Two Prose Pieces by Tara Deal
Certain Circles
More than once, someone has stopped me in small, hot Caribbean airport and advised me to turn around and go home. But I don’t. I don’t even listen to their tales of disappointment and unnecessary expenses. I keep going. To the islands as much as possible, always as a lover searching for that place that will be the perfect mate to my truest self. An elegant solution to all my problems. I go to where I can stay for a week in the sun, a month, maybe forever. And I always hope that I will find that one fantastic island where I can be what I imagine.
Because that place is almost never where I live already.
It’s always somewhere else, slightly inaccessible.
And I have to board more than one falling-apart prop plane, parts of which are held together by duct tape, to reach the island of Tortola. But that doesn’t matter because look at the water: it’s that special blue ocean like a magic potion that the island’s website promises will captivate every traveler: “Whether you're throwing out your jib sail and crisscrossing the Sir Francis Drake channel, descending the depths to explore a century-old shipwreck, hooking into a world-class marlin or simply soaking in the radiant sun and wide skies, the BVI has a secret to share.” I’ve come here to these British Virgin Islands (with my husband, Dan, a sailor) to throw out my jib sail and discover a blue water world. To learn the secrets of island living. And to know that when I return home (because we can’t stay forever), I will be different, changed. Better, maybe. (Those are pearls that were his eyes, I think.)
Our first night, however, is on land rather than ocean: I sit in a plastic chair at the open-air bar with its watery drinks (but dusted with fresh nutmeg, which is a relief) and watch the twilight take the harbor hostage, slipping up behind boats.
I think of how nutmeg is a hallucinogen.
I look out over the navy sea with anticipation.
Tomorrow I will be out there in it, a sailor.
All this is just the prelude.
The real thing hasn’t happened yet.
That’s what I tell myself.
But in the morning, I’m in no hurry, frankly, back at the bar, now with steaming coffee, sweating in my plastic chair.
I relax and watch other people work. No worries.
Christian radio plays in the background, over the sounds of the marina. People are preparing boats, getting them ready to go out. It’s Sunday morning, bright and early. “Only Jesus is concerned about the good of mankind.” The radio is not talking to me and so I can ignore it. “Other people will criticize you—why don’t you find a job?—but only Jesus cares about you.” I watch the women scrubbing down the blinding fiberglass and the teak that they slowly turn from gray to brown.
The radio exhorts people to renounce and repent.
I eat a croissant, soggy in this humidity, and think of New York, turning crisp, now that it’s autumn. (Isn’t it?)
Imagine paradise, someone with a booming voice advises, through the static.
A fellow sailor (from Larchmont) interrupts my reverie, which is going nowhere, really. She comes over to chat about itineraries and share my spot in the shade, while we wait for our husbands and boats to be ready. She asks me if the coffee is good. Yes. The croissants? Not really.
But no matter.
She wants to know where I live, maybe we’re neighbors.
Tribeca, I tell her.
Wow, that’s far.
Actually, it’s more like the center, I say.
I look at the charts, trying to understand the wavy lines and read the tiny type: Road Town, Beef Island, Little Harbour. Place names in the islands are either hard-working practical or whimsical, poetic—Sandy Spit, George Dog, Diamond Cay.
There is no middle ground. It’s always back and forth, across the earth. From one fantasy island to the next airport.
And now I’m at the end of another island entirely, with the runway for the international airport and a tiny beach where swimmers, both locals and tourists, gather to watch the planes take off and land right over their heads, to feel the rush of a jet blast. The planes come in so close, in fact, that a giant sign in vivid red type says that a jet blast is extremely dangerous, possibly fatal, and warns people in the strongest possible terms not to stand under the planes. But there is no barrier, no barbed wire. And when the biggest plane of the afternoon, an Air France jet, comes through, there is always a large crowd to greet it, to jump up and try to touch the fuselage (which would be disastrous, if it were possible). Dan and I go to this beach one afternoon, with everyone else (in fact, the hotel concierge recommends it), and we take pictures of the warning sign, of people in bikinis being blown backwards (they might have exaggerated for effect), and of ourselves, drugged by the sun into waiting for the next take-off, that blast of speed and danger: the glamour of travel.
The Way of Tea
The hotel room in Tokyo is not large but neither is it small. The soothing colors of aqua and sage don’t disturb the dark, dark wood. A row of dried leaves is lined up in sand trays above the bed. The giant TV is playing natural scenes and soothing sounds. There is artwork composed of antique kimono scraps, compositions that you have to walk up to and look at closely to appreciate fully. Green tea is ready to be brewed in a ceramic pot, then served in cups and saucers (but not matching, of course not). There are Japanese sweets (plum paste between wafers) that you must construct yourself. There is body lotion that smells like orange rind. And the Oxford English Dictionary.
An oblong tray of dried fruit husks is arranged so that you can see it from only one position: lying on the bed.
And then, the view of the city spread out to the horizon. All circuits and lights and symbols. I don’t understand the language, but I recognize a cobalt peony blooming in neon every few minutes.
I sit on the bed and look out, past the husks, into the night.
I sip green tea from a ceramic cup with a wooden coaster.
Each thing on its own, to be appreciated.
At dinner, I have to choose my sake cup from a bowl of ice, and each cup is different: one rough and gray like lava, one etched Italian glass in cobalt, one delicately hand-painted. One has to look at everything. No two cups (or plates or bowls) are the same.
Later, when I buy my own teacups in the restaurant-supply district, I am determined to follow the Japanese model of not matching things up. But how difficult it is to do this. It goes against my nature not to buy a complete set: I want to have something comprehensive to show for my experience.
Westerners like repetition as a form of abundance (that’s what I’ve read). But I try, for a moment, not to need more than one thing: one dark blue teacup, wrapped up in newsprint.
I will live simply, with one teacup. Steaming on winter mornings. Brimming over, even.
The pattern on the thick ceramic is an abstract navy design, complicated and irregular. The artisan who made it has used her thumbs to put indentations on each side.
It slips easily into my palm and mind.
Every afternoon, I choose the same teacup: my companion.
We grow old together.
But the tea stays warm for only a short while, and I have to drink it quickly.
Afterward, I see the teacup waiting on the arm of the sofa, shifting in my peripheral vision, restless, demanding attention.
It is not priceless, but it is irreplaceable.
What if I break it?
