Clinging to Hells Gate

Hells Gate. On my first full day on Saba, I’m clinging to Hells Gate. (It’s where my cottage is, silly.)

2017. I met Anne Becker in Duvall, Washington. She eclipses the thanklessness of creativity. Her friendship and support have become a balm and a salve.

She started coming to Saba twenty years ago when she worked in the viper pit of Washington DC. Paradise was a sea-locked volcano accessible by one scary landing strip. Saba was her escape from the crazy.

I wonder where those beltway types escape now. Okay, not really.

Anne and I have much in common: an interest in history; fascination with the royals; a love of reading; a metamorphosis in our politics; a love of good food and drink and adventure; our health.

But she is more fearless than I.

For instance, she will pick up any animal and bewitch it to love her. She cooks city blocks around me. She engages anyone in conversation and already knows everyone on Saba, while I hide in this house and try not to talk to people.

Surround yourself with people who make you stretch, who compel you to grow. That’s me in 2020.

Anne generously offered me her house in Hells Gate while she stays in town. TOWN: Windwardside, a twenty-minute, very aerobic walk from my Hells Gate cottage. Unless I take everyone up on their offers of rides. Because almost everybody stops and asks me if I want a ride. I decline in favor of exercise. I’m already ‘the unfriendly American.’ Probably. I might have another day to win them.

Anne gave me this adventure, this highway to hell.

And speaking of damnation, I have already rewritten a chapter of my novel draft. I will rework at least one more before I sleep.

If you’re new to this adventure, go to THIS POST and read forward for context. Maybe you’ll discover a hidden part of the world to enjoy someday.