“for what else is there
but books, books and the sea,
verandahs and the pages of the sea
to write of the wind and the memory
of wind whipped hair
in the sun, the colour of fire.”
– Derek Walcott.
As I get older, the attractions of foreign travel and the lures of encountering new places and fresh faces have faded. I associate holiday less and less with adventure and more and more with peace and quiet. When I was young I looked forward to visiting different countries – I estimate I have visited about forty in my life – and keenly anticipated the possibility of exotic experiences and the enlivening acquaintance of strangers. Now I can much better understand my father who at the age of about 75 entirely ceased traveling and was content quietly with my mother to turn the pages of the sea in their wind-filled house on the north coast of Antigua. I think of my father and mother in their last years in their home in Antigua and a line from Homer comes to me: “There is nothing so good and lovely as when man and wife in their home dwell together in unity of mind and disposition.”
