Sea and Sands

Why an island?

Some years ago I ventured to an obscure area of the Philippines and ended up as the only visitor of an island off the Northern coast of Ilo Ilo. This small land mass surrounded by sea had only two permanent inhabitants, an elderly married couple, who became curious as to why I lingered on this deserted paradise for 7 days straight. In this place, I read Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility for the first time, mostly as I lay in a hammock not 10 yards from the sea front, I journaled, I sat listening to leaves rustle, I was bitten by their pet monkey, and I ate fresh crab, scallops or fish three times a day.

I even had the pleasure of a private island tour, one the husband reinforced he had only ever taken me on. There are advantages to loving the homes of the people hosting you, they get to love it too… this gentleman recalled his childhood as he showed me the cave he used to hide in at 11 years old, he spoke of the dangers of island life in the moment he chopped the head off a water breaching sea snake in our path, and then he took me kayaking before dusk as we circumnavigated the entire island (at 60+ years old, this man could row).

As we sat in the evenings in our plastic chairs facing the sea with the local radio on, this couple told me stories of the giants who birthed these islands and the spirits who kept them all safe. They even organised for me to go caving with their nephew who lived on the next island over. Try caving with no other tourists around or any health and safety restrictions, pure magic. There is something special to reclaiming adventure away from the tourist trails and Western law suit threats. The best part is always the people you meet, who aren’t yet trying to rip you off and take all your cash with their incessant negotiations. I was not yet a walking purse string, I was a welcome visitor, treasured for treasuring these peoples’ homelands.

The island that birthed my inwards island was this one. It was a place that was someone’s home and had been for their entire lifetime, and it felt like a home. The experience gave me the privilege of a held memory, one I could call on to remember the hug of the place. This felt sense of safety, of home, was therapeutically utilised and turned into a lived state of being – that of my own safer shores… which then went on to inspire an entire collection of poetry.

I cannot recall the couple’s names, they have faded into a sea of time, but I will now say thank you to them, for taking care of me and for giving me what I had not yet recognised that I needed… a sense, a feeling, one that planted seeds that are now growing into a way of life. Small moments change lives, never forget it.