Part V: Existential Gardening Questions and an Ideal Birthday

We loved the place we stayed in Luquillo. The guy who owned the rental house lived in another house on the property, which can be awkward, but it was fine and we didn't feel that "barely-sanctioned intruder" feeling you sometimes get. He was the epitome of the expat high-powered corporate lawyer who left it all behind to live on a mountain top and do organic micro-farming. (I don't know what his real story is, but I'd put money on it being something like that.) When he showed us around, he had a sort of proud-but-also-laid-back vibe: "So here's the passion fruit vine; it's kinda taking over the place, ha ha." It made me wonder how one even has a yard in the middle of the rainforest. What IS a yard, really? How do you "plant" a garden when everything just grows? Does gardening consist mainly of fighting off the plants you don't want? How many months can you go before the rainforest starts encroaching on you with its own ideas? 

I have so many questions.

We had bananas, papayas, passion fruit, star fruit, and pineapple in our yard—those were just the things that were ripe. There may have been more. And speaking of strange gardening issues, I learned that a banana tree CAN ONLY GROW ONE BUNCH OF BANANAS. In its lifetime! That's it! Then it dies! But a new banana tree (and technically speaking they aren't even called trees) can sprout up from the side, out of the roots, and grow next to the old one. So, does a banana orchard just…migrate over time? If you want to plant bananas do you have to clear a whole row for the your one tree to proceed down over the years? If your neighbor plants a banana tree will it eventually be in your yard?

Also, do you feel bad that the tree which produced your bunch of breakfast bananas is now deceased, never to bear fruit again? Tropical fruits are so weird.

That's the passion fruit vine, growing up the tree

Star fruit tree

Close up

Baby pineapple

Our host said we could pick whatever fruit we wanted, and when we arrived at the house there was already a bowlful of fresh fruit there, so we got to try everything. There were also some flowers from the yard in vases. What would it be like to just go out and assemble a bouquet like this from your own yard??

Fruit cut up for breakfast. The star fruit is really good—I had it in Hawaii too but I thought it was better here. It reminds me of kiwi, a little. The passion fruit you think is going to be weird because you can eat the seeds, but they are just nice and lightly crisp, like poppyseeds or something. And the pulp around them is good and sweet. I like papaya but Seb thought it tasted deeply "wrong" somehow—not spoiled or anything, just strange to him. And of course the tiny bananas are so delicious. I wish we could grow them here! (One tree at a time.)

When I look at this picture of the back patio where we ate our meals, it feels unreal to me. Were we really there??

The yard was especially pretty at sunrise and sunset. The clouds seemed so soft and so close!

It rained every day, sometimes more than once. Sometimes just a gentle shower and other times more of a downpour, but I always loved the sound and smell of it falling. And I loved waking up to it at night. It didn't really cool things off much, but it felt nice to go out in it anyway!

The coqui frogs were louder here than anywhere else! After a rainstorm, especially, they'd just go crazy. I love them! Sebastian decided to dislike them mostly because I liked them so much, so he complained about the racket they were making, but deep down I think he really liked them too. :)

This is what they sound like

With so many coquis, you'd think it would easy to find one in the trees, but I couldn't find any even when I went outside specifically listening and looking for them. But one night this little guy ended up in Seb's window, so we got to see him! He's so cute!

And then right after that I found one in the bathroom.

I tried to grab him, but he (probably wisely) would have none of it. Still, this shows how tiny he is.

There were also lots of lizards—we sat outside and watched two of them scuttle around and catch moths one evening. They are so fast! This was a particularly small one, no bigger than a grasshopper. Cute!!

The yard was full of bromeliads, ferns, anthurium, orchids, and a bunch of stuff I don't even know the names of. All beautiful.

I had big plans of going running while we were staying in the rainforest, but even at night and in the morning, it was just TOO hot! I felt exhausted after barely stepping out the door. So, I ended up just walking with Sam a bit. In spite of feeling like we were in the middle of the jungle, we were also in a sort of neighborhood. There were houses (some roofless, like we'd seen in other places) and cars and chickens and clotheslines.

Even a peacock!

We walked back along the rainforest-y road we'd first driven in on. It was nice to be walking because we could see everything up close, and look back behind that first green curtain which is all that shows from the road. The bamboo looks a lot taller and fatter up close, and those fluffy leaves I like so much are way up above your head so you hardly see them!

It was so dark once you got under the trees!

Even the road cuts were covered in green

I liked the look of these leaf silhouettes against the sky

And these

A big leaf

I can't tell in these pictures if there is a little mist in the air (there sometimes was) or if the camera lens was fogging up from the humidity (it almost always did. How do professional photographers cope with that in Puerto Rico).

Don't forget this is a ROAD. Not a walking path.

And this is too. It looks like a dirt road here but really it's just muddy.

Sunbeams. More mud.

We followed a little stream that branched off from the road.

The rainforest was too dense to really walk through, but I just walked right up the stream. It's so surprising to walk through a stream and not have your feet be freezing the whole time!

Thin little vines hanging down everywhere

It's funny (HA HA, so funny) that we have three August birthdays in our family. And somehow this trip managed to span ALL OF THEM. We celebrated Daisy's birthday (adequately, I hope) a day early, before we left. And we left the kids at home under strict orders NOT to tell Clementine when it was her birthday, so we could celebrate together when we got back. But we got to celebrate with Seb on the trip, which seemed extra fun.

Seb's birthday fell on the Sunday, so we went to church in the morning. There is a branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints right in Luquillo, and they have a nice little building of their own. There were only about thirty people there, including us! Abraham's little branch in Magnolia, Arkansas is also about thirty people, so I was thinking about him, and better able to imagine what his sacrament meetings are like.

At church, we met a family with seven kids that had moved there to Puerto Rico from Eagle Mountain, Utah! During the pandemic they just felt inspired to sell everything and move, and Luquillo is where they ended up! Doesn't that seem brave? When I told my other kids about it after the trip, all of them said some version of "NEVER DO THAT TO US!" Ha. But the kids in this family seemed to have taken it in stride and were doing well. Three of them gave talks that Sunday—one boy spoke in English, one girl read out her written Spanish kind of haltingly, and one boy gave his in careful Spanish and then again in English! Kind of cool.

The other thing that happened in church was that we saw Ryan Murphy (the director of the Tabernacle Choir). He was visiting Puerto Rico with his family. I recognized him immediately (I would know his face anywhere) and then had to convince Sam and Seb that it was actually him. I was ready to just drift quietly past him at the end of the meeting, but Seb, hilariously I thought, insisted that we go over and meet him. I kept saying, "No! We don't need to meet him!" but Seb would NOT leave until we did. Finally we went over and introduced ourselves. Turns out he knows my cousin Rob from BYU, and Rob's wife Cheri who is in the choir, and actually knew them way back in Boston…so now Ryan Murphy and I are like this 🤞🏼, is what I'm saying.

After church we decided to do a hike in the non-fee area of the rainforest, just a couple miles from our house. Angelito Trail goes to a river where there are lots of deep places to swim. 

The trail was so beautiful!!

Bamboo-y

Seb is, and has always been, a monkey

There are other little streams all through the forest

Found a red leaf. Didn't know they ever turned red here!

Sam is a little confused about what he's holding, apparently.

The river itself was filled with both huge and small rocks, but between them and in several smoother areas, the water got really deep—too deep to touch the bottom. Those places were so good for swimming! The water looks brown here, but it didn't look or feel dirty. And it felt so nice to get into the water after the hot and humid hike! You don't gasp with shock when you get in, and you don't feel cold or shivery when you get out. You just think, "Ahhh. Perfect."

You did have to pick your way pretty carefully along because the bottom is so rocky. I wouldn't have lasted a minute without water shoes.

Later that day, we went to a place called "Las Paylas." It was a house just around the corner from our rental with a sign in their front yard: "Natural Rock Waterslides." We decided to check it out. You walk down through their yard, past these huge banana (?) trees.

Then on a little path down to the river.

Then you can see the "waterslide!"

It's really cool. The fast river really does just carry you right down the rock like a waterslide! And the pool beneath is very deep, so it's a great landing place. (The guy in the picture is standing on a raised rock area at that one side.) The water does fling you around rather. I was none too sure about trying it out myself. I was afraid it would hurt to bounce along the rock! But after Seb went down he said it was fine—the force of the water keeps you moving so you don't really scrape the rock itself, he claimed. I ended up trying it somewhat reluctantly, just from halfway down, and it was okay, but I preferred just watching other people. :) 

Seb going down the slide

Farther downriver there was another slide area that was a lot less steep. I liked this one much better.

And then at the bottom was the deepest area yet. It was perfect for just swimming and floating around. So relaxing. Seb (and Sam, to some extent) climbed around and did all sorts of adventurous things, but I just wanted to float in the water and look at those green, green trees. That's me in the picture, happily hanging out next to a big boulder.

Seb flips (don't worry, he checked the depth of the water first)

It could not have been a more perfect way to spend an afternoon. I wished we could have showed this fun place to all the other kids, but also…it was nice not having to constantly worry that some child or other was going to fall in the water and drown.

When we got home I made ham and cheese sliders for Seb's birthday dinner, and Sam grilled the BEST fresh pineapple ever.

And I made little Sebby Cakes (in a disposable muffin tin!)

The weightiness of this milestone hit me suddenly, and I started crying while I was saying the dinner prayer. I can't believe my little Sebby is EIGHTEEN! How did this happen? What an adventure these 18 years have been with him! I feel overwhelmed and "full"—sad, hopeful, nostalgic, regretful, grateful, astonished, joyful, exhausted—when I think about those years and the ones ahead. I'm so thankful to be his mother!