Uoleva
Lindsey Clark
In case it calms your soul (as it does mine) to know: there are still places on this planet that remain unspoiled by the few people who inhabit them. Places you can reach without obscene riches. Where sunrises and sunsets are the only clock needed and an afternoon nap is an expectation. Where you have a sense of being far away from everything—alone, even—while surrounded by a beauty that makes you feel truly alive and glad to be.
They may not be easy to reach.
You may have to travel to the opposite side of the planet, then take another plane deep into the vast Pacific. Board a tiny third plane to a mostly unknown island where little happens but the quiet lives of a thousand people who mark the years by memorable tropical cyclones. You may have to wait out a sudden rain shower in the stifling mugginess of a car turned off to save gas, windows up against the downpour. Sweating, you might gaze at the water’s edge and at the small motorboat you have just been told will soon take you to yet another island. Uoleva.
The boat may not inspire confidence, rust crawling up its starboard side. But after three men and three teenage boys load it up with supplies, jump aboard, and motion for you to join them, you may just think to yourself: What the hell. And do it. Wade in, up past your knees, splash over the edge of the questionable vessel, take a seat on a pile of plastic-wrapped parcels, and wonder if this is it, if you will drown at sea in a place you never specifically identified to any of your family or friends back home. Not that they could do anything to save you now anyway.
But once you do all this, the boat does not sink. You do not drown. Really, there was nothing to fear. The pilot never takes things above the speed of a puttering cruise, deftly maneuvering around the coral reef laid out like an uneven blanket beneath the keel. You see several islands in the distance and wonder which of them is your destination. But there is no reason to ask. You are not sure if anyone on board will understand the question, and the answer will reveal itself soon enough.
As the boat approaches the pale sand of the perfect northern shore of Uoleva, you feel you are in a dream state. The boys exchange joyful grins before cannonballing into the clear blue, undulating water. Once the men stand in the sand holding lines to brace the vessel in the surf, the boys take a break from frolicking to carry your bags and then beckon you to step down into the ocean and wade ashore.
Within an hour of arriving, you are sipping water straight from a coconut and then prying out the white meat with your fingers. (You forget, until a bumpy rash develops on your belly that evening, your mild allergic sensitivity to coconut.) Palm and papaya trees rustle in a steady breeze and shade you from the noontime sun. They all spring from the endless sand—the only type of ground or floor that exists here. It shifts constantly under your feet.
There is no village on this island. Only a handful of rustic hut accommodations like this one and the people who run them. And you are the only guest here. You go to the water’s edge, disbelieving, but easily confirm: there is no one else, as far as the eye can see in either direction.
You stoop to pluck a strong, gnarled shell from the beach and discover it still inhabited, the creature inside pin-wheeling its feet uselessly until you return it to the ground, and it hurries away. Only then do you notice the sand is cross-hatched with the footprints of dozens of surf-dwellers scuttling to new safe havens as the tide ebbs and flows, ebbs and flows.
The edging of perfect, soft sand at this part of the beach rings the entire island. The elderly caretaker here says it is 3 hours to make a full circumnavigation on foot—4 if you make occasional stops for rests and cooling swims. You ambitiously plan to take the entire walk each day of your stay. But on your first attempt, you discover the sand is so soft your feet sink in several inches with every step. Before you even pass the last point of the beach, you can see from your hut, you are exhausted. So you send your ambitions back to wherever they came from. Surely they were not born on this island. Instead, each day you pick one direction or the other and go until your feet and knees start to feel the strain. Then you turn back and head for a hammock.
Some of the palm trees lean at angles of 45 degrees or greater, testaments to past cyclones, including the one 3 years ago that (the elderly owner tells you) destroyed every structure on the property and left him and his wife darting to hide behind this tree, then that one, for protection during the ten hours it took the beast to blow through.
The two activities most touted for visitors to these islands are swimming with the humpbacks and attending a church service to hear the soaring choral performances. But you have arrived weeks after the last of the whales have migrated onward, and you are spending the only Sunday of your visit to this remote country here on this village-less, churchless island. Usually this would prompt you to worry you have missed out in some way that brings your character and the legitimacy of your experience into question. But now, you think: Oh, well. And go back to watching the waves roll in.
Resting on the beach at sunset, you gaze across the water to a marine volcano on the skyline, so absorbed in this beauty and your good fortune that at first you do not notice the sand crabs appearing all around you, their delicate legs moving too fast to see clearly. The sunset evolves into something epic beyond any words you know. The sky, in the last moments before complete darkness falls, is the bright orange of glowing embers resting briefly on the horizon.
After dark you crawl under mosquito netting onto your bed, a simple mattress on the floor of your thatch-roofed, bamboo hut. It feels stuffed with straw. Sprawled naked like a starfish to expose as much skin as possible to the breeze wandering through the open windows, you fall asleep semi-aware of waves whispering against your eardrums and the uneven patter of raindrops on the roof. The total black of night guards your nakedness, though there is no one around who cares anyway.
On the first morning you wake, stretch, and wonder for a moment at the strange feeling welling up inside you. Then you realize it is happiness for this new day and the opportunity to live it. For each of your 4 days on Uoleva, you do not put on shoes or wear anything other than a swimsuit. You sleep when tired, walk when restless, and generally re-learn to hear and heed the cues of your body while wondering how you got yourself into a life that tempts or requires you to ignore them so often.
In the sticky heat of mid-day, you sometimes grow agitated. One of the two resident mutts keeps jumping up on you, covering you in slick, slobbery sand. Then there is the sun beating down relentlessly. The itch of the bites from the mosquitoes that found holes in your bed netting last night. The spot on your shoulder you missed with the sunscreen yesterday, which smarts each time you carelessly scratch it. The fly that keeps landing on your knee no matter how many times you brush it away. The empty plastic bottles and other rubbish you find washed up on the otherwise-pristine island. But when you feel any annoyance rise, you have time to stop and breathe and let the feeling dissolve. You have all the time in the world.
Coral reefs creep close to shore not one hundred meters down the beach from your hut. You snorkel amid tiny, electric-blue fish. Fat, ovular ones. Sea cucumbers, sting rays. And—are those oysters? Or clams? With the rippled, purple velvet openings turned skyward from where they have embedded themselves in the coral? You realize how little know you know about oysters. And clams.
Floating in the impossibly warm shallows of the Pacific, you feel tears rise and are not sure why. It might be having the space and freedom to mourn your recent loss, or a more general feeling of release, or simple gratitude for this place and the opportunity to be here.
You read for hours, rocking gently in a hammock strung up in the shade. Sometimes your eyes droop close and you let them. The breeze is strong enough to discourage most of the flies and mosquitoes but not so strong that it disturbs or tires you.
Each mid-afternoon, the sun has baked the sand so thoroughly you have to dart from the shadow of one palm tree to the next to get from your hammock to the bathroom, a method you learned after painfully toasting the soles of your feet. The locals seem to have no such problem. Probably because they are wise enough not to stir from their own hammock naps all afternoon.
Breakfast and dinner are prepared for you, easy bookends to the days of leisure. Breakfast is fresh fruit, boiled eggs, homemade breads, jars of jam, and instant coffee with powdered milk. Late afternoon, the caretaker’s wife sends one of the young boys into the water with a spear. He returns with stunning swiftness, a rainbow-scaled fish in hand. An hour later you are served breaded fish with tarot in a soupy sauce of sautéed vegetables for dinner. If you get hungry in between meals, the caretaker tells you, just pick papayas and coconuts from the trees.
Your hosts’ English is good enough to communicate the basics but not so fluent that you feel any pressure to really engage. Mostly, you relax in silence. There is no need to explain your life, the sadness and confusion currently lodged in your heart, the path you took to get here, the fork already visible in the road to your future, the choice you must soon make, or your thoughts on the recent elections. You can mull privately. At the same time, the quiet and peace have their own wisdom to communicate: that everything is okay; that life stings and soothes in mostly equal parts; that things are only as complicated as you make them. That you are damn lucky to be here.
The two camp dogs continue to shadow you relentlessly. When you take your beach strolls, they try to follow. When you lay down in a hammock, they rush forward and seem to be trying to jump in there with you. When you sit on a piece of driftwood on the beach to watch the sun set, they plop down on top of your feet. When you try to move, they think you want to play and start nipping and clawing at your shins. They tilt back their heads, inviting you to scratch their necks. In every other developing country you have visited, dogs are so mistreated they cower from humans and are aggressive if approached. Maybe animal-loving Western visitors have spoiled these two rotten and they now expect the same from you? You tell them, very matter-of-fact: Sorry, guys, but I’m just not a dog person, and I’d like to be left alone. They ignore you. But when you ignore them, in return they stare at you so intently, so pleadingly, and with such soulful sadness, gazing into your eyes for as long as you allow, you start to wonder if they are some kind of supernatural messengers trying to tell you something or to teach you something. They are freaking you out.
One late afternoon, as you head to the ocean to rinse away the day’s sweaty film and whatever heavy thoughts still stick to you, you notice a fish the size of your thumb on the beach, flopping and gasping. Hold on, little buddy, you say aloud as you scoop it up with the sand beneath it and then toss it down into the surf. For several moments you think you were too late or too rough. It floats passively on its side in the clear water, looking dead. But then it reorients itself, shakes off the stunning change in circumstance, and darts away from you, restored.
There is no mirror here you can use to scrutinize and criticize your body. Instead you move around, scantily clad, with a growing awareness of how good you feel. How healthy. And how amazing this is, as you careen toward middle age.
Through the course of each day, the color of the ocean morphs from a pale blue to a silvery lavender to a vibrant turquoise to a mysterious violet-navy. After sunset, the water is draped in the black of the sky and your eyes are pulled up to the stars, as many as you have ever seen anywhere. They make you feel tiny and happy and absolutely clear about the cosmic triviality of your small, personal worries.
When you happen to handle the paper your reservation confirmations and itinerary are printed on, you notice it has absorbed the humid, salty air and is soft and pliable, reminiscent of the pulp it came from.
Swaying in your hammock, you purposefully listen to songs reminding you of particular times in your past—of people you loved, still love, sometimes wonder about, still miss. You ferret out the individual nooks in your heart that they permanently occupy. You remember when your heart feels full to bursting, as it often does, you have each of them and their continued residence there—unchanged by time or distance—to thank for it.
At some point you look out over the water and have a moment of true confusion trying to remember why you have ever wasted any time being impatient with or critical of anyone, including yourself.
Four days go quickly. Seconds tick past, even in languor. Your last night on the island, you stare trancelike over the surface of the ocean, wishing you had more time but knowing a few more days would not be enough. And at the same time, the rest of the world prowls on, and you want to be a part of it. You will leave, voluntarily but torn. Comforted in knowing that whenever you recall Uoleva, it will be there for you, protected in memory. A private haven, a deep serenity. You will think: I was there. I know it. And I know how it felt.
Or maybe you were never there. Maybe you just once heard about it or read about it or had a dream that seemed so real. And in the loud or overwhelming moments in life—the kids arguing, doors slamming, traffic roaring, work compounding, meaningless chores glaringly undone—you close your eyes against the din and know Uoleva exists. You go there in your mind and that is enough.
Lindsey Clark is a Wisconsin native who has lived in Massachusetts, North Carolina, California, Colorado, Italy, Morocco, Madagascar, and Antarctica—along the way exploring 60 countries and every continent. Her work has been published in magazines such as Hippocampus, daCunha, Switchback, and South 85, as well as the anthology “Memories of Sun.” She is also the author of a travel memoir, “Land of Dark and Sun.”