coco-frio rain song

coco-frio rain song

Its Good Friday and our engine broke down on the plane, of course...

Yesterday was crystalline, we spent the afternoon in El Yunque - the Puerto Rican national rainforest. It is the only unaffectedly growing American national park and feels as if from a separate continent. It was a beautiful afternoon. Eva and I jumped under a waterfall. Short hair plastered to the napes of our necks. Splashing, celebrating our freedom in azul water. Finally quieting beneath the pounding cascade, letting it massage our backs, as it came tumbling down a sixty-foot fall. Camilla took pictures, holding her camera like a traveling Asian. It was a thoughtful, green experience and it became better as it started to rain. And rain, and rain; and in the rain we walked back out of the woods. As it poured I sang internally, and Eva’s oval-shaped Latino mouth began to chant.

“Praise god from who all blessings flow,

Praise him all you creatures here below; 


Praise him above, ye heavenly host;


Praise father, son, and holy ghost”

Chanting the doxology, we meandered, tan bodies stripped down to red and orange bikinis, holding soaked cotton clothes. We ended up eating sweet coco-frio, scraping pale white flesh with spoons from the walls of the round brown coco. Sitting at a little shack restaurant without windows on the mountain, it had this view of cascading verdure, and a window with a huge ledge. We ate deep fried cena, and as always, spicy rice and red beans. Sempre rice and beans.

The engines start to throb, returned to health. I’m watching a flight attendant who has the most beautiful gray hair i have ever seen. She wears it long, swinging around her and still looking youthful.