Over the next few days, I’ll recount my experiences before, during, and after the Writing Excuses Retreat on board the Royal Carribean Oasis of the Seas. I’ll begin with the flight south.
September 16th
I look into the eyes of the Man in the Moon. I wonder if he’s looking back at me. I’ve never been at eye-level with the moon before. The plane approaches Fort Lauderdale, flying among the towering cumulonimbus clouds. Looking out the window, I see the moon, and through cloud breaks, the ripple of water. Cloud shadows seem like floating islands.
I wonder if the woman sitting a few rows ahead of me with the Star Wars t-shirt and the R2D2 backpack is also on her way to the retreat. It turns out she is, but I’m too shy to approach her.
Today is a day of small triumphs: an uneventful drive to the airport, on time flights, successfully hailing a cab to my hotel.
I step out of the air-conditioned cab into the Florida humidity and directly into the air-conditioned hotel. My glasses can’t stand the rapid climate change and fog up. I see vague shapes clustered in the lobby around what may or may not be sofas. Are they writers? What does a writer look like? I can’t see the sign for reception and someone points me in the right way.
I meet my first writer in the elevator on the way down to dinner. A group of us late arrivals who missed the organized dinner, eat together at the hotel. We talk about writing and service newts and whether or not you’d be able to bring a goldfish on an airplane if it was your official emotional care animal.
September 17th
Three in the morning. A fire alarm. Flashing lights. Blaring siren. Awake enough to grab the room key and a pair of flip flops. There are others, more awake, around me. They have backpacks; laptops hugged tight to their chests. I curse my own stupidity. What if it really is a fire? Everything will burn.
False alarm.
Back in bed. Heart rate petering down to resting. Adrenalin draining. Eyes sinking shut. My pillow is heavenly.
Stupid fire alarm strikes again!
Should I bother getting out of bed?
And alarm off.
Is there or isn’t there a fire here?
Four in the morning. Yet another alarm. This one goes on and on. Awake enough to think, I grab the essentials and head down the stairs: laptop, passport, and wallet in hand.
Another false alarm.
Peaceful sleep until the actual sun-up-in-the-sky morning. Breakfast with a bunch of bleary-eyed writers. Turns out, the alarm only went off on some floors. Some slept all through the night; others endured sirens until five in the morning. Those of us who arrived late at night learn that the fire alarms had been going off all afternoon as well, some sort of electrical problem.
On Board
Shuttle from hotel to cruise port. Security. Check-in. Boarding. Hours before staterooms are ready. I find myself in Central Park.
I’m on a cruise ship with a park. There are trees, full-grown, full-blown trees, growing in a park on a cruise ship. There are lizards living in the park on the ship. I wonder how they got there. Did Royal Carribean introduce them to the park or did the lizards stow away? Is there a secret lizard colony living in the center of the ship surviving on leftover room service?
Next: Part Two: And so it begins
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