if there was a moment i want to live in forever, i know what that moment is.

it was on an island called ST LUCIA. sept.9 2000. a week before i moved to california, my parents took me to my favorite place in the world for a week as a graduation present. it's the most perfect place. the moment i want to live in forever:

...my parents are automatic tourist trap magnets. i told them that i wanted one day where i decided everything we did. so we got our bathing suits and our snorkling equipment and i hailed a taxi. i sat in the front with him. he had a great big smile and very shiny black cheeks. he wore a straw hat and i don't think he owned a shower. well. a functioning american style shower anyway... well.

he asked me where i wanted to go and i told him that i wanted to show my parents the real st. lucia. not the touristy markets and the all-exclusive resorts. i told him we wanted to snorkle or dive. he had a look in his eye. he knew exactly what i wanted. he agreed to drive us around all day and take us to a magnificent snorkling cove. my father thought about it. he wasn't one for making decisions where he wasn't in complete control. i begged him with my eyes. he succommed. so he paid him something like 20 bucks which was amazing for all day and then off we went. i turned up his radio. he nodded in acceptance. my parents were being blown around in the back seat. they weren't used to taxis and opened windows. they were used to rented cadillacs. so. reggae blasting on the rattling speakers, sun blaring from up high, curvy winding mountain rainforest roads with tiny towns and white sand beaches, we spot the two high peaks that reach right out of the island just like fingers pointing at the sky. they are beautiful and covered with green. we stop for a drink and then drive some more. my parents are worrying this guy doesn't know where he is going. i am rest assured he is the perfect cabbie. THE BEST. he soon gets us there...

there being this tropical paradise of a french resort. very low-key. very no electricity... but very luxury somehow. he takes us on a tiny rocky road that feels like we are cutting right through the forest, and all of a sudden we see it. a desolate inlet, enveloped by greenery and birds, and flowers, and and and... we all split to the changing rooms provided on the beach and come out to snorkle. my father and mother are already out. i followed. the cabby took off his shirt and pants and swam around the ocean in his underwear. i liked that. i wished i was naked. i wished my parents weren't there. i was 18. i miss being 18 and in that inlet. my parents kept going out further and explored whatever beauty my father could find. my mom was always deathly afraid of drowning if water got in the breathing tube, so i think she just waded in the water and said OH YEAH THAT'S BEEEEAAAUUTIFUL a lot. i swam back to the beach and laid out. the cabby came up to me and asked if i wanted to play marco polo. we played for a while and then all of a sudden, when i was calling MARCO, he came up behind me and grabbed my waist. i remember getting shocked all over my body. no one other than my 2 high school boyfriends had ever touched me like that. i felt like i could supply sex for the world all of a sudden. like he flipped on my switch. i loved it. he held me in the water and my innocence stopped anything that could possibly happen. it was enough to know that this guy, who my father was paying and trusting to take us out for a good time, was giving his daughter a good time. niiiice. it was my first dirty dirty but oh so innocent and clean moment and it happened right there in the bay while perfection thrived all around us. he soon became way too touchy feely on me on the ride home and i rolled my eyes a lot and gave him looks to make him stop because i didn't want my father and mother to think i was slutty or would do anything with this strange new friend. he began to annoy me. then, he asked my father permission to take me to a party that night and i knew exactly what he was talking about. i had been to st. lucia a few times before that and he was talking about this wonderful street party that begins when the sun goes down and ends when the sun comes up basically in this little area called GROS ISLET. it's a big rastafarian fest. with lots of pot. my father said sure and i soon forgot that the cabby was annoying me and he became my freedom for that night.

it was an amazing night. i spent most of it sitting on a huge brick wall painted black yellow and red facing the water and the beach. a few men were there that i didn't know, but my friend, hayden was there which made me happy because i couldn't remember where he lived and i didn't want to go around by myself looking for him. we chilled and smoked and sang and danced and talked all night and then i went back to the very innappropriate resort my parents had reserved for that week and went to sleep. for like an hour. then my father woke me up for breakfast and said we were going on a hike through the rainforest. i hated the rainforest, as i was hungover.

and that is what i want to live over and over and over and over again.