Three Januarys in Barbados
Quarantine Letter #57
Fifty-six years ago today I landed for the first time at Seawell Airport—as it was then known—in Barbados. Behind us we had left a massive blizzard in Montreal that meant our lift-off was incredibly late and our middle-of-the-night landing was notable by the small number of porters at the luggage carousel and a couple of sleepy looking immigration and customs officers. Clearly they didn’t care what we were bringing in, they only wanted to get home to bed.
Our 3:00 AM greeting at the hotel, the Paradise Beach Club, was warm-hearted and friendly made all the more so by the Planters Punch offered at the front entry. Before we headed to our room, we did a quick sweep by the beachfront, nodded at one another knowingly and resolved to be the first in the water a scant three hours later.
I swam and sailed every day as Willy Hassel, the water sports director, took it upon himself to help me get well. Once my lungs were clear again he introduced me to scuba diving, a truly extraterrestrial experience. On an island tour the next day I vowed that one day I would live and work in Barbados!
It was a long sixteen years before I would visit Barbados again, this time with a friend—both of us overworked, dealing with corporate politics, and fighting fatigue—during the rainiest week I had ever experienced. We stayed on the south coast, at Southern Palms, where yet again I took the opportunity to scuba dive. Returning to Toronto I immediately enrolled in scuba lessons at the YMCA and plotted ways to find time to return to the Caribbean to do my open water dive for PADI certification. Three months later I was ready to be tested. As it turned out, in many more ways than one.
Forty years ago today, I was in Barbados, scuba diving every day on a long weekend before the craziness of gearing up for a busy Spring season in Toronto would be due to begin once again. I’d been working for a Montreal-based firm, increasing sales five-fold in a four-year period through close oversight of inventory management, regular initiatives in merchandising, and near-constant training and development of store managers and staff. By then the position had a same-old/same-old quality to it but I was earning an enviable income and hadn’t yet found anything more interesting to pursue.
Back in Toronto on the Tuesday morning, my mind wandered as I walked through to my tiny office and I was rather surprised, then dismayed, when I saw our VP seated at my now-spotless desk with a long, thin envelope in his hands. “Bonjour, Madame. First of all, this is a business decision, it’s no reflection on you.”
An hour later I was sitting in my kitchen at home, waiting for the kettle to boil as I pondered the inevitable, ‘Now What?’ Oh my, this was not at all what I had expected to return to. Of course I would call my lawyer to get her to begin a wrongful dismissal suit but first I would put out the word to various friends and colleagues. By the next day, Ron Harding called me asking if it was true that I had just returned from yet another trip to Barbados. “Yes, why do you ask?”
“Let me ask you another question first, Danielle. Do you know anyone there? Any contacts? I know how easily you make friends.” Dead serious, he laughed as he stopped speaking. I had worked in sales for him before; he knew my skill sets.
“Me? Know people? Yeah…I can think of a few people I could reach out to. What are you looking for?”
“Oh, it’s not for me. It’s for my friends Paula and Ian. They’d like to buy a Barbados business, one that would involve sewing machines and other garment factory equipment.”
“Hmmm…okay. I can think of someone who might get the ball rolling. He’s kinda the black sheep of his family but, y’a know…”
The dream did not work out for Paula and Ian but three months later, after two more visits to Barbados, I returned to Toronto with an unexpected work contract, a home, a car, and four dogs to care for. My lawsuit had been successful and my husband and I had agreed to separate amicably; there was just the matter of putting my belongings in storage and figuring out what clothes would work in the tropical heat.
My scuba lessons had not prepared me for the deep dive into a totally different culture—both at work and at home—but I was 34, living solo for the first time in my life, and thoroughly enjoying the challenges this new life was bringing my way.
Suffice it to say that the next 18 months were not at all what I had expected. Oh yes, the work leaned heavily on my industry experiences and I was able to make a substantial contribution to the growth of the company that had hired me. I more or less expected that. However, it was my personal life that felt the greatest impact of living in a culture that was 180 degrees from my previous life.
I had grown up in Montreal, a vibrant, exciting—even temperamental—city with many people, both French and English, showing a strong joie-de-vivre and unrestrained warmth toward one another. In the 60s, I found it normal to walk arm-in-arm with friends, to hug one another ‘bon jour’ and ‘au revoir’ in public, without reservation. When I moved to Toronto in 1970, the coldness of most people I met and their focus on fast cars and big money—as if those were what really mattered—was a shock to me.
By 1985, as I was making my move to Barbados, I had acclimated to frosty Torontonians and, frankly, ramped up immigration to Canada had brought many less reserved people to the city. By then, one could choose from a variety of communities, including restaurants and food stores, established by people from all over the world. But the circle in which my husband and I moved was both small and small-minded with little warmth offered. Choosing to end our marriage had made me the bad guy and I was ostracized by many, including two female priests with whom I had worked quite closely.
Arriving in Barbados solo, with a new home, new work, new friends, and new interests, I felt as if I had landed in front of the finest smorgasbord of offerings. Despite my extroversion skills, honed by a career in marketing, my greatest self-indulgence is lots of time alone. I’m not the least bit shy but a stack of books, loads of musical selections, and time to think, putter about, and hang out with an animal are among my happiest times.
However, the ex-pat community in Barbados is a gregarious one and my new-found love of scuba diving brought other water babies into my life; it was easy to find new ways to spend my non-work time. Given the reputation tourist women have in Barbados I was glad to have friends looking out for me, including the owners of a beach bar I came to enjoy frequenting over my 18 months on the island. Rusty and Reds owned the Carib Beach Bar and made it their business to warn off would-be predators.
Twelve years ago today. I found myself at the Garrison Savannah race track, a place I had visited several times before, including a number of times in the 80s. But, this time was different; two days before I had bought a new 85mm lens for my camera, and the last words the salesman, Larry, said as I left the store were: “it’s a great one for portraits too. Don’t just photograph flowers, try some faces as well!”
As we mounted the steps to the Owners and Trainers Bar, my friend, Maurice, reminded me that I had previously met the fellow standing on the landing, not only at the Garrison but also at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto. So I had! John beamed at the re-introduction as did I, saying to him, “You have such a great face and I have this new lens I’m just learning to use. Would you sit for me?”
He said yes.
To this day, we often go to that same beach bar for our Sunday lunch. If you had told me in those years (‘85 & ‘86) that the Carib would continue to be a hangout of mine in my 70s, I would have laughed out loud and fervently denied the possibility. Life is so strange!
“Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.”
—T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton,” Four Quartets (1943)
I am not a fatalist. And, I don’t believe that “things happen for a reason.” However, there is something that draws me back to Barbados again and again. It feels like home.
Where feels like home to you?
I remember my first trip to Barbados with you - when I got off the plane, I well remember the smell of the salty and the feeling that I had come home :-)
Lovely recounting. Thanks for this.