"One Happy Island"

During a 2017 vacation to the lovely island nation of Aruba, my then-girlfriend Libby and I journeyed through rugged Arikok National Park to the eastern shore and found a rocky, desolate beach known as Boca Prins.

I can’t emphasize the “desolate” descriptor enough. Unlike the coastlines I’ve engaged most of my life in the U.S., there wasn’t a hotel or any other dwelling to be found. There was no one walking along the beach. There were no boats in the water or vendors renting out overpriced umbrellas and chairs.

There was the constant crashing of the waves against the rocks, an occasional bird, and the feel of the steady winds. There were the nearby caves inside of which I could barely stand up straight.

There was nothing to do at this particular beach but to simply be there. And take selfies if that’s what you’re into.

I was so thrilled (ugh, thrilled evokes those cringy, modern-day celebratory LinkedIn posts about a new job or educational milestone or a fucking certification that took you seven minutes to complete and now you deserve a raise or a promotion) to visit another country and, with that, another continent, for the first time in several years.

And, more importantly, to do so with someone I loved deeply, someone with whom I was just beginning to explore a life. The four years that had passed since my divorce were rough and limited in joy and dominated by financial and emotional survival mode. Aruba’s motto is One Happy Island and I was one happy person.

More than nine years later my mind still plays back the scenes. The clear water. The kissing in the shallow waves for hours at a time, indifferent to whomever might have been watching and maybe even annoyed, because that’s what newer lovers do and whomever you are and wherever you are, if you have the chance to kiss someone obnoxiously you should do it because who knows when you’ll have another chance and don’t worry about what other people might think because they likely don’t care what you think.

The fun boat tour with the easy-going captain and the other tourists, getting quite buzzed while singing along with familiar 70s and 80s pop tunes and taking silly selfies together. The restaurant with outdoor seating in the sand just a few yards away from the tide. The giant sea turtle I saw, just for a moment, and Libby still being bitter because she didn’t see one as well.

The flounder sandwich at a nearby restaurant on the beach. Damn, I miss that sandwich. It was massive, its crispy, battered appendages extending out of the bun in all directions, so good that we went there twice for lunch. I’ve not come across a better flounder sandwich elsewhere. So good. So good. So good.

The unfortunate sunburn on my back, a rookie mistake for someone who grew up on the beach. Did I somehow think the sun wouldn’t notice that I was snorkeling?

The room service burger that was quite mid, undercooked and overpriced. The light blue ball cap I bought there and have worn for years.

The hammocks on the resort property. My father had a hammock in our backyard for many years and I can still visualize him lounging out there in its netting, a seashell resting on top of each eye, his tan skin that never wrinkled. He built me a pull-up bar in that same backyard, affixing tall pipes in cement, and sometimes, shirtless and damn proud of my body because back then I was immortal, I would bang out twenty or so pull-ups at once while watching him chill, my own skin tan and still not wrinkled but destined decades later to have occasional non-deadly basal carcinomas.

The beauty of the whole freaking place.

I cherish those moments when I’m blown away by beauty, such as Aruba; the Oregon coastline’s stunning combination of Pacific Ocean, cliffs, sand, and trees, compelling me to pull over every 15 minutes or so and snap photos when I was driving all the way down the Pacific Coast Highway on my way to California; the massive rainbow Libby and I stared at from our resort balcony during the May 2018 trip we took to Maui to get married; the stunning views from our many visits to the Blue Ridge Mountains; and the gorgeous, stained-glass windows and sculptures defining the architecture of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, completed this year after 100 years of dedicated generations of workers and currently the tallest church in the world.

The gorgeousness of the Earth’s creativity provides ongoing inspiration to the curious person with a soft heart and an open mind. I sometimes think of our planet as a giant work of art that is constantly evolving, with every living form intentionally or subconsciously contributing expressions on a daily basis.

One of the most unusual things about Aruba is that you can literally visit all parts of the country in a single day.

And, once you venture beyond the resorts, not even a mile or so away from tourist paradise, you encounter where the locals live in their small, simple, usually shack-ish, brightly painted houses and overgrown lawns, seeing them bicycling or walking, people who are always in Aruba but never on vacation, likely never saying to one another, man we sure do live on one happy fucking island am I right or am I right?

The distance between their houses and our resort might only have been a mile or so, but it just as well could have spanned oceans.

It’s easy as tourists to enjoy the beauty of a place. But when I’m there, I often struggle to notice the beauty of the locals, heading to work or going grocery shopping with their children, people of all ages, pigments, and sizes, who are lovely simply because they exist.

Maybe a big factor driving so much ugliness in this world, in our thinking, speech, and actions, evidenced by political events close to home and violent activities across the globe, is that we ourselves feel ugly or unworthy; and that drives a specific orientation toward others. When we fail to notice the beauty in another person there’s a good chance we’re undervaluing the beauty in ourselves.

Not just when we’re looking in the mirror and seeing the blemishes stamped into our skin by time but when we’re looking inside, swimming in our thoughts without sunscreen, despondent regarding the unattractiveness we perceive about ourselves and our past and any present situations we want to run away from. Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I want to take you.

Perhaps wondering, where is that one fucking happy island inside of me?

Hello! I’m John DeMarco, a Nashville, Tennessee-based, married GenXer dad of amazing daughters, sharing stories and reflections on growth, loss, identity, and mindfulness, offered with a deep respect for your capacity to make your own meaning. I’ve been writing since around age 11.

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