The Color and the Sound: Jamaica in December

Darkness book-ended our five day trip to Jamaica in the form of a predawn flight to Charlotte early Thursday morning and a post-sunset flight home to Raleigh on Monday evening. The first leg, a slow birth into the riot of colors that would follow; the last leg, a sterilizing, numbing agent, sealing off the five days into a perfect capsule.

Since August, a cliche had been my goal for Jamaica: a stick-my-toes-in-the-sand, read-a-book, spend-every-waking-moment-in-the-open-air vacation. My whole person needed this reset. I've previously written of the purifying hours of being sand-blasted at the North Carolina coast in summer. By Thanksgiving it was abundantly clear I needed more: a gentle, sustained buffing. 

And when we need something, when our very souls are crying out in a stripped down plea - Help me, please - the universe does deliver.