Toto, we are definitely not in St. John any more!

Snow, and then more snow. But Barry and a couple of neighborhood kids managed to clear our driveway enough to get our car out of the garage on Friday. It was not snowing Friday morning, so we decided to drive up to Sharon. That turned out to be a very good decision. After a lovely Sabbath with our whole family, we are now all back in our respective homes as the heavy snow accumulates around us. Had we waited until Sunday to leave New York, we would have been stuck there until Monday.

Just two more vignettes about St. John.

1.    A couple of weeks ago when we were packing for St. John, I filled the suitcase with pretty much the same things I had always packed: swimsuit, shorts, t-shirts, and a couple of pairs of Crocs. I used to practically live in Crocs, and over the years I had bought them in a wide variety of colors. I chose two pairs: the purple and the pink. I wore sneakers on the plane, and as soon as we got to the villa I changed into Crocs. And then I remembered why I wear them so seldom now: the peripheral neuropathy caused by the vincristine I received in my early cycles of chemotherapy has made them not only uncomfortable but actually a bit painful to wear. So I walked around for the first few days thinking that I really need to get some new shoes if we are going to do this again.

I started wondering why I could not recall complaining about the Crocs this past summer. And then suddenly, on about the third day, it dawned on me: I wasn’t wearing them this past summer! Last spring, remembering how I felt in the Crocs during the summer of 2012, I bought two terrific and very comfortable pairs of leather sandals for the summer, one blue and one red. In the fall, I wrapped them up so they would not get all dusty during the winter, and put them back in their boxes. And that is exactly where they were when we returned to New York.

2.   We both have vivid memories of our first trip to St. John, which I believe was in 2001. We arrived after dark, picked up the rental car, and followed the manager of the villa we were renting along the dark and curvy roads that connect the western part of the island to the east side. It was raining that evening, and the drive was quite stressful. So in all the years we have vacationed on St. John, we have always taken flights that arrive during the day and have never gone back over to the west side of the island at night, although there is far more nightlife in that area than on the east side. Our last night this trip was Tuesday, and there was no music at any of the places on the east side, so we decided to give it another try.

There are two roads that traverse St. John. The one that goes along the northern coast is extremely curvy and hilly, with no lights whatsoever. This is the scenic route that we always take during the day. The other road cuts across the middle of the island. It turns out that this road has lights along the way, and far fewer difficult curves. It was in fact a perfectly reasonable evening drive. We went to a lovely place and heard music. 

So now we have two reasons to go back to St. John: to wear the right sandals and hear even more good music. Not that we needed any excuse….

Meanwhile, we have returned to winter for now. Maybe I should just put on those red sandals and click my heels together three times and say “there’s no place like St. John, there’s no place like St. John….”

Love,

Rebecca