{"id":958,"date":"2014-03-25T15:51:52","date_gmt":"2014-03-25T22:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=958"},"modified":"2014-04-06T22:14:44","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T05:14:44","slug":"lovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=958","title":{"rendered":"Lovers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The boys aggressively pushing forward to help carry backpacks at the terminal in Almirante put me a little on edge. They don\u2019t ask if you\u2019d like help; they ask where you are going as they reach into the back of the shuttle to take your bag.<\/span><\/p>\n

Often it works, and when someone answers \u201cBocas del Toro,\u201d the boys shoulder the bags and carry them to the water taxi.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, they expect to be rewarded, which often leads to fumbling with bags and wallets or stammering from people who did not understand the boys were not part of the shuttle or terminal operation.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, gracias,\u201d I said, when asked. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIs this your bag?\u201d the boy persisted, reaching toward my backpack. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I reached past him and grabbed the handle, so now I had my daypack on my shoulders and my backpack in my hand. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got this,\u201d I said to him in a tone that made it clear I intended to carry my own bag. This earned me a glare that lasted a couple of seconds before he picked on the next person in line.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe it was the boys at the terminal, or maybe it was the grittiness of Bocas del Toro that made me check in to the first hotel I came to, even though the room rate was almost three times what I had been paying. Or maybe it was just the rain. It had rained since we crossed over the mountains of Panama from the Pacific to the Caribbean.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever it was, I did not feel like wandering the streets with backpack and daypack looking for a place to stay. A tall man in a peach colored polo was walking in the same direction. I asked him if he knew of a good hotel.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hotel Limbo,\u201d he said, pointing about ten feet behind me. I went in and secured a room just to have one, at $90. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It could have been the blood sugar blues, too. I had eaten nothing but a muffin when I got on the bus four or five hours before in Boquete. The prices were too high at the restaurant that was part of my hotel, I wandered a couple of doors down and bought the $5 special of chicken, beans and rice.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There was a young woman reading a book in French. She was staying in a hostel for about $20. An engineer, she worked as a management consultant, but learned about empowerment, and the desire of people to do a good job and be recognized, from her stint as an electrical engineer for G.E. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe consulting business attracts the kind of people who are motivated by advancement, money, status, and subvert their immediate gratification for these goals. Consequently they don\u2019t do a great job of motivating middle management or lower level employees.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are great at systems. We suck at implementation,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Teaching the CEO is \u201cdelicate.\u201d They are almost always very strong personalities. \u201cIf we are selling other services to their company, such as systems redesign, we have to be careful telling a CEO, who is frequently the source of the problems or the corporate ‘culture,’ that his leadership or motivational skills need to improve.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It was fun sharing philosophies with Madeleine, but she was headed out of Bocas and I was headed in. We said goodbye and I wandered the loop that wrapped the peninsula. I came upon a brightly colored building with a long hallway of polished wood and a breeze blowing through. I walked down to the front desk where a young man sat before a ledger.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I have no space today or tomorrow, but yes, the next day. But if you can come in tomorrow, I may have someone cancel. Please, come in now and have a coffee. No charge,\u201d he said, in a thick accent I thought I recognized. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This felt so much better than the somewhat surly service I had at my hotel, where I got short changed $1 after paying $2 plus tax for a coke. I came in, sat down and had coffee and looked out over the water at sailboats swaying in the water. My day was getting better.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I had Madras chicken and listened to music at a restaurant on the main street over the water. Two girls, one just like one of my daughters, even dressed the same and with a similar haircut, were holding hands. The duo playing music was great, even though competing in volume with a drunk American and his drunk wife who were hustling another American considering building a home in Bocas. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The husband and wife alternated putting the pressure on. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am on the job every day!\u201d said the wife. \u201c24 \/ 7! I do all of the accounting, and the books are always current! \u00a0I do all the books of all the projects, each and every day!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOnce those guys feel that they have earned the amount of money you\u2019ve paid them, they stop work until you give them more. It doesn\u2019t matter what\u2019s written in a contract,\u201d said her husband. \u201cWe know what\u2019s what.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The husband \u00a0kept getting up and talking to the two musicians, even while they were playing, putting his hand on their shoulders, asserting some sort of camaraderie, musicianhood, maybe, maybe he played once in a while when he wasn\u2019t building houses or drinking red wine.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not an alcoholic,\u201d he said at one point, loudly to make sure it was understood. He said he drank every day, but only one or two in the morning so he could deal with the pain of his hip or back, but that was it, until evening. His wife said \u201cI\u2019m an alcoholic. I love my wine,\u201d but then laughed and talked about her self control and said, again, that she did all the books of all the projects, each and every day.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Friday night street was a scene below my window. It went to well after midnight. Crowds walking talking, having fun. Bocas on the Caribbean was very different than Boquete in the mountains. The next morning, Bocas was slow to wake up, the street quiet until well after 7:30.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I checked out of my hotel and wandered over to Hotel Rega, where the manager I\u2019d met the day before told me that he still didn\u2019t have a room. I asked if I could leave my bag behind the reception desk while waiting to see if he\u2019d have a cancellation.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd have coffee. No charge! You are already a guest!\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I sat at a table and drank coffee, got into a conversation with the manager, Avi, and his girlfriend, Valerie. Valerie looked and sounded like she was raised in a suburb of Seattle, but she was Costa Rican by birth, from a successful family with farms in Costa Rica and Panama. She had gotten her undergrad degree in the U.S., her degree in environmental science in Costa Rica, which was wonderful for the diversity of students.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Valerie had written a proposal to do a study on elephants in Africa that had been accepted, and she had gone. The experience changed her, others had told her she needed to write a book. She told me she couldn\u2019t imagine the immensity of writing a book. I showed her how to break it down into manageable parts.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We discussed the concept: \u201cWhat if a young woman goes to Africa to learn about animals, discovers the animal within her self then learns to let go?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cValerie, that\u2019s an incredibly strong concept,\u201d I said. \u201cWhat happened while you were there?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a monkey living in my bathroom! I discovered I only had 9 weeks to do the project instead of many months. I fell in love, my old boyfriend showed up in Nairobi and it was ugly.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cValerie, you have a book.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut I don\u2019t want it to be about me, I want it to be about the wonderful women I met, about Africa!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGet over that. By writing about you, you\u2019ll give people a reason to read about the other. It\u2019s all about story,\u201d I tell her. We diagrammed her book based just on what we had discussed. She seemed surprised and grateful it could be doable.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Avi talked about an inability to concentrate, until he decided to do research. He learned at a workshop how to focus on the triangle of his upper lip, and said that when he wore glasses, even those without lenses, his ability to concentrate improved, though was often limited to 45 minutes. He talked of numbers from the Jewish tradition, three, five, seven, eight.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There was something very magical about the number eight, he said, and told a story of riding a bicycle very slowly in a figure eight pattern, returning to center, turning left and right, returning to center. I wondered if there might be a left-brain, right brain connection.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Valerie said something about my going with them to dinner. I said I needed to find a hotel. Avi paused, said something to Valerie, she said something to him, and Avi turned to me. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou are staying here tonight,\u201d Avi said. \u201cI am going to stay with Valerie, you will stay in my room.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have the best room in the hotel!\u201d Valerie said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what to say.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJust say yes,\u201d said Avi.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWill you two be my guests for dinner, then?\u201d I asked. They agreed.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAvi, baby, I have to go to work,\u201d said Valerie, getting up from the table.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, what do you have to do?\u201d said Avi, in his thick Israeli accent.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have to open the booth, I want to talk to \u2026\u201d someone whose name I could not understand.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go for a swim first,\u201d said Avi, holding on to every moment he could spend with her. He was sitting in a chair, she stood beside him, her arm was across his shoulder, his arm completely encircled her tiny waist. Neither wanted to let go.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI will put my feet in the water,\u201d she said, and they walked to the end of the restaurant which ended at a dock on the bay, not wanting to be apart, not wanting to not be touching.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

After Valerie went to work, Avi said they had only been \u201ctogether,\u2019 for a short time. He loved her, he said, but he wasn\u2019t going to be in Bocas much longer. He didn\u2019t know if he needed to be with someone who spoke Hebrew as their native language, he wanted to travel, he just didn\u2019t know. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The fish at dinner was excellent, a full filet breaded and served with plantains prepared and served like French fries, with the unique hot sauce that’s on every table here called Bocas Hot Sauce, a pale yellow I was at first reluctant to use but quite hot and rich and good. The family that owns the restaurant is Colombian, the one waitress harried as she attempted to get everyone served before closing.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There was supposed to be music but it was more of a disco and empty, so<\/span><\/span><\/span>after Avi went back to do the books at the hotel, Valerie and I went looking for a band or something. <\/span><\/span><\/span>We sat in a bar where older Expats were the musicians, god they’re playing the Doors, I said, and badly.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

She told me that she and Avi fought about the future, had broken up about it and then gotten back together several times. Biology kept pushing them together, pragmatics kept driving them apart.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI finally decided just to accept this for what it is, for as long as it is,\u201d she said. \u201cI love him. I know he loves me. But he can\u2019t commit, and he\u2019s leaving. I may go down to southern Costa Rica and work on environmental concerns for a Canadian mining company that could just ruin a pristine environment.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But there were tradeoffs, even to doing good.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe people will sell their land, spend all the money in five years and will never be able to purchase it back again. I just don\u2019t know if I can be part of that,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Currently she is in Bocas to help create a program that will protect turtles nesting along the Caribbean shore. Valerie is trying to keep poachers from taking turtle eggs, killing turtles for meat, or guiding illegal tours at night to the beaches where turtles lay their eggs and shining giant spotlights on the process, driving the turtles back to the ocean, those eggs forever lost.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe job here with the turtles is over in a few months, but I could stay on.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Valerie is smart, honest, real, very aware of her passion but not controlled by it. \u201cFor the longest time, he wouldn\u2019t kiss me,\u201d she said. Looking at her, I wondered how he could avoid it. We considered for a moment how much of his ambivalence was caused by being raised on a kibbutz.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Avi told her once that he may settle down someday \u201cwhen some woman makes me.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s so much the wrong reason,\u201d she says. \u201cHe needs to want to settle down, or it won\u2019t work.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMen especially are not very good at deciding between less bad options,\u201d I say, \u201cbut that\u2019s what life often presents.\u201d \u00a0I said something about studies showing we value what we might lose at twice the value of what we gain, even if it\u2019s the same thing.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I give her an example of a woman who has to choose between a career and raising children. Whichever option she does not choose doubles in emotional value as she contemplates its loss, so she vacillates, stuck in a vibration between the choices as each loss doubles or halves in value in turn.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAvi may be pinned between losing you or losing what he has envisioned.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>I don\u2019t know that I can stay in Bocas after Avi leaves,\u201d she says. <\/span><\/span><\/span>“He doesn’t know what he wants or what he’s going to do. That was the source of most of our fights. I finally just decided to enjoy him while he was here,” Valerie said. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There are so few people she can talk to, here, so many of the people are expats from the U.S. like those in this bar who sing 60s and 70s and 80s Rock & Roll into microphones at the bar, bellies distended from booze or bodies shriveled skinny and brown, like untreated leather left too long in the sun.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It’s surprising how many rivers flow out of the mountains of Panama. Unlike Costa Rica, where the water was as green as the vegetation that came right to river’s edge, maybe the result of chemicals used to grow African Palms for oil that goes into everything on the shelves of Costco, on this side of Panama the cascades and meanders are remarkably clear. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Air, when it moves at all, is a caress rather than a cooling. Somehow the water and humidity and sun of the Caribbean promote a languid approach. Knowing that railings can be painted tomorrow but will continue to rust, termites poisoned tomorrow will again find soft wood at the side of the stairs, garbage might be collected but the mayor took the money to buy a castle in Spain, causes a sense of futility.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The fever of a small cold picked up a couple of days before made it hard to tell if I was woozy from sun reflecting off the water and getting under the brim of my hat, or if humidity was causing the extra sweat as I paddled the kayak against the slight wind and current. I didn’t find the boat I was told was supposed to sink in a couple of days. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Or I found two of them, I wasn’t sure. Each listed to port, each was built of steel, judging from rust-red streaks down their neglected hulls. Several ports (windows) were lacking glass in one boat, a window in the transom to the aft cabin glistened with cracks radiating out from an impact point in the thick glass. I heard it had been stolen, raided at least twice by thieves, and everyone knew it was about to go under but no one was in charge of it here in Bocas.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I paddled to the marina to see the perfect boat with a “For sale cheap only to Erik” sign hanging over the expansive, shaded cockpit. It must have been out for the day. The heat was even more intense; any breeze that wafted over open water was trapped here, still, among the mangroves. From the bar, I heard the high, loud laughter of a woman who had Bloody Mary’s for breakfast, marked by that note of hysteria from recognition of self-induced chaos. Maybe I should blame the fever for what I heard, rather than what she thinks she meant.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Valerie tells Avi to invite me on a final test run for two new guides she is training to do tours of the turtle nesting beach. I shouldn\u2019t go, the fever makes it hard to walk ten minutes and we will be gone four hours, but it\u2019s an opportunity I can’t turn down. We don\u2019t see turtles, we see a nest, we get back at midnight and I stagger up to Avi\u2019s room and flop back into the guest bed in the corner where I\u2019d spent a good portion of the day.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The next day, in the stairwell of the hotel Avi told me he has been ready to be a father for years. Valerie wants to settle down with him, sees him as clearly as only a woman can see a man. Even what he sees as his own weaknesses, she perceives as his childlike beauty and charm, his warmth. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But Avi is ambivalent. “I don’t know that I don’t need to be with someone who speaks my language (Hebrew)). <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As someone often incapacitated by double negatives, I wonder if this is a form of dementia that strikes when grappling with life decisions.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The boys aggressively pushing forward to help carry backpacks at the terminal in Almirante put me a little on edge. They don\u2019t ask if you\u2019d like help; they ask where you are going as they reach into the back of the shuttle to take your bag.<\/p>\n

Often it works, and when someone answers \u201cBocas del Toro,\u201d the boys shoulder the bags and carry them to the water taxi.<\/p>\n

Of course, they expect to be rewarded, which often leads to fumbling with bags and wallets or stammering from people who did not understand the boys were not part of the shuttle \u2026 Read more\u2026 → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[26,286,289,18,287,288],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-out-my-window","category-outer-limits","tag-ambivalence","tag-bocas","tag-caribbean","tag-love","tag-lovers","tag-turtles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3mcOb-lovers","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":967,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions\/967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}