Isla Verde

Reflections on my recent trip, written on-site in my Airbnb

I feel so emotional. I’m sitting here in the Airbnb patio feeling the sea breeze, smelling the salt in the air, watching the beach workers dance in the sand to salsa. The Puerto Rican flag is everywhere, always flying high, colors vibrant. The palm trees sway to the music, and even the pelicans diving into the ocean time it to the tempo. I’m enamored. I feel so grateful that I’m crying here in this patio, my nose a Rudolph red.

I love it here. I feel it in my heart and in my veins in the same way that I felt when I first visited New York as a teenager. But it’s also different. Here I feel a connection through my soul, almost as if my ancestors are begging me to replant my family’s roots in the sacred soil. In the four times I’ve visited my homeland, I’ve felt the relationship grow stronger. Each time, its grip on me is tightened, and I feel an urge to cancel my flight back to New York, back to the frigid cold, loud trains, the pollution. I don’t know how or exactly when I’ll make the move, but I know I need to do it — at least for a year or two.

Patio view

I also feel like I’m feeling this swell of emotion because of him. I first felt it, this warm feeling, last night, when we were at La Disquera, an adorable cocktail bar in La Cerra. The bar is a magical spot. It’s decorated like a house, with curved archways, paper lanterns, and corners with cozy couches and coffee tables. Moody, dim lighting sets the ambiance, and at the entrance, there’s a disco ball, a small dance floor, and a DJ who plays sexy, vibey house tracks.

We were sitting on a couch in the back of the bar. He held my hand tenderly and watched me with attentive eyes as I talked about anything and everything. When he talks back to me, it’s so soft, he’s so good. On this trip so far, he’s done the most to make sure I’m taken care of. When I arrived at the Airbnb, he showed me a stocked fridge, with my favorite iced coffee and some Puerto Rican snacks he thought I’d like. He’s been checking in with me the whole time, asking if I’m having fun, if there’s anything else I want to do, if I’m happy. He’s opening every door for me and not letting our hands depart from each other for even a second as we walk through crowds and across streets. He kissed me on the cheek and told me, “Te quiero, mami,” and I felt it: the flash of heat that pulses and then spreads quickly throughout your body, disappearing just as fast, like a firework. The butterflies zipping and somersaulting in between my ribs. My cheeks turning hot and rosy — with surprise, or flattery, or just pure emotion, I didn’t know. I couldn’t say it back — not just yet – but I knew by the way my eyes softened when they landed on him, how little electric shocks pricked me all over when he kissed my neck, how a smile couldn’t resist stretching across my face when I woke up with him next to me in the morning.

It felt like we were on a proper date, and I laughed at the feeling. We have technically known each other for over three months, but have been limited to calls and FaceTimes. We had only met twice before in person: the night we met at La Cerra, and a spontaneous meet-up in Viejo San Juan two days later, the night before my flight home.

Our date at La Disquera was fitting: I had fallen in love with the place on my visit three months earlier, and had met him only a few blocks away at a club the same night. I had first-date nerves for some reason, and had two mezcal drinks to try to quell them. The drinks are tiny — maybe a bit overpriced — but pretty strong. The second one seemed to do the trick, and my nerves were shaken out on the dance floor.

La Disquera <3

We stepped outside the bar to the small patio section to have a smoke. He’s sober, his only vice being Newports. He was happy I smoked with him, even asking for another after we spent the first. “Drunk cigs don’t count,” I said.

We played a game where we asked each other questions back and forth. “What was a moment where you felt the happiest?” “Ideally, what would you want to be doing in five years?” “Do you believe in God?” Then, after thinking for a moment, he asked me, “Do you think this could be something for real?” I paused and looked at him, sucking in my breath. He looked so innocent in that moment, though I know that’s far from the truth. Over the past few days, he’s shared with me many stories of his past. “I used to not be a good person. I hurt a lot of people,” he had said. But there in the patio under the moon, cigarette smoke creating a haze between us, his eyes were wide and hopeful, his tall stature hunched down toward me, swaying playfully, his lips in a small smile, like he already knew the answer I would give would be one he would want to hear. The truth is that I’m unsure. I didn’t want to give him false hope, but I definitely don’t think we’re “nothing.” And so I said, “I do…but I just hate the distance.” “I know,” he said, and we both fell quiet as our shared cigarette burned to the filter.

We left La Disquera a bit too late. We had wanted to go to Treehouse, where we first met, but everything had closed by the very early 1 am curfew. He said we could go to La Brava, a club that stays open until 5 am, but I didn’t feel like clubbing. We went back to the Airbnb, and it wasn’t long before we were rolling around in bed and he was taking off my heels as old-school reggaeton played in the background. I felt like melting into him as the lights dimmed and pieces of our outfits piled up on the floor one by one. He told me he felt connected to me, that he was falling for me and wanted to fight for us. After, as we lay in bed, he told me he doesn’t say anything that he doesn’t mean. His eyes were dark and serious as he reiterated what he had said just moments before, now with a steadier voice not deprived of oxygen. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, so I kissed him instead. Our lips came together and moved in rhythm, every wet touch a declaration of feeling, every meeting of our eyes a promise.

I lay on his tattooed chest as we watched a movie together to end the night. I felt my eyes swell up and my chest tighten as I thought of him and how I didn’t want these moments to end. And right now, sitting in this patio in front of the ocean, I feel something similar, and the tears flow down both cheeks like rushing rivers.

1/16/26

Viejo San Juan, shot on film