Alive in 3D: Arriving in Saint Lucia
- Aug 4
- 6 min read
Updated: 23 hours ago
December 2025
The first thing I did after my plane landed in Saint Lucia was ask Jaden, the young man pushing my wheelchair, to teach me some Creole.
“Saint Lucian Creole,” he corrected, with a grin. “We have our own.”
I’d had my second knee replacement only a couple of months earlier, so I wasn’t quite ready to walk through airports dragging all my luggage for six weeks in the Caribbean.
A few minutes later, I was rolling through the airport, smiling at everyone we passed and greeting them in my brand-new Saint Lucian Creole.
“Bonjou! Sakafèt?”
(Hello! How’s it going?)
I loved watching their faces melt from shock into delight.
Jaden and I were both laughing.
Outside, Ravi, the driver from Green Fig Resort where I was staying in the hills above Soufrière, became my second Creole teacher.
I proudly showed off my new “Bonjou! Sakafèt?” that Jaden had just taught me.
“Wow,” said Ravi. “You sound like a local,” he joked.
On the drive to Green Fig, he taught me a few more words and phrases, including “Mési” for thank you and how to say,“I love Saint Lucia.”
He also told me about the two Pitons — Gros Piton and Petit Piton — pointing them out as we drove.
About forty-five minutes later, we pulled up at Green Fig Resort.
When I opened the door to my room, I just stood there speechless.
Petit Piton filled the view beyond my balcony.
It took my breath away.
For many months at home in San Francisco recovering from knee surgeries, I'd been studying maps, planning my routes through four Caribbean islands, and imagining this moment.
Now I wasn't imagining anymore.
I was finally here in St. Lucia — the beginning of my revised journey around the world in 2026, which my new knees were now making possible.
And then the adrenaline began to wear off.
My business class seat had turned out to be just a wider seat than economy, not a better night's sleep.
Somewhere along the way, I started coming down with a cold.
I was exhausted.
But every few minutes I found myself out on the balcony for another look at Petit Piton.
Slowly, afternoon gave way to dusk.
I wandered back onto my balcony again.
Petit Piton had changed completely.
The brilliant green mountain I'd admired all afternoon was now a dark silhouette against a deep lavender sky.
I leaned against the railing and took it all in.
I couldn't imagine a more beautiful place to spend my first evening in the Caribbean, finally traveling again after a year's enforced hiatus.
Then the mosquitoes arrived, almost like the entrance of the villain in a play.
By the next day, my legs were puffy and swollen and covered with angry red mosquito bites.
Apparently, paradise comes with a price.
Looking at my swollen, mosquito-bitten legs, you might assume I was having a terrible time.
I wasn't.
Yes, I had a cold.
Yes, I was exhausted from a sleepless night of travel.
Yes, my legs and arms were covered with painful mosquito bites.
And yes, I loved being there in spite of all of that.
For months, Saint Lucia had existed for me only on maps, in guidebooks, and in photographs.
Now it was real.
I could hear it.
Smell it.
Feel it all around me.
Talk to people.
Learn a few words of Creole.
Stand on my balcony and watch the light change on Petit Piton.
I was finally alive in 3D.
It struck me that this is one of the puzzles of my life. How could I be so physically miserable and yet so deeply happy at the very same time?
It had taken me a long time to understand why.
Twenty years ago, my mentee, Sharon, had kept insisting that I read a book by research psychologist Dr. Elaine Aron on the trait of High Sensitivity. Sharon had recognized herself in it and before long, she recognized me too.
At first I resisted. I didn't want to identify with being Highly Sensitive.
I remember thinking, "Me? Highly sensitive? I’ve traveled all of the world by myself.”
Highly Sensitive sounded like someone who came with special laundry instructions.
Eventually, I surrendered. My mentee had ended up mentoring me.
As I read Aron's book, much of my life gradually began to make sense.
I learned that about 20% of us are naturally wired to experience the world more deeply than most people.
Our more sensitive nervous systems filter out less of the sensory information around us—things like noise, crowds, and bright lights. As a result, we have more of the world to process.
Beauty feels more beautiful.
Heat feels hotter.
Mosquito bites feel itchier.A changing lavender sky behind the Pitons can stir me so deeply that I can hardly speak.
High Sensitivity explained why Saint Lucia affected me so profoundly.
But it explained only half of what I was experiencing.
It didn't explain why, despite everything that was making me miserable, especially my poor mosquito-bitten legs, I was already reaching toward Martinique—the next island, the next language, the next place I hadn't been yet.
That was another piece of the puzzle.
Researchers call that trait High Sensation Seeking.
Some of us have both traits.
I'm one of them.
Not because I crave danger.
I don’t crave adrenaline-driven thrills, like bungee-jumping.
I crave discovery.
I want to hear a language I don't understand and ask someone to teach me a few words.
I want to meet people whose lives are different from mine. I want to turn a place on a map into somewhere real.
Eventually, I stopped thinking of those traits by the names researchers gave them.
I call them Depth and Reach.
Reach asked Jaden to teach me some Creole before I'd even left the airport.
Depth stood speechless on my balcony as Petit Piton slowly disappeared into a lavender sky.
For years, Reach kept pulling me forward while Depth was still trying to catch up. There was always another country, another language, another conversation calling to me.
Depth was still trying to take in everything I'd just experienced. Eventually, my sensitive nervous system would start flashing a warning light:
"We're done." And then I would crash.
For a long time, I thought that was just the price of living a full life. Now I understand it differently.
Reach isn't the problem. Reach has led me to some of the richest experiences of my life.
Depth isn't the problem either. Depth has taken those rich experiences and deepened me.
Reach draws me toward more of life.
Depth allows more of life to change me.
Sometimes Reach urges, "Let's see what's around the next corner."
Sometimes Depth whispers, "Let's stay here a little longer and let this place sink in."
Before I was consciously aware of these traits, whichever one was strongest at the moment would take over and run the show.
Now that I understand them better, I'm listening to each of them.
I'm letting them take turns having what they need.
And I'm still learning to create a rhythm that makes room for them both.
Saint Lucia was about to become one of my teachers.
I still had another week and a half there.
More people to meet.
More Creole to learn.
More sunsets to see.
Probably more mosquito bites to endure.
As it turned out, Saint Lucia—and the Caribbean beyond it—had a great deal more to teach me about that rhythm.
The next day, I took a taxi to Sugar Beach.
Tucked into a sheltered cove between Gros Piton and Petit Piton, Sugar Beach was exactly the kind of place I'd been hoping to find. The Caribbean Sea was calm and gentle there, protected by the two volcanic peaks standing guard on either side.
My feet loved walking across the powdery white sand toward the water, but something in me felt a little nervous. This was the first time I'd been in the sea since my knee surgeries.
The surf was gentle though and the farther I waded into the water, the more supported I felt by the sea.
The salt water was soothing my mosquito bites.
The warm water was soothing my nervous system.
The sunlight sparkling on the surface of the water was soothing my spirit.
Little by little, I was letting go.
I was letting go of feeling nervous about my knees.
I was letting go of thinking.
There was nothing left to figure out.
There was nowhere else I needed to be.
There was nothing to do.
I was letting go of everything it took to get to this moment.
Just floating in the warm water. The light dancing on the sea. The rise and fall of my breathing.
I found myself slipping into the state I'm always searching for in the sea. I call it my sea state.
This was why I'd come.
Not to check another country off my list.
Not even to admire the Pitons watching over me.
I’d come to just be in the sea.
Looking back, I didn't arrive in Saint Lucia when my plane landed.
I arrived in Saint Lucia when I was finally fully there.
A Note Before You Go
If you recognized yourself somewhere in this story, you’re not alone.
I’ve created a free 30-second quiz and a free short booklet, An Introduction to Depth and Reach, to help you learn a little more about these two traits.
I’d love to share them with you.
I hope they help you understand yourself a little better.
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