Lorri and Buzz Update: We Made It!

Did you ever have any doubts? No? Well, we sure did. When we hatched our five year plan to move to Puerto Rico, it seemed like a far away dream. Exactly the kind of dreams that are far enough out into the future to allow you some wiggle room to escape them and run back to the safety of mediocrity.

But, events transpired and created a perfect storm to turn a five year plan into a three year plan overnight, and then suddenly, a six month plan. The six month plan was Buzz's last ditch effort to try and apply some thoughtful common sense to the project with the recognition that Lorri would take forever and a week to get rid of her 60 dump truck load clothes collection and the 400 totes she kept squirrelled away in the basement containing what Buzz can only assume to be rock collections, as well as every Kleenex her children ever used growing up, neatly organized by date, color, and affliction types for each child.

Lorri, however, was a woman with a mission and had everything gone in a few short weeks. Before we knew it we were sleeping on mattresses on the floor, and scooping up a dog, a cat, and 8 bags of luggage and heading for an island in the Caribbean. 

We are pleased to report that since having landed here, we have almost entirely furnished the house, bought a car, and Buzz built two outdoor cooking devices. Lorri has her workshop mostly setup, and we finally have new phones and laptops!

Our time has not been without adventures, like the lizard that ran across Buzz's foot on the first morning, causing him to launch hot coffee all over himself and halfway across the living room (tile floors...love em!). The same lizard ran and hid in the bathroom and surprised Lorri while she was sitting on the toilet by leaping out of the sink at her. The writer is not permitted to say what happened next, but let's just say the yellow liquid all over the bathroom floor was NOT coffee. The cat later proved her worth by dispatching said lizard though.

There was also the giant toad who lived outside of our bedroom window and screamed the song of death of 1,000 suffering rabbits at night. He has since been relocated to the rain forest further down the road where he can busy himself keeping the wild pigs awake at night. 

It has been a whirlwind week and we have hit every pothole between our house in Rincon and the stores in Mayaguez and Aguadilla, about 400 times. We will post more photos of the house soon along with another update, but we wanted to let everyone know that we have arrived, are alive, and doing well, and here are a few of the reasons for being in Puerto Rico... 

We call this one 'dominoes no more' because these are the places the old men like to sit

and play dominoes and this one in Rincon has been undermined by the Hurricane Maria.

Among a sea of boxes and Styrofoam, we have one room finished. This was our first one.

The view over Buzz's coffee cup on the back patio in the morning.

Lorri pondering the meaning of life, and wondering how she landed such an awesome husband.

Lorri looking as beautiful as the sunset in the distance.

Sunset from Aguada, PR 10/22/19

Aguada, PR Sunset 10/22/19

Aguada Sunset

Aguada Sunset

View from Anasco restaraunt

Anasco, PR

Here are some artist friends you can learn more about by clicking on the tabs up above! 

Shopping in Mayaguez... it's a lot like driving in Mayaguez. It is the sweetest and kindest little old lady who gets behind the wheel of her car or her shopping cart and will run you off the road or slit your throat for your spot in line. More on the excitement of driving in Puerto Rico later! 

We will leave you for now with a few words from the poet, Henry Herbert Knibbs, called The Sheep and the Goats...

    I don't mind working to earn my bread,

         And I'd just as soon keep straight;

    I've listened to what the preacher said

         About rams and sheep at the gate;

    I like to sleep in an easy bed,

         But I tell you this, old mate:

    A man like me, what you call hobo,

         Can blister and sweat and save

    All his life, and earn just enough of dough

         To prove that he is a slave,

    And have, when it comes his time to go,

         Well, enough to line his grave.

    Say, mate, have you ever seen the mills

         Where the kids at the looms spit blood?

    Have you been in the mines when the fire-damp blew?

         Have you shipped as a hand with a freighter's crew

    Or worked in a levee flood?

   Have you rotted wet in a grading-camp,

         Or scorched on a desert line?

    Or done your night stunt with your lamp,

         Watching the timbers drip with damp

    And hearing the oil-rig whine?

    Have you seen the grinders fade and die,

         As the steel-dust cut them down?

    Have you heard the tunnel-driller's cry

         When the shale caved in? Have you stood by

    When his wife came up from town?

  Have you had your pay held back for tools

         That you never saw or could use?

    Have you gone like a fool with the other fools

         To the boss's saloon, where the strong-arm rules,

    And cashed your time for booze?

   Well, those are the games—I've played 'em all—

         That a man like me can play.

    And this lovely world is a hard old ball;

         And so at the last I took a fall

    To the right and proper way;

   And that is to see all the sights you can

         Without the admission price.

    That's why I've changed to a traveling man,

         With a quilt and a rope and a kind of plan

    Of hitting no one place twice.

   I do no kicking at God or Fate;

         I keep my shoes for the road.

    A long gray road-and I love it, mate;

         Hay-foot, straw-foot, that's my gait!

    And I carry no other man's load.

    For I'm free! Oh, the lowlands by the sea

         To the mountains clear across

    On the other side, they belong to me;

         A man owns nothing unless he's free,

    And I am my own good boss.

   I don't mind working to earn my bread,

         And I'd just as soon keep straight,

    But according to what the preacher said,

         I'm a ram—and I've missed the gate;

    But I'm jogging along, and jogging ahead,

         And perhaps I'll find it, mate.

The Inspiring Artisans of Agua Viva

Recently, we read an article about a man whose father had asked each of his children nightly what they had done to make the world a better place for humanity that day. While that seems like a heavy load to put on a nine year old, it is a question worth asking our adult selves. 

To that end, we try to ask that of ourselves, and one of the things we have come to believe is that art, and artists, and artisans of every kind make the world a much better place, so we ought to support them as often as possible. 

That is actually one of the reasons we have come to love Puerto Rico so much. Per capita, there are more creatives here than anywhere else we have been, and more appreciation for the things that make life beautiful, like music, and dance and art and literature... and sunsets. 

One of our many reasons for this blog is to introduce our readers to some of the people who help to make Puerto Rico our favorite place. Here are our first feature artists...

Agua Viva

Artist & Artisan from Aguadilla, PR

Carlos and Rita

contact: carlosyritaguaviva@gmail.com

follow: Instagram Aguaviva_pr

find: Rincon, PR Art Walk on Thursday Nights

& Rincon, PR Farmer's Market on Sundays

Last winter when we made our annual pilgrimage to the island, we attended the Rincon, PR weekly art walk held on Thursday nights and saw some of the creations by Carlos and Rita of Agua Viva.

Carlos loves wood. His passion is finding and rescuing the native hardwoods of Puerto Rico. In the wake of Hurricane Maria, there were hundreds of ancient, severely damaged hardwood trees on the island that would be left to rot, float away at high tide, or be burned or piled in landfills were it not for a relatively small number of people like Carlos and Rita. 

If you come to the island and speak with anyone who deals with rescued and recovered wood, you will find people as passionate about their mission as anyone who has dedicated their lives to rescuing horses or stray dogs. 

Carlos and Rita locate the wood in landfill piles and beaches, or topped with only trunks left standing in forests. Through this labor of love, a single branch of driftwood or entire trees are turned into logs, and then sliced into blanks that can be further sanded and polished and worked to most compliment the natural beauty of each piece of wood. If you ask about a piece, Carlos will pick it up, turn it in his hands and talk about how he loved working that particular piece, and what went into it, and how each piece was to sand, and how each knot revealed its most perfect self as he worked it with the paper and oils.

Carlos  creates cutting boards and other larger items from the wood. We would show you some but his creations are all sold out at the moment and orders are backed up, because craftsmen like Carlos will not rush a piece of wood. The wood demands respect and time to reveal itself and what it is capable of becoming.

Sometimes, though, there are pieces that are too small to make a good cutting board or table and the wood is too rare, too perfect, and too beautiful to part with. These are the pieces Rita selects to paint her works of art upon. We liked the marriage of polished salvaged wood and funky ocean dwellers so much, we bought a couple last winter, and here they are, about six inches or so in diameter....

We carried these little treasures all the way back to Iowa, and fell even deeper in love with them before returning them home to the island with us last week. They had been through a lot, so we thought they could use some company. What follows are their new friends, all swimming at home in the waters of our new dining room in Rincon, Puerto Rico...

As with anything from the art world, the pictures do not do these pieces justice. The table top piece alone is nearly two feet tall. Sadly, the ones in these pictures are not for sale, but we welcome you to enjoy them with us. The only way to appreciate them fully is to come and see them for yourself in Rincon, Puerto Rico. They will all be here waiting for you.

Also, if you follow Agua Viva on Instagram, they are pretty good about showing new pieces as they are created, and you can reach them via email, as they have reliably shipped their creations all around the world.