What a difference two years makes.
On this last visit in December 2013, that brave person was nowhere to be found. Instead, I encountered a different self, my usual self, as someone who is wary, tentative, risk-averse and, frankly, a wuss.
Let me explain.
It may have had something to do with the fact that, since I wasn’t on a sailboat this time, everything seemed more normal. Plus, this time, one of my sons came along for about half of the trip. Most mothers are notoriously protective as sort of a counterbalance to the reckless daring of most fathers. I’ve seen some fathers swing babies around like they’re in training to become one of the Flying Wallendas. The babies seem to love it, but a mother is likely to look at something like that and see an accident waiting to happen in the form of a baby flying into the kitchen knife rack.
Mothers seem to possess an inherent ability to picture worst case scenarios that go beyond the dire warning to avoid running with scissors. After all, my son is the fruit of my loins and I need to help protect him, not only for his sake and my sake, but for that of posterity. That’s a good thing, actually. Protective maternal instinct, combined with lots of God’s grace and perhaps a guardian angel or two, is no doubt responsible for my son’s survival.
Of course, my sons are now grown and well beyond the reach of my protection, but once I was in a normal, protective mode, it was hard to break out. Jeanne Warrior Princess was totally AWOL.
Even after my son left to go back to the states, Vince and I pressed on to Ponce, Puerto Rico, where my cautiousness lingered.
For example, I can’t really relate since my family has no such tradition, but apparently, with many Latin families, visiting bodily remains is a ritualistic way to show respect for a person’s memory. So while in Ponce visiting Vince’s Dad, we went to show our respects by visiting the graves of Vince’s first wife, Carmen, and his mother, Patria.
Vince and I have had the obligatory “where-are-we-going-to-be buried-when-the-time-comes?” talk and, as weird as it sounds, he has invited me to have my remains buried alongside his and Carmen’s in the cemetery near Ponce. Said Vince, “People will see my name with that of two women and think, ‘Hey, that guy had it goin’ on!’”
When I told that to my Mom, she pointed out that Johnson family gravesites are also available in Chicago (Hey, who knew? I have options!)
We spent some time at Carmen’s grave, and then it took a while to find his mother’s grave, and once we found it, he lingered.
I didn’t want to be a pest but I couldn’t help looking at my watch.
“Umm, doesn’t the cemetery close at 5 o’clock?” I asked, feeling a bit guilty for bringing up the subject.
Vince gave me a withering look. “Do you think that we’re going to get locked in here?”
“Maybe?” I said tentatively, feeling a little embarrassed.
“Realistically, what are the chances of that happening?”
I shrugged, chastised. “I don’t know.”
Vince seemed convinced that getting locked in was an implausible and even impossible notion, and I definitely didn’t want to be responsible for disrupting his respectful reverie again, so I kept my mouth shut.
I felt relieved when we finally got into the car and drove to the cemetery entrance at 5:05, but as we approached the gate, we could see bars blocking the entryway, indicating a closed gate. As we got even closer, I could see a heavy chain wrapped around the bars. No doubt about it. The gate was closed and we were LOCKED IN A CEMETERY, not just with a flimsy lock, but with a big chain and padlock!
It was remotely possible that Vince and I could climb the towering fence, but we couldn’t leave the car and his 90-year-old father behind. I fast-forwarded in my mind. Dusk was falling and it would soon be completely dark. Would we have to stay here until morning, surrounded by monuments to the deceased and countless underground bodies in various states of decay? In my mind, the pleasant, pastoral cemetery morphed into a heaving cauldron of menacing forces, ready to emerge with malevolent intensity as a zombie apocalypse under cover of darkness.
Vince exited the car and I felt encouraged when I saw him talking to a man who had appeared outside of the gate. Maybe a cemetery worker was still available to let us out. Maybe our rescuer had arrived. Or at least maybe it was someone who could summon help. I experienced a glimmer of hope.
But before I knew it, the man started climbing the fence to come inside the cemetery. No, don’t come in, I thought, go get help! “He’s drunk,” Vince whispered. When I looked next, the man had successfully scaled the fence and was teetering around inside the cemetery gate, with a goofy grin on his face, as trapped as the rest of us. I looked again and he was on the ground, face down, and passed out.
Just great.
Vince found a telephone number posted next to the gate on a cemetery office and phoned it. We could hear the phone ringing inside the empty office. Another dead end, no pun intended.
Vince’s Dad called 9-1-1 and explained our predicament. The police were about to send help when a real cemetery worker arrived and unlocked the gate. He had some difficult-to-understand story about how we were warned to leave, which we weren’t, and how someone left the key with him, but I was too relieved to probe the murky details. All I knew was that, for the time being, we were alive and free.
Later that evening, back in Ponce, we walked around in the town square and noticed that preparations were underway for some kind of festival or performance later that night, featuring a well-known salsa band. Back at his father’s condo, we asked Vince’s Dad if he would mind if we took a trip downtown to see the band. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” he said.
“Why?”
He rendered his stunning assessment: “You look like tourists.”
WHAT?!?! Newyorican Vince, born to Puerto Rican parents, who lived in Puerto Rico for 15 years, looked like a tourist? Vince’s Dad added two more words that apparently explained it all: “..wearing shorts.”
Since temperatures hovered around 20 degrees back home, the opportunity to wear shorts in approximately 80-degree weather seemed absolutely appropriate to us, but in Puerto Rico, I guess that wearing shorts on a December evening signifies tourist status, or at least arouses suspicions. However, I surmised that the “shorts” excuse could be a polite way to not have to point out that Vince’s wife bore the most glaring tourist insignia of all – a vampire-like Swedish/Norwegian/Irish complexion that rarely encountered the sun unless protected by 50 SPF sunscreen. Clearly, I was not a native or even a long-term visitor. In the end, we were perfectly content to stay indoors, discuss books and current events, and avoid any nefarious, shadowy forces in Ponce that might pounce upon unsuspecting, wandering Americanos at night.
So we spent the night happily ensconced in the condo.
It was all a far cry from two years ago, when my fearless alter ego emerged. That’s not to say that I did nothing adventurous on this vacation. After all, I achieved my goal of visiting the rain forest and we hiked about half an hour into the El Yunque National Forest to see the waterfalls. But I didn’t venture too close to the waterfalls, or even go into the water beyond my feet, because it was cold.
We also bought a day pass to the El Conquistador Hotel that granted access to the hotel’s beautiful private island and beach. But my shark fears, renewed after reading Unbroken: A WWII Story of Survival, guaranteed that I would not venture far beyond where my feet could touch the bottom.
I actually had a wonderful time but, unlike my previous visit, I was tentative, safety-conscious, and rather reserved. Unless something drastic unleashes my risk-taking proclivities again, I’m stuck with my usual, cautious, security-seeking personae.
But once I unhook from the security of knowing that no terra firma is within easy reach of my tootsies, and I start drifting away from my usual moorings, watch out! Jeanne Warrior Princess is still lurking in there somewhere.
Read about the previous, more adventurous trip here.
Yo con mi hijo at El Yunque National Forest.
