Fiji
It’s hot. Sticky hot and the backs of my fleshy thighs stick to the
cracked leather seats, ripping layers of skin off every time I move,
but I don’t mind. The taxi’s roof is caving in, the hanging fabric
tickling my scalp in the wind; its doors seem to be an inch away from
falling off and its side mirrors have long since been hacked off.
We pass the Hindu temple with its decoupage of flamboyance,
majestic colors and christmas lights that hang all year long and I
think back to when I first arrived, walking aimlessly and finding
myself at that temple, draping myself in vibrant cloths and walking
barefoot through the ancient sacred space. Surrounded by beautiful
women draped in saris and jewels, sat cross legged before wooden
bowls full of water and floating flowers. Statues and paintings I had
only ever seen in history books adorning the walls and ceilings,
portraits of plump women with blue faces and elephant trunks,
orange men with beaks and wings, multi-colored half human and
half animal gods staring down at me from the decorated ceilings and I can’t even put into words for
my own benefit how much I’ll miss this place, how captivated by it I will forever be.
I lean my head against the make shift door and let the wind caress my face, soaking up every sight,
memory, and exotic moment of this magical island as I leave it. We drive along and pass another
beach I spent time in and I smile watching the newcomers enter it, closing my eyes and breathing in
the memory of waking up on my 26th birthday alone with the sun streaming through the bungalow
wood beams, the birds singing in celebration as I lay in bed, and that sunset that had swallowed me
whole as I sat miles out on the uncovered ocean floor that the tide had revealed.
Down the beach, a group of Fijian dancers prepare for the night’s festivities, their bronze bodies
barely clad in tribal wear, faces streaked with white paint, their torches not yet lit and I recall the
night I danced on the beach with a group of strangers such as this after being so overcome with
emotion from their s