New Beginnings and Being Lost and Found in Puerto Rico

Recently, events in our lives have conspired quite happily to convert our five year plan into a three year plan, which in turn became a two year plan, and then, finally, a plan where time is measured in weeks and days instead of years and decades. We did not have to wait for it to come to fruition either. The perfect moment in time simply presented itself to us, and we are choosing to seize upon it, and leave no adventure unexplored.

In recent weeks we have been bombarded by questions from friends, relatives, and even strangers. This first blog post will try to answer some of the most common questions and give a first glimpse into the inner workings of our journey...

Introduction. Hi. We are Lorri and Buzz Malone, current and mostly lifelong residents of Lucas County in the slow rolling rural hills of Southern Iowa.

This is us! Lorri and Buzz Malone (Lorri is the pretty one). 

Frequently asked questions (a.k.a FAQs) Interesting sidenote about FAQs is that for the first thirty odd years of his life, Buzz pronounced FAQs in his head as 'facts' and, while finding the associated FAQs page of websites quite useful, he never really fully understood why every 'Faqt" started with a question.

Q: So, you're selling everything you own, leaving your lifelong hometown, and running off to Puerto Rico. Are you stupid or something? What the hell are you thinking???

L&B: Here, we begin by quoting a great philosopher when we say that, "stupid is as stupid does." 

Lorri and her baby goats

More to the point about what we are thinking is that Lorri has been doing her job at the same non-profit for 23 years. She is seeing her youngest daughter off to college in a few days. She wants to explore her artistic side, avoid the worsening lengthy bouts of winter depression, and be by the ocean. For Lorri, Puerto Rico affords her the opportunity to do all of these things. Ah, but will there be goats? Time will tell.

Buzz+Rum+Ocean=Happy Buzz 

(editor's note: the large protrusion is NOT Buzz's actual belly. He is holding a recently rescued baby seal on his lap. That's all that is. Really)

Buzz has spent twenty-five years in organized labor, as a member, and a union organizer, local union president, national union representative, and labor historian. Buzz wants to write stories that capture the human spirit. He wants to drink gallons of rum and catch fish right out of the ocean, and cook for friends and neighbors while Lorri slaves away in her art sweatshop. Puerto Rico affords him the opportunity to do all of these things.

Aguada, Puerto Rico

We have settled and agreed upon the city of Aguada in Western Puerto Rico, because it is a small town beside the ocean, has a reasonable cost of living, and the people are so unbelievably friendly and inviting, and like us, it is more working class than tourist area. Because now that we are going to be locals, who wants a bunch of tourists hanging around, right? Right?

Q: Okay, fine, whatever, but why Puerto Rico? Aren't there beaches, like, everywhere land meets the ocean?

Lorri in the Florida Keys

The answer to that one is easy. We loved the Florida Keys for the crystal clear, perfect blue Caribbean waters. But the Keys keep getting more and more expensive so that the favorite spot we used to enjoy on winter getaways has increased to the tune of over 300% per night in the years since we started going there.  

Several years ago, while viewing the Kayak flight price explorer map, Buzz noticed a very affordable flight price hovering over a small island in the Caribbean. He zoomed in closer. It was Puerto Rico. He turned to an unsuspecting Lorri, who was busying herself eating antidepressants like m&m's to survive another frigid Iowa winter. 

"How would you like to go to Puerto Rico next week?" asked Buzz.

And the rest is history. We went for the ocean and we kept going back for the people. We simply cannot say enough about the people of Puerto Rico. Their inherent joy, resilience, and unending hospitality has kept us going back time and again. 

Being Puerto Rican is a daily celebration of life and blessings. It is a place where disasters spawn new beginnings and collectivism, and where no trip to the store or walk down the road will end without connecting with someone. We are not talking about an area where people are merely trained to show the whites of their teeth to tourists. In the West, the part of the island we adore so fully, it often takes over an hour to pick up a single item from the grocery because nearly every person stops and talks to almost every other person.

Recently when asked why Puerto Rico, we told someone that we loved the people there and wanted to help them, but that answer wasn't right at all. It didn't feel right because the people there don't need our help. They are fine without us. Hell, they may well be better off without us. We have chosen this place because we see and feel a strong sense of community there and we want to be a part of that. 

Or, as Buzz puts it, "wherever in the world people cook whole hogs over open flames... these are my people." 

Whether in Iowa in our youth (we are both 46 by the way) or in our 40's in Puerto Rico, whole hogs over open flames mean something to us. Not just about amazing, glistening, tender, juicy pork, but about what it says about the preparer. It says that the cook, in this most temporary of conditions that we understand as life, has momentarily fallen upon the good fortune to have more than one soul could consume, and instead of storing it away, she is sharing it with her friends, her neighbors, and any strangers who follow the scent and discover the feast.

Q: Aren't you worried about crime, or sea rise from melting ice caps, or tsunamis, or hurricanes, or being hit by a grand piano that falls from a passing satellite? 

This is one of our favorite questions. It gets right to the heart of the matter about fear, and holding on, and letting go, and living, and so much more.

When we first started travelling frequently together, it always amused us when friends who lived in the San Francisco Bay, that is doomed in its entirety to fall into the sea at any moment, would look us seriously in the eye and ask, "Iowa? Aren't you afraid of being killed by a tornado?"

Later on we would use a piece of typing paper to represent the state of Iowa, and invite them to make dots on it by pressing a pencil straight down onto the sheet thirty times.  "There," we would say, "if you weren't standing right under one of those dots at just the right moment, you had virtually no chance of being killed by a tornado last year."

In other words, life is short, no one lives forever no matter what, and in general, we have concluded for the most part that we human animals have come to make entirely too much of ourselves and the significance of our own existence. As if we have any say in when or how we perish, no matter where we go, or what we choose to do or not do! 

Fresh water... still a baby seal. No, really. Trust us. That's what it is. 

If the choice comes down to being swept away by a tsunami wave while sipping rum beside the ocean, or slipping in the bathtub of a home we were afraid to ever leave, then we say bring on the waves. 

As for crime... pretend like you are in any city anywhere in the world that is strange to you. Don't be stupid or make yourself look like a target, and you will pretty much be fine anywhere in the world, except for possibly in Muskogee. I mean, come on... it's Muskogee for god sake. 

Beyond that we choose largely not to live our lives in fear. If we are ultimately murdered by tongs we gave a stranger to share some pulled pork with, and we made it our entire lives without ever wasting a day in fear of our fellow man, then we are pretty okay with that. In fact, if we both perish, then we would even let our relatives know ahead of time not to bother wasting any time of their journey looking for the guy with bloody bbq tongs because in the grand scheme of things he already received a bunch of negative karma by fucking up a perfectly good bbq, and probably killed us before we told him where we keep the really good, top shelf rum.

Probst!

No. We choose to only live in fear of genuinely terrifying things, like Buzz is with spiders and bats, and Lorri is with Great White sharks and the awful, rare, deadly germs that can only be acquired at the Golden Corral all-you-can-eat steak buffet.

Q: Well, fine for you, but you must be like, loaded rich, right? Right? 

Uh. Nope. Not loaded rich. Not even pretend loaded rich. We have worked though, in mostly professional careers, our entire life. And we define "professional careers" as only being the difference between being in positions where we were always able to take an extra ten minutes for lunch without anybody yelling at us. That's the real difference. In our youths, we worked in construction and nursing, where people making an extra dollar an hour were always on your asses about taking five minutes longer for lunch. When you've made it, and you're a professional though, take your time, bask in the bread bowl, and order desert, because another ten minutes and nobody will care enough to even say anything. Maybe it's because they respect you more, or maybe it's because as a "professional" you don't get paid overtime.

The point is we have always worked, and we have, for the most part, worked pretty damned hard, and we are not rich. We were playing by the rules and counting down toward our retirements the right way, the respectable, slow way, where you get to cash in all of your chips, but only when you are too old or busted up to enjoy them, and then you die on your way to the mailbox collecting your first pension check.

As mentioned before, we had a ten year or five year plan and all of that. But then there was a market dip and Lorri's 401k took two years to recover from it. And then Buzz got the letter saying that the pension fund he had worked most of life for is suddenly rather sketchy and maybe he would get to retire, and maybe he wouldn't, and then this dumpster fire of a president got elected and we wondered how long before the whole damned thing went to pot. 

But more than any of that, Lorri quite suddenly, and unexpectedly, nearly died. That experience, along with the fact that our children are all officially out of the house and raised, pushed us to declare that since there is a really super good chance that we are going to work somehow, doing something, until the day we finally die, and in recognition that life is unpredictably short, we decided to start over. She has always wanted to be an artist. He has always wanted to write for a living. Her life savings may be in jeopardy, and his employer is going broke and exploring substantial layoffs. Together, we have the means, not to retire, but to build a life where we want it, and on our terms. The time for us to do that... is right now.

Q: What if you get there and find out you hate it?

Then we have wasted a year or two of our lives drinking rum beside the ocean and we move on to the next dream, or job. 

Q: Won't you miss your grandchildren, your friends, your family?

Yes. Absolutely. Our thoughts on this are we are building a life to share with others. Every home we look at has room enough for guests, and every car, room enough for extra passengers going to and from the airport. We will desperately miss our family of course, but we also are weary of becoming the grandparents who sit at home waiting for the children to visit, and burdening loved ones with guilt until they relent and temporarily shelve their lives and plans and come visit again. 

Also, we despise winter. Absolutely hate it. Lorri gets depressed, and Buzz, who is already depressed, finds it nearly impossible to breathe in the cold. 

Q: Can we come visit? 

Yes! 

Q: Aren't you afraid of the recent riots there?

Not riots. Peaceful demonstrations to remove a corrupt politician from office. And mostly, we are bummed that we missed it. Anyone who asks this question really doesn't know us at all.

Q: Is this blog just going to be about stupid questions and answers all the time?

Nope. This is going to be a place to introduce you to all of the incredible people we meet, experiences we have, and serve as a window into all that we love about Puerto Rico, so stay tuned!

This is the house we are currently negotiating to buy. From the bottom of the steps to the edge of the water on the beach is precisely 250' depending upon the tide of course. There will be a great story next time about home buying in Puerto Rico. It's sort of a HOW NOT TO BUY PROPERTY IN PUERTO RICO story. Just do as we say and not as we do and you'll be fine, maybe. Who knows.

Finally, an excerpt from one of Buzz's favorite, and Lorri's absolute least favorite, authors and books of all time:

"Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all -- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil -- the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."

The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!"

And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. 

The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."

But they cried the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a savior.

 -- from Illusions by Richard Bach