Read Home by Another Way for Free Online

Paradise is just another name for the perfect napping spot, I think.
    The trade winds blow across the island and manage to leave a set of clouds on the volcano in the center of the island that rarely dissipate. So it is not unusual to be awakened from your nap by the sound of the rain on the roof or by a mist blowing in on your toes. I was reminded once, when I was something less than happy about the sunning round being rained out, that these are the tropics, after all. Fortunately, unless you have failed to adjust the shutters and therefore are in danger of being drenched, the appropriate response to rain on the roof during the napping round is to go back to sleep until it is time for the sunset round.

    The sunset round begins in the mid-to-late afternoon. The length of it is predetermined by the length of theday’s sunning round and the plans we have made for dinner.
    The sunset round begins with the two of us standing in the pool and reading a book. A lot of people have never considered doing such a thing, much less attempted it. But we seemed to have mastered it.
    You need a book, of course, and you need a hat, and you need sunglasses. Something cool to drink is always a good idea as well.
    Next you find a spot in the pool where the ledge around the pool is at exactly the right height for you to rest your elbows comfortably and still stand as deep in the cool water as you can be. If, instead of reading, you are going to work a crossword in the big
New York Times
crossword book you cleverly brought especially for the trip, then you have to be closer to the shallow end so you have enough leverage to move a pencil.
    Either way, you need one towel to spread on the tiles along the edge of the pool so you will not scratch your elbows. You need a second towel so you have a place to dry your hands and arms and face, becauseyou will need to put your book down between chapters and sink into the cool water. If the sun is very hot, it may be required between paragraphs. Conversation is allowed during the dipping moments. You cannot read very fast this way, but then, if you are in a hurry, you have come to the wrong island or certainly the wrong bungalow anyway.
    Sometimes the sunset round begins as much as two hours before the sunset actually happens, occasionally less. The time passes with reading and paddling around and talking about what you have read. Or about what you want to read next.
    You keep an eye out over the railing around the pool deck, checking the western sky from time to time so you can be ready to move when the sun starts down. You have to be sure that you leave enough time to get out and dry off and take up your place in one of the chairs. When the time comes for the sun to make its daily plunge into the sea, you do not want to miss it.
    Miami is twelve hundred miles away straight over the straits to the north, and London is four thousandmiles away if you turn your head a little bit to the right. Look left off the corner of the pool deck, and Mexico City is out there somewhere behind the spot where the sun is about to disappear.
    Take your binoculars in hand, and you can see the last ferry heading into the harbor before darkness overtakes it. You can see a water taxi make its last daredevil sprint across the straits before the darkness closes it down for the evening. The last of the day’s six incoming flights drones overhead, and you can see the lights of a cruise ship now along the horizon and gloat a little bit because you know this island is too small for the ship to stop here. The sugarbirds are hurrying to their nests, and the seabirds make their long, last fishing flights for the day. The mourning doves begin to coo and call, looking for each other, and the tree frogs begin to strike up their chorus.
    The sky begins to streak red and pink and then orange and blue and gray. The breeze freshens just a bit as the air cools, and you pull on a shirt and wrap a towel around your legs. When there is nothing left