Who is here in SMA?

The average age of the foreign resident in SMA is around 50 I am told. I have met a few around the hotel (thanks in large part to the Gregster) but theirs would average more around 70 I’m guessing.

There is the lovely Simonnette deVriche – very Dutch she says of her name and points out that her married (Flemish) name was impossible for most people to pronounce so she reverted to her maiden name. She is 97! She has been visiting SMA for over 30 years off and on and has decided recently to quit traveling altogether and stay put here. She warned me this afternoon to keep an eye on Greg when out on the street because a friend of hers had her dog poisoned from eating something he picked up there. She has lived all over the world, most recently in Tennessee. Despite her years she still gets around pretty well and except for a slight hearing problem carries on a good conversation – in any one of five languages.

There is the equally charming Mila, an Estonian from Hawaii. She has not divulged her age but it must not be far behind Simonnette’s. She is a painter who has been coming here for more than ten years but she is bored now with painting and drawing and cannot seem to get the enthusiasm back that she once had. She says the artists in SMA have become a bit phony with more interest in sales than in good work. She showed me pictures of her portfolio which is quite impressive. She often does little pen sketches of people in the dining room, and there is no doubt that she catches their likeness. She was in the garden this afternoon sketching the dozen or so kids that arrived last night with their parents from Monterey. Mila has lived a full life and buried three husbands. She passed the war in London at the age of 17 (you do the math), dancing, mostly, as far as I can tell. She married her first husband out of convenience to avoid having to go back to Estonia where the Russians were closing in. She says she was an athlete and won awards for her swimming and gymnastics. She has never sold any of her artwork. She comes to SMA to get away from the Hawaiian heat.

The lady living next to me in the corner (in a hotly sought after self-contained apartment) is only around 60. She just arrived for a stay of six months and is just getting into her acrylic painting. She has changed the color of a large cross in the foreground of her first effort six times. She makes jewelry for a living but will only do painting in SMA. She is so pleased to be way from the northwest Washington state winter she can hardly contain herself. This morning she went out with a friend and some blank canvass so we will see what that produces.

Michael Nash was born in China and educated as a boy in Victoria (where he owns a house they stay in during the summer) and then at Ridley College before studying law at Oxford. The only thing good about southern Ontario in his opinion was the thick creamy chocolate sundays he used to find in a soda shop in St. Catherines. Sailed the Atlantic twice during the war he says – only once in convoy. Michael and his Filipina bride, Luthie, of around 40, (Mila says to me aside that Michael has managed his life well), live in the Cayman Islands the rest of the time but have come here because Ivan recently blew the roof off there condominium. He has been coming here for 13 years off and on. Michael was about 16 during the war I figure. He said to me, “Old boy, it is downright humiliating, all of this business with visas nowadays. It used to be easy to stay six months in Mexico but now, and particularly for Luthie, my wife, one is lucky to get 30 days without a downright runaround.” Michael has bad ankles and the last thing he needs is a runaround. He has a nice birch cane from Victoria which he has recently inscribed with great care his name and a message in Spanish saying the if the cane is found it is to be returned to him at the hotel and that the reason it may have been left behind is due to his faulty short-term memory. His long-term memory on the other hand is excellent. He looks and speaks like a Winston Churchill with hair. He practiced law in "Rodesia" and Perth, Australia among other places.

Steven and Loretta are recently retired schoolteachers from New York. He is 62 she 57. They have one of the to-die-for apartments in this hotel complex where they have been for six months. They have been in SMA for a year and hope never to return to New York. They come down to the garden every evening to sit and smoke cigarettes. Steven was an ecology teacher and wares a long ponytail. They used to go to Mikanos every summer for 30 years but it became too expensive and the hassle of getting there after 9/11 was more than they could take. Furthermore they just built a giant airport on Mikanos that covers a third of the island.

Jim is about 50 and has taken up mountain biking since coming here a few years ago. He says it is great because there are no trespass laws in the country. If you can lift your bike over a fence, away you go. He follows dirt footpaths he finds throughout the countryside around SMA.

Jane and Rolla are about 60 and are getting out of town ASAP. They have been here 10 years and his asbestosis is bothering him, while Jane has developed bad knees. They can only live on the ground floor of their two-story house. He is a painter, she a craftwork artist. They own a house 15 minutes by car outside of center town in an area I am told has no apparent merit. They are both afraid to drive in downtown so take taxis whenever they come in. The trouble is they have great difficulty getting a taxi to come to their house because it is difficult to find and outside the core. They are trying desperately to sell their house at a “gringo” price and get back to Missouri where they can find some “medical attention they can comprehend”.