Going, going, gone.....troppo.

I've renamed my blog from "Of Stones and Starlings" to the more heart-felt and wild-eyed quote from Paul Gauguin: "I am going to Tahiti and hope to finish my life there." 

"Going troppo" is the South Sea specific of the broader "Going native" and both reflect how the exotic can find its way into one's spirit and take hold.

When I was in grade school, I would sail, surf and hang out on the beaches of southern California. I was also a voracious reader and I read a book (I was around 11 or 12 years old, I think) called The Pearl Lagoon by Charles Nordhoff (of the Nordhoff/Hall Mutiny on the Bounty fame).

"A cruise on the Tara in the South Seas—a quest for pearls in a tropical lagoon—indeed, the prospect was enough to intoxicate any boy of fifteen. Iriatai! There was magic in the word alone, and I repeated it under my breath while the older people about me spoke of commonplace things." -'The Pearl Lagoon' by Charles Nordhoff (1887-1947)

This book set in motion a life-long love of the South Seas. I've owned two sailboats, surfed, scuba'd, and lived in Hawai'i for a time. But Tahiti and her islands have always been so special. I've been to French Polynesia many times over the years and now go back often.

I am following in the sea-wake of many artists, dreamers, poets, and writers who found the languid lagoons to be the respite long sought and finally found. As Paul Gauguin wrote:"I am going to Tahiti, and hope to finish my life there."

For me, it is the island of Moorea (about 10 miles west of Tahiti) in the Society Islands...I am going to Moorea, and hope to finish my life there.

Teavaro, Island of Moorea, Society Islands