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. 

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Our travel plan took us from Raleigh to Charlotte to Montego Bay by plane.

The city said hello with a slam of hot breeze, a kaleiscope of colors, and a salute of palm trees.

Our final leg was a bus ride from Montego Bay to Negril.

Our driver narrated our 90 minute drive with molasses tones, despite harrowingly narrow spaces in which to navigate the bus. 

On our right, the Caribbean Sea yawned to the north; to our left, buildings rose like jammed, crooked teeth from foothills dense with Spanish Cedar, Blue Mahoe, and White Poui. Like so many coastal towns, each pocket brimmed with the stark contrast of the very old and the very new. The cap of old graves swimming in fresh grass. Ramshackle shanties quilted together, neighbors sharing walls. Columns of rebar standing at attention, rising from the rubble of once great estates.

So much color in such a small space, my eyeballs winding in my head with the roll of the bus; my eyelids fell shut and sealed me into a warm dark space for the remainder of the ride to the parish of West Moreland.

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And then we were there, offered cool ginger pineapple juice that matched the villas and ushered to the open air dining room.

We sat and ate a late lunch as a slow drizzle enveloped us in steam. We talked with Waynesworth, our waiter from Luci.

"What are we drinking, my friends?"

"What do you recommend, Waynesworth?"

"Make My Day."

Banana, coconut rum, ice - it did make our day. We lazed away the rest of the afternoon, sipping on what would become the signature drink of the trip, then watched the first sunset on that beach in Negril.

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Suffice it to say, the universe delivered - beautiful days, friendly people, amazing food. We went SCUBA diving, jumped off a 30 foot platform into an aquamarine sea, and met an astonishing number of people from Australia.

I drank Blue Mountain coffee every morning, walked the beach and tried my hand at a spontaneous session of SUP yoga.

We attended the wedding and watched the sun go down on a new husband and wife.

It's been seven months now and when any of us talk about Jamaica, our eyes go a little distant. The timeline is fuzzy, but the memories are strong: the silkiness of the conch's underbelly; the combination of cold drink, cool shade, and warm breeze; the never-ending blues of the Caribbean sea; the soft tinkling of steel drums; the slightly dazed smiles of being tipsy on rum, sun, and utter contentment.

For as long as I can remember, my father has been teaching me in the ways of creating a life of experiences and memories rather than collecting things.

Here's to finding people that live this belief to the extreme.