Escape into Life : Memoirs of Saint Lucia

It often surprises me when i remember my childhood days, every once in a while a relative would visit our parents and ask me what i would like to become when i grow up, their expected answers clearly visible in their faces and my dilemma of having to at least answer them in front of my parents. And the funny thing is after 30 yrs i realize the most important discovery that to do nothing in life is the greatest doing.

 This winter there were 3 snow storms in the last 3 weeks. The last one had just visited us a day ago leaving Danbury all white and dark. It was one of those not so busy ICU days. We had a mortality this morning and witnessing the family members cry out at the loss of their loved one had infiltrated all of us there but as the day passed everyone got used to it, as an usual ICU day. Here in ICU, every day people pass away and every time it happens there are cries and sobs from the heart, often touching me, making me visualize my own day, as death is the only reality after life, everything else is ever changing, from one 'now' to another 'now' with millions of possibilities in each 'now'. I was talking with a Surgery resident Rachel who asked about my weekend plans and as we were discussing how post-ICU days pass by sleeping and waking up to eat and then sleeping again, we touched topics about doing nothing. Rachel was used to doing something, going to the city the whole day and sleeping the minimum hours, and she told me it was a skill she learned as surgeon. And i had to tell her about my one month i spent not so long ago, a month doing nothing, a month in a little village in the middle of no-where, a month in saint lucia.

The month in Saint Lucia became more and more beautiful as days passed by, in contrast to the busy ICU days. It was early January, after the first week of 2014, we had seen a couple of snow-falls already in Danbury, we had made plans to escape to this tropical island almost a year ago and despite not being able to take our little Ava with us, we were already imagining ourselves on white sands beneath palm trees.We had rented a studio with kitchenette, thanks to our friend Manoj who actually had inspired us with his facebook pictures of the place where he stayed teaching medical students for a year.It was minus 8 celsius in NY city the day we took our flight. Getting off the plane in st. lucia with all our layers and down jackets and being welcomed with warm air was quite a surprise. We were soon surrounded by 10-12 local people all asking if we need taxi. We decided to walk to our hotel, not knowing how far it was, we were told five minutes walk, but it turned out it was five minutes by taxi. Nonetheless we walked and soon we came across the ocean alongside the road, the water hit the rocks ashore and splashed us with cool mist, out first welcome and our first touch of love from the ocean. As days passed by this love grew deeper, the bond became stronger.

 It was a small village in the island. The only place with an international airport in the island.The very first day we went out to the nearby ocean by the reef which was five minutes walk from where we stayed. Finally my little bird was happy, she blooms in the ocean, she merges with the ocean and her happiness reminds me of my happiness when i trek to mountains. In the days that followed, we took public bus and went around the island( which was 200-400% cheaper than the taxi), visited a big city, Castries, where we bought fruits, vegetables, groceries and were surprised to find a subway restaurant. We visited a Nepali friend who lived in a tourist-rich place called Rodney Bay, had some Nepali lunch with his family and returned back to Vieux Fort. We then went to nearby beach where we swam, relaxed under palm trees. We found a beautiful village about 10 mins drive north, Laborie, where we spent some of our most beautiful days. And there were days when we just stayed indoors, watching movies and sleeping. It used to rain for 5 minutes and then the sky was clear for a few hours and then shower for 5-10 minutes, the tropical weather was hard to predict but the rain was always welcomed in the hot sunny days.


One of the beautiful experiences was visiting a Rastafarian in La Tille waterfalls. He had lived in the nature reserve for many years now. He was vegan as he was a Rastafarian and spending time with him, talking about his views about religion, about corporate culture which he called ' babylon' and about the ultimate heaven 'zion' was all very very interesting. He was blended with the trees around, he loved his trees and wanted to touch their branches as he walked around, the touch he said was healing, was connecting him with the nature. He was the man Osho talked about in his discourse on Bauls, the 'adhar manus' the original man, the natural man. I remember OSHO talking on nature and he reminded me of it.

Osho says “If you live with nature — with trees and rocks and the sea and the stars and the clouds and the sun — you cannot be unreal, you cannot be phony. You have to be real because when you are encountering nature, nature creates something in you which is natural. Responding to nature continuously, you become natural.” He has a waterfall by his hut, has coconut trees, banana trees, sour-sop tree, mango trees and almond trees around.He was telling that his friends who studied with him have become lawyers, doctors, politicians and sometimes visit him for a few hours to dip in the waterfall and tell him that they want to live in peace like him but don't have time.He was living in the nature, he rises with the rising sun and sleeps with the rising moon, he had an air of peace around him, he was perfectly at peace and happy with himself. 

We spend some days hiking up the hill, Moule-a-chique which would then give us a view of the whole island, the horizon and the blue ocean meeting each other. Our hike was playful, birdie would take pictures of chickens, of trees, collect leaves, her childlike innocence and playfulness and my insistence to reach the top of the mountain always made the trip wonderful despite an hour long uphill hike. And the view from the top was the reward, the vastness of the ocean, views of both the Atlantic ocean and the Caribbean sea were amazingly beautiful. Our days were unplanned, we would just go out take a bus and spend the day either on a village beach swimming or go out exploring new places, one of which led us to the great Pitons. And riding back in a truck from the Pitons along a windy mountain road, an adventure to remember for long.

When i was telling Rachel about our days in St. Lucia she told me places like these are great if you want to do nothing for a week or two. And thats exactly we were planning to do. To do nothing for as long as we could before we had to return back to normal life, which as i look again and again isnt so normal. We are born, we grow, we study, we acquire skills to make ourselves happy. Humanity isnt so regressed that we live just to survive, to eat, make love, sleep and indulge in thoughts of future plans. We live to be happy and blissful. And all of us are pursuing this happiness, we look for it in our relationships, in our job, in our possessions, in our career, in our goals and we plan and then chase all our life to realize we had it all along, had we not chased for it we would live with it. Our days in Saint Lucia not only reminded us of how beautiful life can be, just living, waking up, cooking, walking to the ocean, swimming, sleeping, being one with the nature, with the trees, the ocean the sun...our friend Manoj had warned us that it will be boring after a week, and i realized after a month that i finally was accepted by the ocean, its waves, i began to feel safe, an unknown trust surrounded me when i met her..
i began to feel the oneness with the ocean, it was suddenly a joy, a constant invitation to merge in, and it was already time to leave..the oneness will invite me again and again, the same ocean in different banks, we are lovers now, we will meet and depart to meet again, at some shore, in some life...