As we are adjusting to our new, odd, currently awkward and uncomfortable life here, there are those who insist on telling us that we should be happy as clams because we live in paradise. We are a twenty minute walk from a 25 kilometer stretch of nearly empty beach, a tropical wonderland where exotically shaped flowers erupt from every possible surface and one keeps surprising some new colorful animal around every corner.
All of this true. Please stop saying it to us.
Here is the problem: we have realized that we are living in someone else’s paradise. It is a nice place. Really. But telling us we should feel a constant swelling of ecstatic joy because we live in a paradise which holds infinite interest and delights for someone who is not us does not help when we want to claw our eyes out from homesickness. Consult the following chart, if you are not convinced:
| Someone Else’s Paradise | Our Paradise |
| Warm, salty waves crash on a vast expanse of soft, tan-toned sand, butted against a dense tangle of palm and banana. | Central Denver, but we can afford to buy a house. |
| The sun rolls off every surface, leaving your skin golden and the ground giving off gasping waves of heat. | It is physically impossible to get sunburned. |
| You wander around in shorts and sandals all the time, enjoying the laid-back beach vibe. You pride yourself on wearing a shirt, which is more dressed up than most of the locals. | We get to wear sweaters all the time and yell at people to “tighten up”. |
| There’s a tropical moistness that fills your chest with every breath – the rain, when it comes, is impenetrable sheets that make lakes and rivers of every surface. | Our towels dry in 2 minutes. |
| The beach – only a short walk from your house – is populated by young, well-muscled surfers and nubile young women in bikinis. Beautiful people from all corners of the world murmur words from every conceivable language around the mouth of their beer bottles. | The library is staffed by particularly knowledgeable librarians. There are martinis available in the international fiction section on weekends. |
| Everywhere you look is some new animal – a bird with a dizzying yellow or pale celestial blue outside your window, a meter-long iguana with a rose crest whipping a huge black tail through the dust, basilisks running splay-legged across the water, white-faced monkeys stealing your picnic lunch. | Exactly the same, but the monkeys bring us drinks instead of stealing our lunch. |
| It is so easy to sport fish/surf/take an extreme rainforest canopy tour. | It is so easy to sit at the art museum and drink an espresso. |
| Everywhere you walk, you are followed by the mellow, pot-hazed rhythms of reggae. | Bob Marley’s “Legend” album was never released. |
| You and your soul mate gaze deeply into each others’ eyes as you tread the moonlit beach, the surf gently lapping at your heels as you tap your wine glasses together. | We go for a romantic walk home from Charlie Brown’s Bar, which is blissfully free of mosquitoes and sand. We manage not to step on any homeless people on the way. |
| IN SUMMARY: | |
| Hibiscus flowers. | Potted plants. |
| Ocean waves. | Lawn sprinklers. |
| Sand and seashells. | Asphalt. |
| Palm trees. | Not palm trees. |
