Looking out the plate glass window in front of me, I see in the distance sloping lavender hills dotted with pine trees. The sun is coming out after a brief rain and the sunlight plays with the colors and turns purple to maroon and brown to tan. Closer to me on the...

It's the color of the water on the Caribbean side. The Atlantic side has bounced back a bit, and under blue skies this afternoon it was characteristically turquoise and many shades of delectable blue. Every time I've seen the Caribbean sea today I've tried to figure...

Our cable went out around 11:30pm last night and we went to bed. We did figure out an alternate method to access the internet, so it was good to have a contingency plan. We then had no BEC power or cable; we still had water and landline phone service. It was blowing...

I'm posting this here not so much as a writing exercise but because I know people want Irene info and photos. I've written a couple of short entries today and posted them to the Eleuthera message board. I am repeating those posts here plus a little more info, plus...

Most Bahamians here on Eleuthera seem resigned to Irene, the currently Category 2 hurricane that is projected to be Category 3 by the time she hits Eleuthera sometime late Wednesday/early Thursday. Right now analysts project the eye to pass directly over the island at...

One thing that prevents me from traveling to and enjoying Mexico is the stray dog population. They're skinny, flea-bitten, hollow-eyed pups that dodge cars in the street as they look for scraps to eat. They drink from those whitish rain puddles by the road and wander...

After I wrote Eleutheran Magic I did not immediately post it. Instead, I sent it to Freddie and a very few other people including my nephew Will, who just turned 17. What follows is Will's response to me. I find it beautiful and touching and a great commentary on life...

A couple of days before I left to come here to Eleuthera, a friend and I were riding bicycles in Atlanta. We ride bikes together a lot and probably enjoy the conversation as much as the exercise. On occasion we talk about American Idol, the iconic reality show that...

Paradise. That's how a friend of mine here in Eleuthera half-jokingly refers to the remote Bahamian island. "So how's living in paradise?", he'll ask. Well I've been here now for five days and I think I'm ready to hesitantly answer that question, as long as no one...

Twenty-one years ago I dated a guy, John, who was really into motorcycles. At the time he worked out of his basement selling vintage BMW motorcycle parts and working on customers' bikes. I knew nothing about motorcycles other than my Dad had a little Honda 90 when I...

It's difficult to imagine how I would handle cancer in my body. Here in the United States, the medical community advocates a combination of three treatments: burn it (radiation), poison it (chemotherapy), or cut it (surgery). These treatments may or may not be...

A friend hosted a birthday dinner for me last week and I talked with him about the gathering the next day. "It was lovely", "Everyone talked to everyone", "The environment was so relaxing". I credited the weather, which was unusually balmy for mid-March, allowing us...

Settling in at the lunch table in a crowded downtown Decatur diner, I started to read an article in the AJC about declining 2010 home prices in Atlanta as compared to 2009. The median sales price was down 7% in one year…and 2009 was not a great year itself. As an...

A tenuous dawn bathed our little cabin on the cruise ship with a gentle light, and my eyes opened. I hadn't slept well that night, I don't know if it was something I ate for dinner or the excitement of being in the Bahamas again, but regardless I had butterflies in my...

Lots of really large boats leaving this lovely harbor in St. Maarten, the dutch side of the Caribbean island in the West Indies…they are all cruise ships and the sunset beckons. I am sitting out on our little stateroom balcony, relishing the changing hues of the water...