Saturday, May 26, 2007

the bermuda files


palm trees over John Smith’s Bay: the beach we visited on our first night there

The dust—or should I say the sand—has settled from our latest trip: a week’s vacation in Bermuda, which is where my Dad lives and works. Last Tuesday, Mom, Dad, Adrienne, Jon, and I flew to the island, where we had a fabulous time, exploring the island by day and playing canasta in his apartment by night.

I’ve been to Bermuda twice already, and so my goals for this trip were fairly simple:
1. Eat at pubs. (It surprises me, but I miss eating British comfort food!)
2. Enjoy the variety of accents on the island.
3. See something that I haven’t seen in Bermuda before.
4. WRITE. A lot.

It was a successful (and fun) trip! I managed to hit two pubs. I had the best fish and chips of my life at The Hog Penny, and a decent Cornish pasty at The Frog & Onion. (How much do I love pub names! I want to create a literary pub and call it The Pen & Ink.)

And I loved soaking up the accents. Since Bermuda is still a British colony, you hear all kinds of British and European accents. Dad’s amazing Scottish neighbor talked with us, and I met Dad’s British, Scottish, and Bermudan coworkers. (I love the native Bermudan accent—Mom describes it as a British accent with island warmth. I actually found myself thinking in a Bermudan accent by the end of the trip!) We even talked with Italian and French waiters at the restaurants we visited.

We also explored Hamilton, the capital city. Mom introduced us to a fabulous coffee shop called Rock Island Coffee, where Jon, Adrienne, Mom, and I caught lattés before splitting up.

Then Mom took me to a small used bookstore she had found, called Twice Told Tales. I walked out with a volume of T.S. Eliot’s letters, a memoir by Laurie Lee, and a coffee table book called Our Grandmothers—which is filled with fantastic old pictures and faces begging to be written about.

After the bookstore, Mom and I toured the Anglican cathedral, and I hauled my new books to the top of the cathedral’s tower (whew!) for an amazing view of the city.


this is the first time I’ve seen a cathedral with palm trees!


not a good place to be wearing flip-flops! the cathedral tower stairs

Best of all, I was able to keep my promise to myself and write. I wrote on Dad’s sofa, I wrote in his office, I wrote on the airplanes, I wrote on benches, I wrote at Horseshoe Bay.


from my writing bench at Royal Naval Dockyards . . . and yes, I did get distracted by the view!

One of the (many!) benefits of the writing life is the freedom to choose your workplace. My “office” can be anywhere (Panera and Starbucks come to mind), so long as I get my work done. I’ve heard many writers talk about writing on the beach—pink sand trumps a grey cubicle any day. But I hadn’t actually tried it until last Thursday.


a sunbleached shot of my view at Horseshoe Bay

In my Midwestern naiveté, I forgot that sub-tropical-island sun is different from southern-Illinois sun. I forgot that cool, cloudy days can be deceptive. And I forgot all about sunscreen and SPF numbers in my anticipation to get settled in my new “office” setting.

And so, as I buried myself in Frederick Buechner’s The Storm, and then in my own writing work (scenery development, characterization), my legs fried.

I really don’t burn easily. But that night, my shins were a glowing, lobster-red. Ouch. And the next night, after we got to the apartment, I looked down at my feet and didn’t recognize them at all. For whatever reason (nursing students, help me out here), the intense sunburn made my legs and feet swell! They were huge, for days. I’ve never seen them look like that before!

So I stayed back from the exploring that Dad, Adrienne, and Jon did over the next two days, venturing out only to the Bermuda Aquarium and Zoo (another new thing for me). Mom and I wrote instead: I sat on Dad’s sofa, propped my bloated feet on his coffee table, and scribbled away.


one of five sea turtles that swam in a tank outside the Aquarium


a few of the Aquarium’s residents

So now we’re back, and I’ve typed up the pages and pages of work I did while there. I keep finding sand in my laundry, and my sunburn is… well, peeling. But my feet are finally their normal size!

Now the summer begins. We have one more trip next week: a quick one to Nashville, to help my older sister move. And then Adrienne’s job starts, and the traveling settles down for a long while. In the meantime: I’m about to begin the huge plotting stage of my novel. Yikes! I’m frantically creating scenes and trying to boost my novel’s sagging middle… We’ll see how it goes!—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 05/26 at 02:34 PM
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