Si­mon Lee

I met an ac­quain­tance in the gro­cery this morn­ing who de­clared her in­vis­i­bil­i­ty; a con­di­tion she will­ing­ly em­braces be­cause she wants to stay far from peo­ple.

I smiled wry­ly, not on­ly as her state­ment res­onat­ed with my own mode but al­so as I was still surf­ing the calm that a week­end in Sans Souci, my reclu­sion haven of choice, al­ways brings.

Prob­a­bly around the same time on Sun­day af­ter­noon that ri­val bik­er gangs were shoot­ing it out, ap­pro­pri­ate­ly enough in Wa­co, Texas, I was slough­ing off the tur­moil of East-West cor­ri­dor life, watch­ing the break­ers tear­ing in­to Big Bay, from the gallery of my ol' pard­nah the Ar­chi­tect of Im­pos­si­ble Physics' sprawl­ing hill­crest house.

Bright sun re­fract­ed off the speed­ing wa­ters, glimpsed through the bro­ken boughs of an enor­mous an­cient ma­hogany, now host to a rash of or­chids. Ba­nanaquits and oth­er small birds flit­ted from paw­paw to gua­va, while Yemaya's emis­saries, black­coat cor­beaux glid­ed the warm air cur­rents high above the surf, skimmed by pel­i­can pa­trols.

I couldn't have been hap­pi­er, not least be­cause Mas­ter Ben­jamin, the last son of my right hand was be­ing for­mal­ly in­tro­duced to the joys of Sans Souci, a place so spe­cial in the heart­lands of my own life, that it gives me im­mense plea­sure to share it with all my chil­dren and loved ones.

Ben­i­to took it all in his stride, re­fus­ing to al­low the vi­cious at­tacks of high bush mos­qui­toes, to wipe his ever-broad­en­ing smile from his face. Sans Souci, lit­er­al­ly the place of "no wor­ries", has been spread­ing in my imag­i­nary ever since I first made the long trek there in the ear­ly 1990s. It was def­i­nite­ly a case of com­ing home; wak­ing from a long night­mare sea­son to the breeze and breath of a life shorn of un­nec­es­sary com­pli­ca­tion, of run­ning to catch up or cactcharse; to stand be­tween for­est and ocean, mo­tion­less in the au­di­to­ri­um of the nat­ur­al sound­bowl formed by the pre­cip­i­tous treeclad hills and spurs, drop­ping in­to the rip­tides of the sur­re­al­ly pur­ple and turquoise-band­ed sea. There's al­ways been a resid­ual or­gan­ic el­e­ment to my pe­cu­liar mad­ness. And I don't mind con­fess­ing, along with that same port­ly George of Eng­land, af­ter whom a dozen Caribbean set­tle­ments have been named, that I talk to trees, con­fide in them, when the ba­bel of hu­mans be­comes un­bear­able.

Be­sides my whis­per­ing com­pan­ions the trees, Sans Souci of­fers me what I can on­ly in­ad­e­quate­ly de­scribe as a com­plete mind, body and soul mas­sage, so while the trees root me in the land, it is the con­tin­u­al­ly chang­ing sea, its sighs and sobs, roars and mur­murs, which wash­es over and through me, re­float­ing, restor­ing the bat­tered tim­bers of my keel; pu­rifi­ca­tion by wa­ter if you like, a re­peat­ing bap­tism.

Wa­ter teach­es us all the paths of least re­sis­tance; wa­ter is hum­ble and fol­lows the low­est cours­es. I've wan­dered the banks of small streams that snake through the bush and feed the mys­tery and pow­er of the ever-chang­ing sea at Sans Souci. And be­cause this is a place which de­fies all Caribbean beach clich�s, black jagged rocks thrust­ing from foam and cyan sea pas­tures, I wel­come the rain es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing storms, Shango ham­mer­ing on the gal­vanise, while I swing in a ham­mock fil­ter­ing back­ground sea crescen­do. This is not the pret­ty Caribbean but a stark­ly beau­ti­ful frame for life.

There are no palaces in this Sans Souci and for many years I nev­er mind­ed the lais­sez-faire Spar­tan d�cor of the es­tate house.

But now the build­ing perched close to the acute drop to break­ers and rocks be­low, orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed as an­oth­er stu­dio for the man who put the jumbie killer on pa­per, has been trans­formed in­to a min­i­mal­ist trop­i­cal guest house.

A minia­ture stu­dio apart­ment sleep­ing two to three is tucked be­low a larg­er space on sev­er­al lev­els with mas­ter bed­room, loft and an­oth­er bed­room ca­pa­ble of sleep­ing sev­en.

Func­tion­al d�cor, scrupu­lous­ly clean kitchens and bath­rooms are all wel­com­ing sights for prospec­tive vis­i­tors but what makes this guest house unique are Ed­die Bowen's paint­ings and draw­ings hung through­out and the split-lev­el lay­out, and open wood­en lou­vres, al­low­ing any­one with the time and eye to view vis­tas of ma­hogany, sky, rain­for­est and birdlife on shift­ing planes, as though in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the artist's views­cape.

The com­bined d�cor and de­sign tal­ents of Messrs Miss Mary Lou and Ed­die Bowen, util­is­ing ar­chi­tec­tur­al el­e­ments sal­vaged from an old fam­i­ly prop­er­ty in St Ann's (gin­ger­bread frieze, old mir­rors, 100 year-old pine floor­boards) re­sults in an en­vi­ron­ment of un­bound­ed cre­ativ­i­ty, which will prompt artists, film­mak­ers, writ­ers, and mu­si­cians to both re­lax and pro­duce in. Hav­ing stayed in some of the best ap­point­ed and lo­cat­ed ho­tels and guest­hous­es in the Caribbean (every­thing from Mar­riotts to rain­for­est eco-lodges) I haven't seen any­thing to touch this Cre­ole hostel­ry. Whether it's for a fam­i­ly re­union of re­turn­ing di­as­porics, a cre­ative writ­ing or per­form­ing arts work­shop, a small cor­po­rate re­treat or ex­tend­ed yo­ga or pi­lates ses­sion, the guest house at the Sans Souci Es­tate is des­tined to be­come a mi­ni mec­ca of the north coast.