18 - Volume Two - Club Med Turks & Caicos

Stephen and I spent the last week of January ( wonderfully, it was a frigid and snowy week in January) at Club Med in Turks & Caicos. People generally don't walk around an all-inclusive resort with their wallets, but on the day that they are leaving, they are lounging around the main bar, getting their last mango daiquiri and exchanging emails with the new friends that they have made.

Several people we had been hanging out with during the week were leaving on the Friday, so I brought out my Something From Your Wallet journal.



The above entry is from Cher, who was on the same snorkeling boat as us one day. It was the day that Stephen spotted a nurse shark and took a great video of it, as well as many photos.

Here is the link to the nurse shark video that Stephen put on You Tube:
Nurse Shark video




If you look at this image in the right light you can just barely see Renee's contribution - a peppermint lifesaver! Not the easiest thing to scan. Renee is a friend of Cher's.


Zalida, who we met down there at Club Med Turks, who lives not too far away from us. The little yellow stickie note is the air miles she has, on what airline I do not know, but it seems to be a lot of miles.



Melissa from New York City. Bit of a hines story here.

When we first met Melissa, she was constantly checking her Blackberry. A bit later the same night, we were sitting in the theatre area talking to Melissa and another fellow Club Medder, Bob. Throughout the conversation, Melissa would be checking her Blackberry and writing emails (this was at about 10 at night, or even later). So ... I bugged her about it. You're on vacation, for crying out loud, get rid of the Blackberry. Melissa explained that she runs her own business, she just hired a brand new assistant who is holding down the fort while she was gone, she simply cannot jeopardize her own business by ignoring her clients and not replying to her new assistant. .... I continued to bug her. You've made that choice. You've put yourself in this situation where you're on vacation but you're not really on vacation. Although I continued to stay on her case about it, I ended up feeling pretty shitty about how I was talking to her. I was not cutting her any breaks.

The rest of the week, I felt a bit of tension every time I talked to Melissa. And I felt like crap about it, because she is a really nice person, and I was an ass towards her.

On our last day at Club Med, the dreaded day when you are forced out of your denial and forced into airplane clothes, Melissa was bound and determined to give me something from her wallet. She had put together a whole pile of things and wanted to let me know that I had made her take a look at her life in an otherwise neglected perspective. I think that the collage she put together in my journal and her words are wonderfully cathartic (I hope it was, anyway).

I will definitely try to get in touch with Melissa the next time I am in New York City. And I will be hoping that she has been taking the time to enjoy life and her hobbies a little bit more. And I will be more careful in my words and my judgement towards others.




the Elizabeth story