February 2018 – LOVEandblackpearls.com

I sat in a room with four beds covered with flowered and flamboyant sheets, hues you might find on an old Hawaiian woman’s dress and across from me a door is opened no more than a foot wide. I’ve been peering out that crack about 90 times in the past 48 hours. I can’t help it. If you saw what I saw you’d be addicted too. Its the ocean of Fakarava, a tiny island in the middle of no where. At least that’s how it feels. The waves lap against the house I sit in, teasing like a whisper in my ear. I fall asleep to the song of water. Is it laughter I hear or the pain which makes it hard for me to sleep? When I wake up my eyes automatically go towards that door, open even during the nights so a breeze can come through. It smells like sea and mangos. But it rained last night so what I see beyond the opening seems duller than usual, less of a distraction. How unfortunate. It starts off muddy grey then quickly fades to brilliant turquoise and if my eyes can detach themselves from the brilliance it furthers to a darkness that comes with depth and imaginations of what waits below. How far does that darkness reach? On a clear day without rain I can make out a tiny motu littered with coconut trees that looks bigger than a football field but probably isn’t. On lazy days I stare at the motu and wonder how long it would take me to swim to that little island from where I sit on my comfortable dry bed protected and separate from the doubt of how friendly sharks in the South Pacific really are. But it’s not a sunny day on this bite size island, which took only a few hours by plane from Tahiti. It’s raining. Not that it’s going to stop me from swimming… Neither did it stop you from loving him.

Slowly I look away from the window in disgust trying to block out the vileness of past remembrances. My body clenches at the onslaught of memories. Please STOP!!! They don’t. Instead something happens inside of me as my stomache aches with a hunger that has nothing to do with food. “This is paradise, lose yourself.” The words of my family play back, annoying and optimistic. Lose myself? Don’t they realize how lost I’ve been?! No. I need to find myself. I try to calm down by listening to the waves crash against the foundation of my fare like a small roar mingling with the clutter going around and around in my head. His words. With each crash they grow louder. Do they really think I could forget everything? Anything..What a dream that would be. If I could forget how beautiful his smile was or how AFFECTED I was by a simple brush of his fingertip. Months and months I tried to forget him but here I am on a tiny speck of paradise and still he makes it feel like Lucifer’s pit. The rain falls harder and my eyes sweep like a urgent signal to the place that I have replayed in my mind over and over, searching the waters but only seeing his perfect face before he left me forever…

The first time I saw him it rained. I was such a fool in my pencil skirt and Steve Madden pumps, trying to impressed a potential nobody client. How was I suppose to know it would rain in the middle of August? I had walked soaked like a wet cat into Downtown Hilton headed straight for the conference rooms but in the lobby with 10, 20, maybe even 50 people who were nothing but static and white noise, he stood tall and elegant like the men I had seen in magazines. His eyes met mine. Sometimes I wish it hadn’t been so… Just think of how different my life would have been if I hadn’t been given that glance of hope! Only when I ran into a table did I break our stare. The marble didn’t fazed me, the humiliation did. I walked on to the conference room with my face the absolute definition of Rouge. Before I stepped into the doorway that would separate us forever I took one look back and never in all my life had I felt so much JOY to know that he was following me. Nothing in the world could calm the wings that were soaring in my heart. I didn’t dare look back again but instead I neatly sat down at a table next to a window where my client should have been sitting. But he wasn’t. How typical and late. I stared out the window and watched large drops plummet the glass and gracefully fall into rivers, down. Someone called my name softly, almost like a lover would whispers the name of the one true beloved. He had been expecting me you see and I often wonder if things could have been different if we had started off on the same even scale with no expectations or commitments hidden in our agendas. But he had come with a plan, as had I. Yet no one warned me how finely shaped his jaw was, how sweet the line of his smile curved, and how soft his kiss would feel when he pressed his lips to my cheek. Neither did they tell me that when he left me it would feel like recognizing the colors and patterns of the Black Mamba, after it bites you.

It was only later when I got to know his ways that I figured he had studied me from a far. Nowadays all you have to do is google a persons name and their life unfolds before your eyes. The enemy and his wicked tactics. Mr. Sun Tzu would have been ashamed of me. He would have told me I should have done the same if not more. But to give myself a little credit, I was naive. My grandfather had taught me that everything you gain from a person happens when you work right besides them. Maybe in another time period Gramps. So I let my guard down and smiled back at the beautiful face who I had seen in the lobby and who also happened to be my potential client.

His name was Leon and I gave him everything, including my heart. When he had it all, my secrets, my money he didn’t need me anymore. So he left me without a goodbye or a note, his phone cut-off with a operators voice that infuriated me more than any injustice I had ever felt. The fool that I was… Damn you. Never will I wear pencil skirts in the rain, nor will I smile back at a man who says my name like red poison on white roses.

I stared out past the door and beyond the sea. The sun was now setting in glorious pinks and purples and it had stopped raining. I smiled and didn’t even bother to wipe the tears away.

xoxox

Lindsay Reva

For days, even after the jet lag wore away, I sat in front of my computer and stared at a blank slate for the story that I had been meaning to write about.. Writer’s Block had no mercy.. But was this writer’s block?

No. It was something else.

How could I write about something so meaningful to me, something that had its claws wrapped around the contours of my heart? How could I capture those perfect words that should be free sailing through the skies of my memory… Yet I tried and I tried and BY GOD I tried again. Finally I am forced to throw down these imperfections that won’t even come close to what my minds eye continues to stare at boldly, unwavering, and ADDICTED.

Visiting the land of my ancestors in French Polynesia; My Beloved Tahiti.

Be advised. Compared to the reality of each moment written down, I felt ten fold. Maybe a hundred fold. Even the unwanted parts make me throw my head back in laughter. And it goes a little something like this:

I stepped off of the plane and immediately a wave of warm morning air hit me. 5:45AM ISLAND TIME. I inhaled a scent that would never exist in America. Or if it did, someone tell me where so that I could go after it. It was like the freshness of sea mingled with sweet Tiare, a white 7 petal blossom that only grows in the islands. There was also a hint of city population, diesel, the makings of mankind, and even that was overpowered by natural vegetation that I could make out on the mountains which surrounded me. Again, I took a deep breath and held on as long as my lungs could go pretending it would stay with me forever; my first breaths of Tahiti. Yet it wasn’t my first. I had been to Tahiti probably 15 times. I remember my mother pulled out my very first passport and being amazed that at 6 months old I had traveled to the place that some people spend their entire savings to go visit. It also amazed me that my 6 month old picture was just as bad as my 29 year old picture. But this time was different..

It had been five years since I had returned to the islands because of time wasted in Japan. I remember when I was in the land of the Rising Sun dreaming day and night of the land of real Magnificent Sun in Polynesia. yet it had been so long that it felt like a fairy tale. Years passed and things were being forgotten, faces started to blur, and the longing only grew. It rested inside of me like an animal and every once in a while when I heard a Taiko drum or saw a woman with beautiful long black hair the dreams of Vahines and the pounding of Pahus and Toeres would strike me from the inside, resonating like echoes from the past. Eventually I started to believe that I would never make it back to the Islands that had once felt like my home. I thought that I would never see her again… When I accepted that, sadness crept into my life that felt close to mourning.

Stepping off that plane changed everything. I had made it and never in all my life had I felt more alive, more FREE. When we made our way through customs some of my favorite people in the world were there waiting for us despite the early hours and heat. They put flower leis around my neck that made me smell far lovelier than my Mademoiselle Chanel ever could.

I was in TAHITI!! I HAD MADE IT BACK. No one could tell how happy I was to be back, no one knew how every single moment was being measure and dissected in my mind because I never EVER wanted to leave these memories behind. No, my darlings, I love you too much. We went to my auntie house which was just up the hill and most of my family and friends made their way home to give us some rest from the red eye flight. If only they knew that I had planned to sleep a bare minimum on this trip and instead LIVE WIDE AWAKE! Sleep would not bother me. So I went on a walk. Outside my aunties gates past the houses of my cousins, uncles, and distant relatives to a road that had a view of the Faa’a Airport where we had just come from, and beyond was the ocean where Tahiti’s sister island Moorea stood like a gem peering out of the sea. As a child I would always disappear from my family and come here to this spot. I would be gone for hours sitting on the side of the road and stare at the planes take off or watch the ferries push forward to Moorea’s port. I’d stay so long that day would turn to dark; My favorite time of all. The sun would set with a golden orange arc and a blanket of stars would glisten from above. The constellations seemed to be right there with you, all you had to do was reach out and pluck one from the sky. My diamonds. The airport lights would come on in a bright turquoise blue and even in the darkness I was reminded of the crystal clear lagoons that awaited me in the outer islands of Rangiroa, Fakarava, or Apataki. I never wanted to leave. But I was young and the wild dogs scared me as did my mother when she worried about me, so I always made my way back. Here I was 29 years old sitting at the same spot that I had come back to all throughout my life. Had I changed? Where had I been? And where was I going? Who cares, now was not the time for those questions. The answers would come only when they were ready. The sun was baking me and the humidity licked away at my skin, my paleness that hadn’t felt so much sunlight in the past 5 years combined. I was no longer a child who could disappear for hours and hours. There was no empty road for me to travel down. Slowly, feeling like every single step led to the direction of goodness, I made my way back to my Auntie and Uncle’s Fare that stood high at the City in the Sky.

Everything that followed was like a brilliant rush through silk rainbows. They spoiled me. Breakfast, lunches, dinners, and never-ending snacks. People wanted to meet, some for business and some for personal reason but every reacquaintance was paired with food. Food that had my eyes widen with lust and my stomach shrink back with apprehension, and it was all in different shades of variety. Chocolate moose served in a wine glass, Raw fish bathed in coconut milk, freshly squeezed lime over poisson crue, Fried banana, Avocados the size of melons, Tuna the color of a Geisha’s lips, Coconuts cracked open and sipped through fluorescence colored straws, Mahi Mahi hamburgers, Luscious grilled steak topped with a bed of fries, and lets not forget the baguettes and chocolate croissants. I ate like I hadn’t had food for a thousand years. But the odd thing about it…I wasn’t getting bigger. If anything I was changing shape but not becoming bigger. I felt better because the food I was inhaling left and right was REAL. Chemicals and additives neglected and un-heard of. So I ate and I ate, and when I couldn’t eat anymore, I simple ate some more.

Seeing these golden skinned locals was wonderful for my soul because a Tahitian spirit and mentality are not quite like what I deal with in America and no where near to what I had been accustomed to in Japan. Some Tahitians are overly generous, fire hearted, and at their core they have a goodness that I can only call innocence. Of course not everyone can be classified as such. What land doesn’t have its fair share of good and bad apples? For the record, I aim on surrounded myself with good people and on this trip I succeeded in that. Thank you for the guidance God.

Some memories still burn inside my mind, a flame that will never go out. I went to a secluded beach with my best friend Bene and while we were in the water it started raining so hard. Each time a drop hit me it was like a tiny bomb of happiness penetrated through my skin. The water was warm, the rain was warmer and here I was away from my electronics and city life. Away from my French school and my Event life. I was incomplete and yet completely full. Damn, it felt good to get away from the world and float in the waters of Tahiti not caring about a thing except being silly with your Bestfriend like we use to do when we were 14.

And then there was the time I went to the waterfalls. I danced among the eels in the shallow waters and the tourist from America and France watched me, taking pictures. And what a picture I must have been! ohh but it felt good to let my soul dance. When I was finished I walked up to the water fall and leaned against the wall of the cliff while everything poured down on me. My Pareo was soaked, but my spirit was alive. Awakening doesn’t quite explain it. But underneath that waterfall I could feel the layers of my past pains peel away. Layer by layer, tears to hurt. I walked away with a smile on my face and a strength guiding my every step.

Where am I going? Finally it was time for me to say goodbye to my loved ones and the life that was so different from the life I would be thrown back into. I didn’t cry when I said goodbye because I finally found an answer to some of my questions. Where was I going in life? Getting on a jet plane back to the states. But after that? Oh, baby I’ll be back.

I will be back. Xoxox

Lindsay Reva