Jim was from Arizona. As we stood ankle deep in the ocean surf with water whirling around our ankles I realized that it is possible this day and age to fly 6 hours due east (Jim did it), land on a strip of land surrounded by water and still enjoy the protection of the U.S. Stars and Stripes which is a most amazing thing when you think about it. It’s paradise in fact but right then Jim was more interested in telling me about his taxidermy business.
Later you sit comfortably with your wife in your white linen beach shirt enjoying a king crab salad under a palm tree and realize the problem with Paradise is that it is temporary--- you really don’t want to stay too long. Your resort neighbors are not the kind of people you want to share a property line with and so paradise is heaven until about mid-week.
You’re in a town that remodeled itself for tourism and when you look at the malls, the souvenir shops, pastel colored restaurants and the freshly paved black asphalt main highway you realize nothing here predates 1990. The plastic pirate statues look like they were dressed by a fifteenth century Tommy Hilfiger.
The people around you are in different degrees of relaxation but we know that people are at their best when they are engaged in a quest for something---love, happiness, excellence in golf, Broadway and Park Place, the perfect sandwich—but once accomplished they change. We were originally hunters and once we’ve taken the woolly mammoth down and gnawed his bones suddenly we become lazy and stupid. We throw down our spears, collapse in lounge chairs and forget sunscreen.
Right now I’m watching some people around a pool below my balcony. Old codgers and their codgerrettes look frazzled amidst a squealing mob of grandchildren—exhausted from never ending questions ( Grandma, what are we doing tomorrow, huh? Can we rent a movie, huh? Can we go to the water slide, huh?) and they long for a quiet sit in a deck chair with about three Long Island ice teas. The grandpas with their huge flabby chests sit like walrus’s, surveying their territory and digesting their krill.
A long white yacht glides by close to the water front and stirs up a memory. Some years ago I was a guest aboard one as it plowed through the coastal waters on a cloudless hot day. There is no boredom like the boredom of a boat. You sit under a small canopy watching the owner steer with one hand, the other hand clutches a small bucket of gin and he natters about how clever he is and how much he enjoys his boat. Real conversation ended hours ago, you’ve been holding the same can of diet cola for over an hour, the sun has baked your brain into a marinara sauce and you long to get back to land—you begin to identify with hostages.
Yet when you were growing up you imagined the thrill and pride of owning just such a boat. Thank God it never happened. You could be just another drunk with too much to say.
And such is paradise about mid-week. The serpent of boredom has entered the garden.
Tomorrow we will pack our bags and depart from this coastal Shangri-La. For the last three days I’ve stayed mostly in air conditioning or sprinted from one spot of shade to another. I’ve been whimpering a lot too and if you touch me I shriek. Take a tip, Sweet Cakes, never come to Paradise and forget to use sunscreen the very first day. Never.
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