The band was loading its equipment, not one more encore could be squeezed from them, so I headed home. I did not get very far. I did not want to go home. Instead I parked and went for a walk. The night was blast furnace hot and after dancing for hours I craved the cool. In pursuit of a breeze I headed to the docks where narrow board walkways hem the yachts and dinghies. Sure enough, there were soft wisps of scented breeze. Sometimes I hung over the railings hoping to see a torpedo-sized tarpon, or better yet the cement bollard that is the prehistoric manatee.

However, turns out I was not alone. From the other direction came a couple of lads, one lanky, one squat, both in their early twenties, at most. Strolling and chatting, they rolled their rusty banged up bikes on the back wheels.

“Are you lost?” asked Squat, with a smile.

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Dyslexia afflicts a quarter of humanity. I am a member of that quarter and I am at the mercy of the misfiring synapses. Spelling, therefore, is a nightmare for me. School was pockmarked with fraught experiences with exasperated teachers. I was frequently written off as a moron (that, of course, is another story).

Unhelpfully, my first couple of decades on earth I was ferried to and from the USA and the UK. And so began a lifelong tango twixt the myriad distinctions of American English and English English, where sometimes words are spelled the same but pronounced differently and vice versa. I was deeply confused. I muddled on and learned a few rules but otherwise I have relied heavily on the gamut from moldy old dictionaries to the current luxury of electronic spell check.

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The trouble was I windsurfed to Saudi Arabia. The one time I attempted this sport I grasped the standing part, and I could do a decent job of staying up and traveling in any direction the wind would take me, but despite a week of lessons I could not learn how to turn the thing around. This was 1986 and I was in Jordan at the time, a guest of the late King Hussein and his fourth wife, the cool tall blonde half American half Syrian Queen Noor.

When I windsurfed to Saudi Arabia I was rescued by a flotilla of the King of Jordan’s servants who motored out and gathered me up and into their boat and lashed my sailing device off the stern, back to the Palace on the Gulf of Aqaba.

One day the King took me, and some other guests, in his power boat. He said it was the big brother to a cigarette. It sure went fast. All of us with crazy hair zagging to the side as we clung to padded handles and smiled at each other and felt the chattering of teeth from the force.

Christina and the late King Hussein of Jordan on the fast boat!

Then we slowed and bobbed nearby a promontory of crags with some sort of structure atop it. “Now we are in Egypt,” The King told us, and then he revved the power boat and we zoomed away, back to Jordan, keeping wide of Israeli waters and an eye out for submarines.

Also visiting were the King and Queen of Spain, Juan Carlos and Sophie. Cousins of mine whom I knew since childhood.

Christina and King Juan Carlos of Spain

There were times we joked we had a strong poker hand, with two Kings, two Queens and a prime minister. A highlight was one day, over lunch, witness to an extraordinary conversation between the King of Jordan and the King of Spain as they good-naturedly and a touch competitively compared notes on the multiple assassination attempts made on their lives.

Their Majesties Queen Sophie of Spain and King Hussein of Jordan

This was the occasion of my first wedding, to a Brit whose mother was friendly with the late King Hussein. It was a marriage arranged speedily. After a brief courtship the future hubby and I boarded a flight to Jordan, with a wedding cake from Harrods, and my future ex-husband’s mother. I invited no guests, looking for a fresh clean slate, but the groom’s mother was our witness at the wedding ceremony, held in the half excavated half restored tomb of Moses, on a hill overlooking the Dead Sea. Before the King flew us away in his helicopter we set free white doves.

King Hussein at the helm of his helicopter

Setting the tone for this marriage my mother-in-law remained with us on our honeymoon. Seven years later I would return hubby to his mother. All yours, I thought, and moved on with my life and gradually forgot about the details of this episode. Until today when I started opening up boxes and looking at old photos, having a laugh at the ancient memories and wondering if it’s time to try windsurfing again.

Storm season gathers with steamy days of solid rain, interspersed with earsplitting lightning jags. The dusty ground is churned to swamp. The intrepid paddle their kayaks down Duval Street. So much rain fell that mushrooms, like bronzing melting marshmallows swollen in the bases of the potted plants in the garden, have emerged. And butterflies dark and large as vampire bats cling to the windows. Between their furry wings I watched the neighbor’s cooler floating down his driveway.

Finally there was a spate of dry long enough for the streets to drain and the sidewalks to pucker dry. I drove downtown and parked near Mallory Square. The first action I encountered was a swarm of cop cars, lights slashing about, nosed in and surrounding a dustup at the crossroads of Greene and Duval where a chauffeur driven stretch limousine was headfirst plowed into a red plastic electric golf cart type thing.

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For reasons beyond my control I was raised in the rain prone United Kingdom, so I am partial to the rain. I love the rain even more so here in the tropics, when the sun is lost in watery clouds and all recognizable sounds of life are replaced by the clattering downpour, meanwhile the air is sweetly spiced and warm.

I was at home, lolling in my white armchair, watching the hypnotic storm outside my windows and I was lulled asleep. I know I fell asleep because I recognized my dream, more a recurring nightmare that I have traipsed through for decades where I am in a vaguely familiar house, it is dusk and the place is consumed by shadows. I am afraid of the dark, especially in this dream, and I rush from room to room flipping the switches on the walls, trying the lamps, but no lights illumine. Occasionally a lamp will light momentarily, like a sneer, before turning off, leaving me in a darker darkness, and filling with anxiety and scurrying in the encroaching night.

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The jail writing class is voluntary and no special dispensation is offered anyone beyond the gratification of a couple of distracting hours. Those who attend, about twenty, are made up of an evolving array of faces. Some are still there since before my first visit last summer, others pop in for a quick stint, never to be seen again. And then the third group, those who come and go and know the rules better than the guards, know the laws better than their court appointed lawyers. Yet, for myriad reasons, they return.

At 7:30pm on Saturdays, Candace (my fearless leader and program creator of twenty years) and I hand in our IDs at the main check in area, and after a brisk frisk of our persons and possessions we make our way. Buzzed through thick doors, and along corridors painted the color of untanned Caucasian skin, deep into the interior of the structure, to the ladies wing.

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Locals say the best thing about leaving Key West is the joy one experiences upon returning. So true!

Early April I made the first of three forays to NYC. Unexpectedly I tripped into a rabbit hole of good luck when my dear friend Vanessa Noel offered to host a party for me and my latest book, a collection of short stories.

A word on these ‘books’. The last three books I have published have been self-published directly on Amazon. This is an incredible option available to authors, the downside being that without a comprehensive knowledge of formatting and templates the finished product can look a little wonky. Thus the degree of wonkiness riddling my latest ‘books’.

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The way I heard the story there is an inland river, up the Keys a ways, and in the river lived a large blue crab. This crab kept to itself, not only because it was a crab, but because it was always grumpy and whining and complaining. Even amongst other crabs this crab was bad.
But one day this bad crab was obliged to engage with the rest of the crab population. There was a referendum, or something political, and all crustaceans had been called together to vote on a issue of the riverbed and how it was being despoiled. Something to do with those dastardly humans and their need to ruin things with bridges and footpaths and, worst of all, roads.

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For one of my oldest friends, Manuela, who lives in England here’s what happened at the book parties:

The first party was held at my friend Vanessa Noel’s shoe store which happens to be the ground floor of her sandstone townhouse on the upper east side of Manhattan. Extremely nice. Vanessa is a talented artist in her own right and shoes are lucky to have her attention. I say this with certainty because I have seen her paintings and I know how good she is. Miserably, I forgot to have my photo taken with Vanessa! And the reason I forgot was the instant overwhelm of old and new friends.

CO still writing!

Help!

CO & oldest friend Anthony Addison

CO & Anne Hearst McInerney

CO & Nina Junot

CO & Carmen D’Alessio

CO & Ghislaine Maxwell & HRH Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia

CO & Ed Epstein

CO & author Karen Moline

CO & Jean Pierre Borg

CO & Carmen Marc Valvo

CO & Ben Chasin & Friend

CO & Princess Diane BiF

Kimberly Farkas & CO

Terry Gruber, Carmen D’Alessio

Laurie Waters & CO

CO & Dragan Mrdja

ps: Particularly extraordinary was meeting longtime FB pal Ron

Ron Mwangaguhunga & CO

So that was the New York party! Forgive the blurry shots but I had to heist them (long story). Anyway, as perhaps is evident from the glee on my face in these shots I immediately forgot the plot. All my plans of whom exactly I wanted shots with, and whom I wished to introduce to whom, well, I remembered not one of these artful plans until days later. Such was the abundance of good cheer that my mind was erased and all I could do was savor the moment and revel in it.

And then it was back to Key West, for another book party, co-hosted by the King of this fair island David Wolkowsky. Here are some shots taken by my friend Carla Lavanco.

David Wolkowsky & Mossad Shon in the background

Guy de Boer, CO & ML

Dr. Ruth W. Greenfield, CO, David Wolkowsky & Guy de Boer

John Martini, Dr. Ruth W. Greenfield, Carol Munder & David Wolkowsky

CO, author Bill Wright, Mora Diaz & Suz Orchard

Ms Sharee Williams & CO

Judith Gaddis & Bill Wright

CO & budding author Joe Cool

Ps: A favorite guest was City Manager Bob Vitas (who mysteriously speaks fluent Serbian)

CO, Kristen KMAC McNamara & Bob Vitas

Today is Orthodox Easter Sunday, Happy Easter to all those who celebrate today, and that includes my oldest friend Manuela, in the UK.

Thank you to all!

When I was nineteen years old I was stunned to find myself back in New York. The only thing I was sure of was I did not want to live and work in this city, my birthplace. I had tried one year of that and it hadn’t appealed. Now I was back from backpacking around the world, on my own, for the previous six months. The idea was I would travel the earth and thereby discover my purpose, my calling. Nothing of the sort happened. I did experience an eye-popping quantity of stimuli but six months later I was back where I had begun, New York City. And then, by some sort of divine intervention I met Carmen D’Alessio, an energetic Peruvian sexpot public relations queen. Carmen is best known for being the spark plug behind the components of Studio 54.

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