ... (p.s. to the fam ... no worries over my mention of a boy)

Don't know who Chuck Wicks is? Click the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KHAaRxyuQk 

Chuck Wicks.

I don’t even know where to start.

So remember how I said I would try and do a little dance with him just for you? Well, St. Croix has apparently made me an overachiever and let’s just say that the following story ends with me in bed with Chuck Wicks, in his hotel room in his pajamas.

I guess we have to rewind to a few days ago, it won’t make sense why I had to share this at first, but I’ll make reference to it later. So a few days ago I was out with my roommates and I was a little weepy over a guy (I'm apparently 12). Now, don’t worry so much about the boy bit … we kissed a couple days after this (so everything worked out in the end). But this guy came over and gave me some napkins and said, “You know what? It will all be okay.” For one, I was just being overly dramatic and most likely suffering from sleep deprivation (working nights makes me a little crazy) ... but, I was touched that a stranger wanted to make sure that I felt better.

Now flash forward to a few days later.

So, my roommates and I go to the 10^th Annual Chili cook-off, and they’ve brought in a few country singers, Bombshell, Jamie O’Neal, and, of course, Chuck Wicks. They have the cook-off … the day rolls into early evening, the stars sing, and they finish with Chuck Wicks. Chuck Wicks does his thing and then the plan had been to go up to the rainforest and dance the night away and meet up with my ‘love’.  But my roommates were invited to meet up at the terrace at the Buccaneer by a local musician/friend, who one of my roommates is kind of interested in. So off we went.

As we sit at the bar of the terrace all of sudden the singers of the night began coming in. And the musician friend is actually part of the crew of more famous people. And next thing I know … we’re sitting at a table with Chuck Wicks and his crew. Chuck is sitting next to one roommate, I’m sitting next to Chuck’s Australian guitarist, Richie, and our other roommate is sitting in between the two of us. They’ve all ordered food and apparently Chuck and Richie had ordered the Sea Bass, but they were served the salmon. They sent it back (seems a little prissy to me, but whatever) and we were like, don’t through it away, we’ll eat it. So … we ate their reject (but really delicious food), and they ordered pizza and we had some of that and we were just having a good time.  

They were all really nice, and wanted to make sure we were having a good time. And at one point, my roommates were talking about how much they really like Chuck’s song, and they kept chiming in, and one roommate is a recent convert to country music, and she had said “Three days ago I didn’t even like country music, and now I do.” And they were gushing (not in a weird way) over his new song. Then he turned to me with a look like, ‘and what do you think?’ and I responded kind of flatly, “oh, ya, sorry, I like it too.” This made a few people laugh … including Chuck.  (I didn’t mean to be rude … but I was missing seeing my crush in the rainforest and hadn’t really been paying attention to their conversation).

The hours continued and all of a sudden, people were like, let’s pull out a guitar, let’s grab the baby grand in the corner … and let’s jam! So for several hours Chuck, his guitarist, and a song writer sat around and took people’s requests for songs … Tom Petty, the Beatles, (and of course country) you name it, they sang it … and everyone sang with them (but at the this point, my roommates make up half of the listening audience, the other half being mostly their general crew of people).  It was surreal to be singing “Hey Jude” at the top of my lungs … helping to embody the obnoxious musician hotel guest stereotype, who are being so loud that their manager texted Chuck that he could hear us from his room. The night continues, hours pass, and soon it’s only the few people who are left sitting around a piano while this time the song writer and Chuck make up songs on the spot.

It was crazy cool to see two professional song writers just have fun with things. Have you ever seen Dan in Real Life, when the two brothers are sitting at the piano and playing “pig-faced Lucy”? Well, the scene looked just like that … only I was sitting at the piano next to Chuck.

Chuck and I bonded to some degree, because he learned that I’m Mormon and apparently Chuck dated a Mormon girl for two years (and just saying … he’s got some wounds about that relationship … but I guess he wouldn’t be a country star if he didn’t). And when they were making up songs about goofy things, he turned and made one up about ‘a chick crying at the bar’ (because it was his friend Lee who had helped me out in my distress and apparently Chuck was there that night too) and then it ended as an ode to my Mormon-ness.

So Chuck Wicks, wrote and dedicated a song to me … about me. Watch out world, if you hear a song by Chuck Wicks about a girl crying … it’s a song about me.

Then more people were leaving, but Lee invited the handful of us left to go down to the beach and play the guitar. We weren’t sure whether or not we wanted to leave at that point … and this is where things got a little crazy. But Lee and the song writer, whose name is Joel, finally convinced us to come down instead of go home. But the way this resort is organized, the terrace is far away from the rooms, and a couple people drove, and everyone else walked.

One roommate left with Lee, and the other roommate needed her jacket from the car, so I went with her. But by the time we got to the rooms … we realized we didn’t know which one was the one we were regrouping at to go to the beach. We finally saw an empty hotel room, and walked in, but no one was there. We walked down to the beach looking for our roommate, and no one was there. We couldn’t find anyone. We were a little worried, but after an hour of looking … there wasn’t much that we could do, and we decided they had just run into some other friend. So we sat in the hotel room … that we hoped was Lee’s.

Then after a while … my roommate and I got comfortable. First we were on the bed watching ‘Just Married’ … and then we got in the bed, and we were helping ourselves to some pineapple juice we had found, and laughed when we also saw ensure in the fridge. But then it was cold, and we were soon in the bed watching the movie. Another forty minutes later … and we’re snug in bed together drinking pineapple juice, and cracking jokes about this not being Lee's room, because after all … we were just guessing … when from the terrace we heard a thump, and Lee and our other roommate walked in. Apparently they had had a bit of their own adventure, and they laughed when they saw us.

My one roommate went straight to the unoccupied bed, and began to fall asleep (it was really late at this point).  And Lee got into bed with my roommate and I and we watched Just Married together for a bit. I felt three to a bed was a bit much … so I got out and joined my other roommate in the other bed. When Chuck showed up at the terrace door because he hadn’t been able to sleep and he saw the four of us tucked in bed watching Just Married, he decided to join us, and got into bed with my roommate and I … I guess I look like someone who likes family bed … so there I was … in bed, with Chuck in his PJs.

It was weird because Chuck and Lee kept talking about not liking Ashton Kutcher … who Chuck knows in passing, but Lee knows personally … that’s crazy. And apparently Lee was good friends with Brittany Murphy. Again … crazy.

But despite saying that as ‘manly men’ they couldn’t watch it, they watched it with us.

Then the movie ended, and we went home.

We got a flat on the highway at 4:30 am on the way home … but that’s a story for another time.

So no dance … but several hugs … one song dedicated to me, and another one where he mentioned me, private show and jam session later … I got one for the team Missy P!

Love you!

Molly

p.s. thanks for enduring the long email!!!

So. There you have it. Life is crazy here on St. Croix ... plum crazy.

My New (or not so new) Normal

I've regrettably been pretty bad at posting things on my blog. I promise I've been thinking about it, and trying to decide what to write about. I felt like nothing really had been happening recently in my life ... my life is a lovely, but a pretty similar weaving of work, sleep, and a little bit of time spent with my roommates.

But it then occurred to me that really, there's a lot going on in my life, and there are a lot of things that I want to remember when I leave ... but slowly and surely the things that would have awestruck me when I first arrived in St. Croix hardly cause a blip on my radar now. I've been living on St. Croix for the last seven months, and seeing the blue of the ocean from my house, directing a half sleeping five year old to the bathroom, having a stranger ask me to marry him on the street, seeing various steel pan concerts and parades, and gorging on season rice and fried plantains have become a "new normal" for me. Which in some ways, I love ... but I also want to make sure that I take the time to really savor my experiences here, because I know that the life I've grown so accustomed to won't last forever ... and it will only be my normal for another five months.

So here I have decided to honor those, perhaps mundane, little things that go on in my life that I don't always pay enough attention to now, but that I know I will miss when I leave.

1. Miss Judy - she is an older woman, with deep creases in her cheeks, and a smile perpetually on her face who walks around the boardwalk in Christiansted selling little knick knacks, toys, and chewing gum out a plastic bin that she has gerry-rigged to a baby stroller. She'll wear a long flowing skirt, and a happy looking hat with a fake flower embellishment, making her look like an Eliza Doolittle that never found her doctor. She likes to stop in front of the Brew Pub and dance and laugh, and grab someone from the crowd and take them on a merry spin around the dance floor - but not without shouting for customers first! ;)

2. The mama dogs of Queen Louise - Queen Louise is also a little known refuge for expectant mothers - well, of the canine variety.

We've had mama dogs of every kind calling Queen Louise home. Their chubby little pups yelping and rolly polly-ing around in the grass. One mama dog barked and ran after me at lightening speed to protect her little brood, and ended up chasing me all the way back into my cottage from the parking lot! I ran so fast that I think my feet only grazed the very tips of the grass without actually stepping foot on the earth.

One of our little 'uns after watching one such mama said one of my all time favorite QLH quotes ... in his very sweet 'little man' rough three year old voice, "Look at that dog with all those little penises!" (speaking of her very full teats) - ha! that always gets everyone laughing in my house.

3. The ocean looks different every day.

I've lived near the ocean before, and as a little girl living in Lisbon I remember standing on our veranda on my tippy toes to watch the flicks of little white sails in the distance on the water. I could watch the water for hours then, but never noticed, or maybe it's only a Caribbean thing, that the ocean looks different every single day. Some days it looks like the entire island has been swallowed by a cloud of gray color. Everything is gray from the sky, to the houses, to swaying trees, and even the ocean seems swallowed in by the murky gray. Other days everything glistens with shine and brilliant sparkle, the greens of the trees feels greener, and the ocean glints with a silver sheen. Other days the ocean is a soft and still blue, a blue so clear and pronounced that it feels never ending, like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, it feels as if there must be a golden city at the end of that ocean's blue.

But just like in Arizona where the sky is a painter's palate, and it seems that it saves it's most beautiful canvases for monsoon season where the roaring sky sings out in glories of blues, purples, pinks, oranges and saturated reds, the ocean is the same in Caribbean. When the weather is nasty, hurricanes barrelling towards our small little island, that is when the ocean shines its brightest. The water swirls in streams of a full spectrum of turquoise shades, deep blues, and frothy whites. And it seems to stop even the most weathered islanders in their tracks as everyone stands, and can't help but watch, the beauty of the ocean in it's raw ferocity. 

4. Family

Here it is so common to run into friends. And if you go somewhere on your own, odds are high that you'll come back home having made a new friend. People here are very kind, and especially among state-siders there is a strong sense of family amongst all of us ragamuffin adults who have somehow found ourselves on this island. On St. Patty's day, I had lost my roommates and I was scooped up and saved by an acquaintance who set me up me on her couch for the night, but not before letting me watch as much Lifetime as my little heart could handle before falling asleep. People really love and look out for one another here, and I really appreciate that.

There's so much more I could write about, but this blog is getting a little long ... so I guess there is more going on than I sometimes think there is. I love this island very much, I love my job as a mama to the five girls I currently have, and to the three who have come and gone since I began here. I am grateful for the chance to experience a culture that has been more foriegn, in many respects, than any other culture has been to me. It has been a refreshing and very unexpected experience in my life, and something that I am more than grateful for. It's amazing to me ... the places we find ourselves in in life ... so unexpectedly, and so beautifully.