thoughts on paradise

Sitting around at the airport, despite its mundane nature, is also a refreshingly fascinating art. There are so many souls walking past you, some going to Johannesburg or Tokyo, Paris or Buenos Aires, San Francisco, London, Sidney, Barcelona, and some, like me, going to Philadelphia – a city that sounds so dull in comparison to all those other destinations, especially after just being in Barbados for a week. For me, it’s no more than a dirty, crime-ridden place that I rarely visit save for flying out of its airport. But maybe for someone from Tokyo, Philadelphia is a city of mystery and intrigue, loaded with sights unseen, with new, interesting people and culture. How crazy it is that we all view the world in such different ways, eh? Maybe it’s all so interesting because we will never know many of the details of the lives of all these people that pass us by so quickly. In a world where knowledge is usually found by typing a few words into a search box, it seems almost unnatural that we can’t do the same in this context. We wouldn’t find much if we typed “the Indian-looking woman in the magenta scarf walking past me right now”. Maybe there’s a device for that in our future. For now, we have to just sit back and accept the universe of things that we simply will never know.

I wonder what it must be like to constantly live in paradise – if it gets annoying to have foreigners constantly traversing your country. Would that take away from it feeling like home? To have tourists’ rental cars peering through your neighborhood, their mouths eating the food in your restaurants, and their towels and sunburned bodies covering your beautiful beaches. To have to constantly put on a front of friendliness in order to convince them and yourself that your country is a wonderful place. But perhaps it’s just the opposite. Perhaps there’s a pride in having so many people want to visit your country because of its paradise nature – the gorgeous landscape and warm weather and friendly people. Maybe they don’t mind at all. Whatever the case, I certainly don’t know what it feels like to be a popular tourist destination, being a native New Jerseyan.

Wrote a song while on our trip. The lyrics go like this:

I am the ocean and you are the island
And she is your palm tree
I kiss your shore every morn
But she’s sure got her roots dug deep.

I try so hard to impress you
With all my fish facts
I wave to you all the time
But you never wave back.

Why can’t you see that you belong to me?
Why can’t you see that you belong to me?

I try to seduce you
With my cool, consistent water
But she’s got some sweet leaves
That you climb up and pick with ease.

I admire your sandy beauty
And your lush forestry
But all you seem to see
Are the coconuts shakin’ in her tree.

Why can’t you see that you belong to me?
Why can’t you see that you belong to me?

That’s all for now, guys. Goodbye sunny Barbados. Hello snowy New Jersey.
Love and sweet things,

Sara

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