IWSG, Hurricane Update, Being Thankful

Posting the First Wednesday of every month, the Insecure Writer's Support Group, is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. YOU can sign up HERE to participate.

Every month a question will be posed that may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Remember, the question is optional. You can write about anything that relates to your writing journey.

Let's give a warm welcome to our co-hosts: Olga Godim, Chemist Ken, Renee Scattergood, and Tamara Narayan!

This month's question is:  When your writing life is a bit cloudy or filled with rain, what do you do to dig down and keep on writing?

I'm in such a slump right now I don't know how to answer that question. I'm struggling to even get this post out! And by the way, I'm working today, so I won't be coming around to visit. And I'm working tomorrow (Thursday) too. I'm often so tired at the end of the day it's about all I can do to stay awake for a TV show! IF I do get around to visit your blogs, it'll be Friday or over the week-end. Notice that big IF.

Hurricane Update - Seven months out

Things are about the same in the islands. There's good, there's bad, and there's ugly. Like the rat infestation at my sister's house, which occurred after Hurricane Marilyn in 1989. It's something most everyone has to deal with. My sister, who has been bitten by just about everything, including a baby octopus and a ground spider (aka tarantula) can now add a rat to the list. It was "stuck in a glue trap. I'm whacking at it with a broom stick, and it's front legs are free so it manages to crawl, angrily, over my foot and bite my right 'ring' toe. No big deal. At least we have healthy rodents." She treated the bite with iodine and aloe and it's healing without a problem. That's life on a tropical island.

Thought I'd also share this drone video taken less than 2 weeks ago of the National Park Campground at Cinnamon Bay, St. John. The campground remains closed and I don't know when work will begin with clean-up and rebuilding or when it will reopen. The walls that remain of the building on the beach are all that's left of one of the oldest buildings on the island, over 300 years old. The huge rain tree in the opening shots is struggling to come back.

I won't lie, this make my heart ache. I have to keep reminding myself that nothing stays the same, that up and coming generations will have no memory of what it was like "before", and that nature has a miraculous way of returning, even if it's different from what sang in my heart as a child. What is gone, is gone. The beach and the ocean, however, remain beautiful as ever. And... there is still so much more work to be done.

Being Thankful

Today I'm thankful for beautiful spring weather and flowers in our back yard. We even had some much needed rain. (Do you see the bee?

And feeding bees sugar water!
Since I kept bees for a while, I like giving them a little kick-start in the spring.
Plus, the hummingbirds are back in force!

What are you thankful for? How do you pull yourself out of a writing slump? Do you feed bees?

Spirit Trees - Part Two

Last week I wrote a little bit about Spirit Trees, trees that at one time people in the Virgin Islands believed contained spirits. This week is not about Spirit Trees as such. It's about trees that have been around for a long time, old trees that I feel deserve some special attention. If these trees don't have spirits in them, they ought to.

In south east corner of Emancipation Gardens on St. Thomas, grows an ancient casha tree. This particular brand of Acacia (in the Mimosa family) is native to the Caribbean. How it managed to

survive is fodder for a story because these trees have brutal inch and a half to two inch long thorns that can pierce tires and shoe soles. It has lived through a time when the ocean lapped a few feet away, through the making and paving of streets and building of buildings. For some reason it was never targeted as a nuisance tree that should be gotten rid of. Instead, it was allowed to grow and its twisted ropy trunk is a wonder to behold.

Down the street from Emancipation Gardens is a park which dates back to 1764 and was originally called Coconut Square. In  1945 it was renamed Roosevelt Park to honor a visit made by Franklin D. Within the park are two baobab trees, the seeds of which were brought to the islands with slaves. These trees were definitely thought of as sacred because they provided food and shelter. There is one baobab on St. John (click on the link and you can see a picture of it) and another on St. Croix which is about 250 years old. Because these trees are basically filled with water they don't have rings so age is approximated by the diameter of the trunk. I have no idea how the trees are in Roosevelt Park, but they must be at least 200 years old. 

On St. John at Cinnamon Bay - home of the National Park Campground - there is this huge rain tree. They are native to Central and South America and probably came into the Caribbean with the various Indians as they migrated up the chain. That's my friend, Margaret on the left and me giving you an idea of its size.

The lignum vitae, also known as ironwood, is a very slow growing native of the Caribbean. The wood is so dense and heavy it sinks in water. Because it is self-lubricating and so hard it is still used for making bearings. It is the national tree of the Bahamas and Jamaica. They only grow to about 40 feet, but don't let the size fool you. This one at Cowpet Bay on St. Thomas is probably several hundred years old...

...as is this one in Cruz Bay, on St. John. As you can see, they tend to branch out low to the ground and make nice shade. Clusters of very pretty purple flowers bloom in the late spring.

I don't know what kind of tree this one is, but it can be found at Magens Bay on St. Thomas. Long ago a storm blew it over, but it kept right on growing. That's Margaret, demonstrating the width of the roots.

And this is a group of classmates posing on the trunk. I'm second from the left.

All of these trees are, to my mind, Spirit Trees. They have survived hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and human beings.

It seems the more gnarled and twisted a tree is, the more we love it. Certainly the older a tree is, the more we cherish it, respect it, honor it. We can see in those places where it has been scarred by life, and in its very rings, the history of time. Those scars give it character and we are awed by its ability to survive. We like to go to these trees and sit beneath them. We like to hug them. Some of us may even talk to them.

I have often wondered why we do not seem to look upon our elder human beings in the same way. Should not their wrinkles, their gnarled and twisted limbs and the scars they bear be as loved and cherished as an old tree?