Honeymoon at St. John’s Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands

 

Tonight is our last night at Beit Hawa, which means the House of the Winds.  Howie’s friends, Barry and Margarite Rich let us use their island home for our honeymoon.  Tonight has been the best day yet.  The vacation allowed us to do a lot of things that were fun and gave us the chance to get away from the phones and hassles of our daily life.  It inspired a lot of lovemaking in some pretty interesting places, including the porch over Rendezvous Bay.  We had time to read and to write and to reflect and tonight our collective creative juices were cascading like the waterfalls of Cinnamon Bay.  It was unstoppable and as we each shared what we had been working on.  We were amazed to see how closely our goals and dreams dovetailed.

 

Howie has asked me several times to sit down and write out a 20 year plan.  He wanted me to be clear about what it is that I want so that he can help me achieve it within a time frame that leaves us some time to enjoy life without every day being a struggle.  He was being remarkably generous in offering me 20 years to get there and so I did my best to draft a plan that would do it in 10.  The result is the 2005 Master Plan that I won’t detail here yet because I just gave him the first draft and he will undoubtedly fine tune it to make it workable.

 

 

I am so blessed to have a husband who is so willing and capable of making my dreams come true.  I have been concerned that these have been MY dreams and that ending the suffering of exotic cats in captivity is just not what Howie would prefer to be doing with his time.  He has told me that he wants to play more tennis and play more golf and spend more time at peace.  The idea of administering such an aggressive plan as we proposed to each other tonight did not seem to me to be the way for him to have the leisure time he wanted.  He confessed tonight that it may just be the product of too much caffeine in the coffee and cigar he had this afternoon and that tomorrow he will wonder what on earth he was thinking.  If that is the case, that is okay too.

 

For now he says that it takes a couple of years to really get a handle on a situation and to start to make sense of it.  He believes that he sees a path to reach the ultimate goal that I seek and that although it means structuring his time differently, and less play time, it will give him the sense of purpose that his life has lacked.  I often think about what it will mean to be at the end of my time here, looking back.  Will I feel that I spent this time wisely?  Will I have made a difference?  I think we all have moments like these, but unfortunately too many of us don’t have them until it is too late.  I don’t want to cause Howie stress.  I want him to get out of life whatever he needs to make him happy.  I just can’t help but think that achieving a definable goal will bring far more satisfaction than any game can.

 

Our honeymoon was spectacular!  The house is beautiful and there is always a strong wind so it is cool even in the direct sun.  There is a waterfall and small pool, a Jacuzzi, main house and guest house.  The view is stunning and ever changing with the clouds, the sun on the bay, the pelicans by day and bats by night flying by and the howling of the winds.  We spent three days snorkeling and did a little hiking.  The coral reefs were full of beautiful fish, turtles, sting rays, sea urchins and color.  We swam until we were out of breath and then just floated, face down, watching all of the underwater dramas unfold.  We visited Caneel Bay, Hawksnest Bay, Cinnamon Bay, Trunk Bay, Salt Pond Bay and of course Cruz Bay where the ferry brought us in.  Howie did a great job of getting us around the island on these narrow roads despite rain, mud slides, sand slides and vertical pathways and all of it done on the left side of the road!  The whole island is only 9 miles across and we drove every paved inch of it.

 

We ate at the De