Bermudiana
 
 
     I looked out in front of me as I stepped off the plane.  This was the first time I had left the U.S. and everything was excitingly new.  The trees were different; a light shade of green, more vibrant, more palm-y. There was a gentle breeze that permanently kept the island warm.  A symphony of local animals buzzed and chirped and called out and the ocean roared gently back at them.  This might read a bit like a travel brochure so far, but take my word for it - Bermuda was pretty sweet.
    I turned back towards my grandmother, who was still walking down the steps that connected the plane with the ground.
    "This is exciting!" she said when she reached the ground, "look, the sand is pink." It was true; there was a beach nearby and the sand was definitely a light pink.   
    After admiring the sand for a bit, we went inside. We made it through customs with only a few minor mishaps ("Grandma, I don't think you can bring fruit through customs... why exactly did you bring fruit anyway?" "Oh, don't worry, it will be fine." The customs agents took the fruit) and we were quickly on our way.  We were going to be staying with some other grandparents and grandchildren in a marine research lab that was running a summer program.  Our days were going to be filled with snorkeling, cave exploring and various other interesting activities and we were excited to be spending the next three weeks here.
    For me, however, the excitement was polluted by a sense of nervousness.  I was pretty shy as a child, and this trip was not going to leave a lot of room for seclusion.  While I wish it weren't so, the truth is that I was very sheltered.  I went to a private school and lived in a nice area in the hills of Berkeley.  It wasn't that I didn't have friends or anything, but I avoided the new and the uncertain.  A cheeseburger meant meat, cheese, and a bun.  I listened to music that everyone listened to, because everyone listened to it.  I was pretty happy
as a child (except when Grandma sent me odd pieces of clothing for my birthday. If you have ever walked through a store and wondered, "who would ever buy that?" I probably had a couple of them), but I spent a lot of time in my own world. 
    Fortunately for me, change was coming quickly and without regard for my non-condiment-eating younger self.  Though I didn't know it yet, this trip was the first step on the road to maturity and self-confidence (and talking to girls).
    When we got to the lab, we were greeted by the sight of a peculiar series of buildings.  They were all completely white and they all had a mess of things sticking out of them; one had a giant satellite receiver and the others all had odd looking antennas.  We pulled up in front of the building with the "park here" sign and stepped out of the car and into the future.
    We walked up to the group of grandparents that were sitting on the porch of the building. A kid my age was playing a guitar off on the side of the porch.  Since I had just started playing guitar, things were looking up.
    "Is this where we register?" we asked the group.
    It was.
    "Philip, why don't you stay here and I'll go check us in."
    Things were quickly taking a downward turn.  A sense of dread snaked its way through my insides; the nervousness is quickly all I can feel. I am left alone with the group of grandparents.
    
    Everyone wants to know where we are from.  Berkeley? Oh wonderful, because someone has a niece who lives in Berkeley and she works as a nurse and she's going to get married soon and...
    Have we ever been here before? Someone talks about how they went to this same program last year and they loved it and it was great and...
    What is that instrument I have with me?  Oh, a guitar? They quickly decide that I should play something for them.
    I differ, but they persist in asking questions.  I don't know what to answer and I keep tripping over my words and but luckily Grandma comes back and distracts them.
   
     Released from their thrall, I head over to the guitarist.  We share a moment of recognition; he sees that I have a guitar as well.  Soon, we are playing some tunes together and I don't even remember what being nervous feels like.  He is a much better guitarist than I am but he doesn't mind teaching me some new songs; things are looking up again.  We talk while we play: he is from Staten Island, New York.  He mostly plays and listens to jazz, but he likes metal too.  His name is Steve.  I had never really listened to jazz before, so I ask him to show me some jazz songs.  Suddenly, it is late afternoon.  We had moved up to the apartment building that we were all staying in, and picked up a third person - one of the other grandchildren.  He didn't play and instrument, but he listened to a lot of music.  He was from Texas, and he is here with his grandparents and his sister.
    Later that night, at dinner, we met the rest of the grandchildren.  There were eight of us including me: five guys and three girls.  Steve, Ian, John, Clarence, Stacy, Sabrina and Kelsey.  The names all blended together and for the time being I recognized them by their physical features. Steve - curly haired guitarist who I met earlier; Ian - very tall, kinda lanky, he is the other person I met before; Clarence - blond, not fat but very big in a mountainesque way; Stacy - Clarence's sister, also blond; Sabrina - a small Asian girl; and Kelsey - a brunette who had dyed her hair light red.
    We were all sitting in the lounge of our apartment.  We were supposed to be looking over the safety guidelines for the program, but the papers we had gotten earlier that outlined the rules were left sitting untouched on the table.
    This group didn't evoke the same feelings as my earlier fiasco with the grandparents had.  The fear that kept me from talking to the grandparents was non-existent.  Everyone was interesting and exotic; Sabrina told us how she had just visited the Great Wall of China, Ian and his brother told us how they had just finished a week long backpacking trip, everyone had something interesting to add.  And surprisingly, I realized that I did too.  I told them about the trip to France that my school had just gone on and the fight we got into with a local French school (they started it). 
    While I liked everybody, the one person who stood out to me was Kelsey.  She was pretty, but there are beautiful girls everywhere.  What drew me to her was the sense of happiness she perpetually had.  She always had a smile either or her face or preparing to burst forth.  But whatever feelings drew me towards her also kept me from crossing the room and talking to her;  my shyness left me sitting with Steve.  I wanted to get up, to walk over there, to talk to her, anything at all except just sitting there, but my body wouldn't listen to my brain.  Fuck, who would want to talk to someone who couldn't even introduce themselves anyway? 

    Then, an unanticipated and altogether amazing thing happened.  She looked over at me and beckoned me over.
    "Hi, I'm Kelsey."
    "Hey, I'm Philip. Or Phil."
    "I liked your story about France, it was really funny.  Did you go there with your whole school?"
    I told her about the French-American school I went to and our trip to France; she told me about how some of her family was French and that she had visited them there a few months before.  Then the conversation moved on to whatever came to mind; likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams, passions.  One hour turned into many and before I knew it, it was three in the morning and we had fallen asleep.
    The next few week were a blur.  Our days were filled with a constant blend of new and interesting places.  We visited the pink beaches and went snorkeling - the fish were the most exotic I had ever seen, each one having its own unique color scheme and shape.  We went to an underground crystal cave, which had giant stalactites and stalagmites that sparkled and shone with rainbows of color.  We explored an underground lake and the curious little creatures that lived in it.  We took hikes through the tropical forests that covered much of the island.  We even got to see the green flash that a sunset over the ocean sometimes makes.
    Exotic as these activities were, when I think of Bermuda now, I do not think about the pink sand or the colorful fauna, I think of two moments:
    I think about a moment I had with Kelsey.  We were sitting on the beach, and she was laughing at something I had just said.  Whatever it was prompted her to tell me, "you are such a nerd! It's so cute." Such a quick, passing remake might seem like nothing momentous, but to me, it was eye-opening. It showed me that she liked me in spite of what I thought were my shortcomings.  Maybe even because of them.  I had always cringed at the possibility of being discovered as bookish or academic, yet here was someone who liked me because of it.  This realization was the effective end of my crippling self-doubt and introversion; in fact, it was a reversal.  I realized that there was no reason to be shy because I liked meeting new people.  The fear of saying the wrong things or of looking stupid evaporated because I realized that there is no script that everyone but me is following, and that even if I do look stupid it's really not the end of the world.
    And I think about our last night in Bermuda.  I woke up before sunrise, at four or five in the morning, and I couldn't go back to sleep.  The fact that this was the end of our time here - and most likely the last time we would see each other - pressed in on my conscious from all sides.  I tried to push it from my mind, but I eventually realized I wouldn't be getting any more sleep that night and tried to get up as quietly as possible.  As I stood up, however, a voice - Kelsey's - drifted up from next to where I was just laying.
    "Phil?"
    "Hey, sorry I woke you up, I-"
    "No, it's fine.  Where are you going?"
    "I'm just going outside for a bit, but it's really early still. You-"    
    "Can I come?"
    I didn't know what to say.  We hadn't talked about what would be happening the next morning - all I knew was that she was leaving early in the morning - and I was loathe to finally confirm the reality of it by having the conversation I knew we would have.
    "Yeah, sure, of course.  I'll just be outside."
    I take my guitar and go out to the beach that bordered our apartment building.  The wind was blowing slightly, like it always did, but even in the dead of night Bermuda was still warm.  The trees near us sway gently back and forth, as if there is some music I cannot hear.  I idly strum a flamenco tune while I sit and wait.
    Eventually, she comes out and sits next to me.  Neither of us says anything for what seems like a long time.  Finally, I perturb the silence.
    "So."
    She looks at me.
    "Kelsey, I... I don't know what to say... this entire trip has been amazing, and... you..."
    But before I can finish, she sobs and quickly dissolves into tears.
    I am truly at a loss for words.  There is so much I want to say to her but all I can do is hold her because I'm about to start crying too and boys don't cry.
    We sit there in the sand for a long time.  Eventually, I force myself to smile for her. 
    "Kelsey... I... I wrote a song for you. About you. I'm really bad with words so I thought that this..."
    My voice trails off as I realize I have no clue where I am going with the sentence.
    She smiles shakily back at me.  For a second it looks like she will start crying again, but she doesn't.
    "Could you play it for me?"

    Some day I would like to go back to Bermuda.  It would be nice to visit the pink beaches and the caves.  It would be nice to feel the warm breeze and the sunshine again.  But mostly, it would be nice to sit in the sand and remember my first trip to the island.  It would be nice to sit by the sea and play the song once more for old time's sake.