BVIs

Wednesday, April 5
Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands

This morning, I walked into a store in Cruz Bay, St. John, and the woman behind the counter mistook me for a resident. "You have such a great tan," she explained after I told her we had been there just a day.

Now, hold on a minute. Before you begin reminding me that this is no longer the '80s, that skin cancer is a direct result of too much sun, not to mention wrinkles and freckles, just give me a minute to enjoy the compliment--the first time in 35 years that anyone has EVER told me I was too tan to be from New England. Normally around this time of year, people mistake me for an invalid, not a resident of a Caribbean Island. "You look pale," they say, "are you feeling okay?" Of course pale isn't the half of it. Almost blue is more accurate.

But this winter I am a bronze goddess. Not by Boston standards, but by Caribbean saleslady standards. It's quite a feat for an Irish girl.

I wasn't quick to rush out of the store, as the compliments were coming fast and thick. The saleswoman was suitably impressed by how far we had traveled, what adversities we had overcome, our careless attitudes toward employment, our adventurous spirits, and so on.

The glow lasted until we hit the immigration office in Jost Van Dyke this afternoon. Inside the office along one wall, they had hung a framed map of the world. We took a look, gauging our progress.

"And we thought we had come so far," Dean lamented. Looking at the Atlantic coast map on Delilah, I was always so pleased by the distance we had traveled, but in the grand scheme of things, taking in the whole world at one glance, we are still just inches from home.

So much for the tan.