La Perla

Notes on touching the Ocean.

Mar 25, 2025

Usualmente prefiero empezar con las cosas comicas (usually I prefer to start with the funny stuff).

My brain feels disorganized and I have a lot to say.

Today was bizarro, and great, and hard. I’m in Puerto Rico with the kids and Riley.

My brain is disorganized. Being in a new environment is disorganizing.

Today I left the freeway-side condo for yoga at 4:00 pm. Class started at 4:30 and it was 9 minutes away. I drove and thought to myself, “In Puerto Rico always give yourself 15 minutes to get there, 15 minutes to park, and 40 minutes to drive in the wrong fucking direction for a while.” I laughed at my cleverness and watched as my now 8-minute drive turned into a 21-minute drive as I passed my exit. Fuck. The roads are SO confusing and google doesn’t know how loco some of the suggestions are. It wanted me to get onto the freeway and cross four lanes of fast-moving traffic within the span of 100 feet to make an exit. Yeah fucking right.

Anyway, I missed yoga and opted to have my own Puerto Rican adventure. I saw an Instagram picture of a shining skatepark full of people cheering skateboarders on right above the ocean. It was sunny and so pretty and I saved it to my Instagram in my “Puerto Rico To Do” folder because I love skateboarders. I drove to the old San Juan (an area bereft when the cruise ships aren’t docked and overrun with pot-bellied t-shirt-wearing sunburnt gringos when they are). From there, I found a parking spot right above La Perla, the tiny area between Old San Juan and the ocean. I was atop a huge wall. From google: This wall, known as "La Muralla," is a crucial part of the city's fortifications, designed to defend against attacks from the sea. La Perla is a historical shanty town located on the northern side of the city wall of Old San Juan, stretching along the Atlantic coast. The area where La Perla is located was initially the site of a slaughterhouse, and later, homes developed around it, particularly for slaves, homeless black and colored servants, and cemeteries, which were required to be established outside the city walls.

But that’s what I know now, that’s what google tells me know. What the plaquard above told me was that it was a historic town where a slaughterhouse used to be, but that “the slaughterhouse is now used as a recreation center.”

I thought that was funny. Aww nice place, I thought to myself sarcastically. It was sunny and there was green grass and I stood, up on top of the wall. I walked to the edge, there was a thirty or so straight drop to the street below. There was no gate, there was nothing. The hords of tourist kids could easily wander too far or a stroller left unattended could have rolled down…

I needed a way down from the wall that was less dramatic. I consulted my phone and found a walking path. Mind you, I was wearing tight red spandex shorts that barely cover my ass. I was also wearing a tiny black top. I had been trying to get to yoga, remember? And since it’s always hot yoga in Puerto Rico, I was dressed accordingly.

So I rounded a corner and walked a steep road down into La Perla. Immediately as I passed the gate I saw three men, hispanic, young sitting on the street corner. It was too late to turn around and I didn’t want them to see my butt. I had no choice but to feign confidence and keep moving. One greeted me and I said back assertively and sort of in a British accent, “Hello.” I was ten out of ten horrified on the inside. I was wearing basically nothing, entering a shanty town, and three men were staring and talking to me, watching me closely with their eyes, examining every inch of my body, and noticing my vulnerability. I wanted to scream, to magically have someone airlift me out of there. I had to keep walking, I considered turning back but knew I could not safely pass them again. I saw a couple walking and nearly asked them to let me walk with them back up the hill (probably would have been a good idea). For some reason, I kept moving, down the path and deeper into the shanty town. I had just entered a portal into one of the most depraved, devastated places I had been in a long time. Parts of Italy or Mexico or Turkey or Thailand are as frighteningly desolate as this, but I haven’t been there alone.

I felt as though I was in a hell. A hell where the buildings are falling apart, the cats are diseased, the people odd and ill and there is no food or fresh water and I was lost: determined not to pass those men again. I made my way to the skatepark, now only a small pool full of water with two people making out, snapped a couple pics and continued my escape.

I consulted google maps again and found a route out. I climbed a steep, colorful and beautiful staircase and like rising above the water line after deep sea diving, I took a huge breath of fresh air and relief when I stepped, solidly back on top of the wall. The smiling faces of the tourists like sunshine to my freezing soul.

And I had to pee.

I thought, why not pause and get a beverage or dinner alone? I have time, I have space, I have money. So I walked a couple of blocks and a statue caught my eye. It reminded me of the goddesses I’ve been studying.

I went into the rooftop bar above the statue and asked for a drink menu. As the bartender searched for it, I asked to use the restroom. I walked into the restaurant below and was again transported into a world, this time, a heaven. Two giant birds caught my eye, and next, two grand pianos, a magnificent chandelier, and gigantic rug-lined walls. “I have to figure out what this is and bring my family here!” I thought. And then, another thought, “Or I could sit here and eat here alone, here and now.” And so I did. The wait staff said I could sit anywhere I liked. I sat and listened to the piano player. I hadn’t heard anyone that good on the piano since my mom.

The waitress made her way to me. Her name was Aeris and she was young and beautiful. I also wondered if she had ever waited a table before. I ordered a mocktail and she asked, “Do you want it to come out with your food or before?” I said, “Um, oh yeah, I want it like now.” And she contentedly scampered off to get it. While I sat I made video after video attempting to capture the magical beauty and timelessness of the place. I could feel the happy energy of drunken evenings here, the rooms full of hot sex and the velvety richness of life contained in these walls.

Another woman, beautiful and sleek, a tight white dress on her ebony skin, was also taking videos. She too had stumbled in and just had to stay. We both ate and drank alone, enraptured by the space and music. The pianist said, “Feel free to request a song! From Mozart to Modern Blues, I’ll play ‘em all!”

I ate my hot honey-drizzled pepperoni pizza and drank my two mocktails - crushed and cool cucumber, lime, and agave and felt warmed and soothed. I felt my mom, like I do, and thought how much she woulda liked it there.

I made my way back to the car and into the winding concrete maze of San Juan, back to my urban jungle condo, and found my cute kids and Riley swimming and relaxing: another of my personal heavens. Riley came up concerned: I’d told him about the three men. He checked on me and apologized that it had happened to me. He told me La Perla had been destroyed by Hurricane Maria in 2017, one of the areas hit hardest on the island. He also said that many of his co-workers had strongly advised him not to go in there, telling him it was one of the more dangerous areas in Puerto Rico.

Well, so… now I know.

I was so happy to be safe and showed the kids the restaurant videos. I wanted to end the day with nighttime beach star gazing time. The kids and Riley ate and I walked over to take my nightly half of an edible. I said to Riley, “I want an edible arrangement actually made of edibles.”

We drove to the grocery store, got a few non-alcoholic beers and oddly, chocolate hummus and pretzels (the kids insisted and I was too curious not to buy them). We walked to the beach and star gazed and chased one another and worked on cartwheels and felt the undercurrent tugging hard. Soaking wet in our clothes we splashed and played, jumped for photos, and I awed at the stars, always wanting to make up my own constellation system: one where Orion is Oria, a female goddess, and Draco’s head is a UFO in disguise…

And we ended the night with a lesson about riptides. “If it pulls you in too hard, don’t fight, let it” Riley said, “Let it take you all the way out, you can hold your breath for a long time, and then, it’ll spit you out at the surface.” “After that,” I butted in, “swim either up or down the coast, don’t try to swim in where it pulled you out, so swim a way out, and then swim in toward the coast where the water is easier and calmer.” Elliot listened, asked follow-up questions, and took us seriously. “That’s all worst-case scenario, but now you know and keep noticing when it starts to pull at you too hard and get out.”

Caught in my own riptide today, I feel grateful for so much.

And I forgot to tell you the funny parts.

Ezra always has my back. I was late to yoga two days ago, we all jumped in the car and I began to drive away when Riley said to stop, got out and ran back into the condo. Very annoyed, I asked, “What the hell?” He said, “It took 20 seconds, like it matters” and that he had left a pot of water cooking on the stove. “Ugh! I’m gonna be late!” I fretted once more, Ezra from the back car seat, “Yeah, dad, the firemens would have taken care of it!”

Two days ago I was grumpily water coloring on the beach when Ezra asked what I was drawing. I asked, “What do you think i’m drawing?” “Well that’s a chair and that’s a chicken.” I laughed, “That’s not a chicken, it’s a seagull.” “Oh” Ezra said.

Today at lunch, we sat, eating amazing arepas, and Ezra, mouth full of food said, “There sure are a lot of chickens in here!” as pigeons edged toward us for scraps. I laughed and Ezra figured it out, “What do you call those things again?”

Living in the tropics might be good for Ezra’s (and my) bird identification.

It probably doesn’t help that I call my kids chicken all the time. “Here’s your sandwich, Chicken!” “Time for bed, Chicken!”

Two more full days in Puerto Rico. Hoping to make it to beach yoga in the morning and may go over to the East Coast, take a ferry to an island, and see some bioluminescence.

Hopefully, we’ll avoid riptides and too many chickens.