island dreams, revisited

I seem to be in a bit of wanderlust mode lately. Or perhaps in a deep longing for what has been, for that which was, for the moments-voyages-epochs during which I grasped Life by the horns and let it take me for the ride that I now only recall through dream sequence reruns.

Last night's adventure took me back to the Galápagos Islands, my "personal paradise" of 15 years ago that has yet to be equalled in any of my travels. In my dream, I was there with my father, my mother, and my children--an interesting mix of people considering my father was no longer alive when my eldest was born. Together we waited for the morning garua to burn off, inhaled the fresh ocean air, observed the amazing animal life there is to behold, and made contact with a local I had met in my previous voyage to the Islands for a more personal tour through the eyes of a Galápagos native--a tour I was blessed to have received at the time of my travels there.

In my 1992 stay on the archipelago my friend gave me a book titled "My Father's Island" written by Johanna Angermeyer. It gives an extremely personal account of one family's habitation of the Galápagos Islands. The characters in the autobiographical novel are all real and people (or ancestors thereof) that my friend knows personally; all galapagueños are related if not by blood, through the pure experience of living in what had been, at one point, one of the last places on Earth whose natural beauty had been unmarred by human existence.

One of my high schoolers is currently working on an oral presentation for her Spanish class regarding problems in Latin America--a rather broad topic. After brainstorming with her some possible ideas, she decided to investigate further the topic of the Galápagos Islands and the destruction of the islands due to heavy increases in tourism, population growth, the introduction of non-native species to the Islands and the effects of El Niño on the flora and fauna. On my part, I have tried to communicate with my contact, who lives in Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz, for a native's perspective on this question.

My student and I spoke one day following our session, and I told her that for as much as I would love to return to the Islands, that perhaps my best gift to them would be to not return so as not to further contribute to their destruction. It is a moral dilemna; indeed, if I were to go to live and actually contribute to their preservation, the question would be different.

I will continue to dream, to visit my paradise in my mind. At times I feel like I live too much in the past. Why do we, then, create such marvelous memories only to be chastised or chastise those who constantly struggle against this longing to return?

Perhaps it is time to pick up this book and read it again.