Hi, remember me?
Yeah, anytime some illness makes a visit to our house, you can pretty much expect my life and blog to go on hiatus for a month, as by the time the illness has been passed around to all 5 of us, it's at least 4 weeks later. This particular version fortunately only hit the boys and me, in the order of   flu/flu/strep+flu/step+flu/flu+step-like-BS-that-wont-go-away, which is where I am now.

Be that as it may, I've noticed that pretty much anytime I make a "Part 1" post, "Part 2" never, ever happens.
Coincidence?
I think not.....
So to break this cycle, here the second part of my "story" for those of you late to the party!



Part I of this story had me moving from Switzerland to Texas and 16 years later, I was a Technologist, visiting the Caribbean island of Anguilla, as part of a project, feeling incredibly drawn to this place.
Love is a strong word I do not take lightly, and while I did feel a certain instant "love at first sight" for Anguilla, it seemed all too easy to fall in love with one of the most beautiful places on Earth, during my first trip ever of being away from 4 young kids.
So I'd call it infatuation perhaps, but not love yet, which is why I decided not to do anything about those feelings after going back to Dallas, back to work and the life we had in the US. My house that I loved with the big trees in the yard, with the trampoline and the slip and slide, and the home theater converted garage, complete with butt shakers. The trips to Target and the crazy outfit stores, the mini van and the unlimited 24/7 anything that I wanted and probably didn't need.


Secretly though, I hoped he'd call back - the manager of the hosting center in Anguilla - and sure enough, 4 months after my initial trip, in March of 2006, the phone did ring again.  This time, they wanted the region's first Blackberry server installed on an island 2 x 16 miles big, which of course, makes perfect sense.

SWEET!

So my former partner and I returned to Anguilla, this time with some added vacations days to find out if this place still felt like home or if it was just some sun-hormone-childless-honeymoon syndrome making me feel that way.
In a way it was like seeing your first big high-school love again, wondering what it'll feel like, hoping there will be some sort of reaction. And sure enough, the second I arrived in Anguilla,  I was.simply.home.

As soon as we returned to Dallas, the house, cars, furniture and everything in the house was purged, sold, given away and in early June of 2006 I arrived here with the twin girls and 6 suitcases to start our new life.  My former partner and the boys followed 2 weeks later, with a few more suitcases per. 
Part of this exercise was purging all that "crap" we had and somehow thought we needed as one of the things that attracted us to Anguilla was how little you could actually live with when focusing on the important things in life.
Here, the kids can go outside to play on their own.  They go to the beach without any toys and they invent games with shadow play, hermit crabs, ocean waves and coconuts.

So purging felt like the right thing to do at that point in our lives, when they kids were young enough to not really notice.
What a liberating experience that was and to essentially own nothing more than you could fit into a car.
Of course, owning "only" a few suitcases worth of stuff would also become (and still is) a source of great frustration, especially when organizing kids birthday parties without as much as wrapping paper or gifts, a trampoline, pinata, or slip and slide and a real baking disk to make a cake.

I remember crying one night after we got here, soon before my oldest' birthday, feeling like such a bad parent for not being able to offer the kids anything in terms of a party and putting them in this situation of nothingness.
But then you just sort of make due, just like before you knew how to drive a car - you still got around. Just like when you have your first child, are in a panic and thinking "I don't know what I am doing and am surely doing everything wrong" - and then somehow it just works and you figure it out.  Just like every other time when you're in a predicament you didn't think you could solve/get past.... if you have to, or rather - if you REALLY want to - you'll figure it out with the resources you have.

In those first few months, we'd make toys and birthday gifts for the kids out of duct tape, we'd go to what we call "Left Shoe Bay" and collect random "presents" for family members as a surprise and for Conner's birthday, we drew a treasure map on the back of a used manila envelope, burned the edges, cut it up and had a treasure hunt around the house with all the neighbourhood kids.
The grand prize?
An empty Tide clothes detergent box, modified and painted to look like a treasure chest, filled with candy, otherwise known as a "custom made pinata".  Somehow, in hint sight, I don't think any of the kids missed the trampoline or the slip-and-slide!




Hopefully, I've managed to represent this experience accurately by now and "happily ever after" is certainly not the way I'd describe it. Living here is hard work and we all sacrificed a lot and many business and personal relationships have dissolved or got damaged by us moving here. Anguilla has made it possible for me to sit still long enough to hear myself, those whispers within, which is a good thing, although it's caused a ton of hurt along the way as well.
Our "permanent indoor camping" situation is hard work and I get frustrated sometimes because of the inefficiencies of this place. Nothing about Anguilla is convenient, we loose electricity once a week or more, we have no dishwasher, no clothes dryer and no potable water and getting a work permit takes months - if you're lucky. It's also taken a lot of time, love and an insane amount of money to ensure the kids can continue to receive a most excellent education here on island and it's been even harder to make a living supporting the whole operation.

But at the end of the day, it's worth it and it's so much easier to see what exactly you work for, when living with very little.
My amazing, funny, kind, smart and creative kids are meanwhile 11, 9, 5 and 5 and while they do miss having toy stores, movie theaters or any entertainment opportunities BESIDES the beach, I do believe that experiencing this type of limited availability of both natural and consumer good as well as this type of community will ultimately help my kids change their world for the better in the future!

Repost of this, 'cause it seems to fit, just right here:

"It's the people walking along the side of the road that wave and smile at you for no real reason.

It's the constant lullaby of the waves that surrounds my house every moment, night and day.
It's the nuances of the honking cars that means hello/I'm passing you/go ahead/don't do that.
It's the offers for help as soon as you appear to need it, but before you have to ask.
It's the array of colors that are so vivid you wish you could bottle them.
And above all, is the light that shines through amazing clouds, drapes everything in gold or pink or any color of the rainbow.

I'd like to think I've always been able to identify something extraordinarily beautiful, but I don't think I have not ever been able to understand it fully before moving here.
You see, it has as much to do with the subject as it does with the WILLINGNESS of the beholder to just SEE.

Beauty is deep and rich and cannot be unfolded or explained in a few moments.
Beauty is as appealing from space as it is from a few yards away and it remains fascinating up close.
Beauty makes you lost and speechless while being with it, looking at it, studying it, talking to it.

It's the shiny peach fuzz hair on my daughter's cheek when she smiles in the sun.
It's the fortified color and clarity of the water and the rainbow above it.
It's the twinkle in my son's eye as he's about to do something he isn't supposed to.
It's the way dinner tastes when you've worked so hard to make it from scratch.
It's the way you sink into the mattress after a day of chasing children at the beach.
It's the gentle glow of the moon and the million visible stars that beam above like a protective night light.


Anguilla is stunningly beautiful - yes - but that's not it.... that's not what makes this island special after being gone for a month and a half. What is magical about this place to me is that it gives me the ability to SEE beauty in everything.... everywhere!"