 |
| Fire in Freeport. |
If you’ve ever been downwind of a forest fire, you know they
smell more like burning trash than like a nice log fire. There’s one poking in
a desultory way around Freeport, the Bahamas, right now. Nobody seems to be doing much about
it.
“I felt a little like Evil Knievel driving right through it,” artist Cali Veilleux told us, but she still went. Things to do, you know. She was worried
that the smoke would linger in our cottage, but it was fine.
 |
| The fire is burning in a residential neighborhood. |
Damage from Hurricane Matthew was less transient. All
over Freeport, roofs are knocked apart and large palm trees slumber across
fences or buildings. A steady rain today—and there’s one on the forecast—could make
for a lot of damp stucco.
 |
| Yes, there's a fire, but a girl's got to get to school. |
Life replays recurrent themes. The unfinished painting on my
easel at home is of a wildfire burn near Banff, Alberta. I experienced
Hurricane Matthew’s leavings during a memorable up the Great Northern
Peninsula in Newfoundland during the same trip. Why this happens, I don’t know,
but it does neatly connect my familiar, much-loved Canada with this new place.
I’ve absolutely no experience in the Caribbean. The last
time I was in Florida was in 1968. My friends have either visited swank resorts
or they have gone on mission trips to Haitian and Dominican orphanages. This neighborhood
in Freeport is stubbornly normal, a place where people live, eat, work and
shop.
 |
| Unfinished wildfire painting in my studio back in Maine. It all seems to work together somehow. |
It’s all very modest, even by Maine standards. You disembark
straight onto the tarmac when you arrive at the airport. Customs waved us
through without questions. We sat on a bench and flexed our joints to release
the New England cold from our bones.
A trip to a grocery store elsewhere is always a reminder of
how spoiled we Americans are for price and choice. The differences are
sometimes inexplicable. Here, Eggland’s Best Organic Eggs are the same price as
at my local store, but a large jar of peanut butter is $11 and change. Most
peculiarly for an island, there is no seafood department. “You get that at the
beach,” Cali explained.
 |
| Trees lie around lazily in the sun, blaming Hurricane Matthew for their inactivity. |
None of us had the energy to deal with a car last night.
This morning we will immerse ourselves in the bracing business of driving in
what the Duke of Windsor once referred to as “a third-class British
colony.” (That man really was spoiled.) Being only sixty miles off the American
coast, only half the cars have right-side steering wheels. That and
the exuberant, erratic driving ought to shake off our flying lethargy in a hurry.
