A Pause, Not an Escape: Writing from St. Lucia

It’s early morning, and I’m sitting on the porch of a cottage suite at Calabash Cove Resort and Spa.

The island is just beginning to wake up.

There’s a soft breeze moving through the palms, pushing back the humidity that’s trying to settle in for the day. Below me, the waves roll in steady rhythm against the shore. Birds dart in and out of the coconut trees, hummingbirds among them, moving with that quiet urgency that somehow still feels peaceful.

I’m sporting a caftan, very much in my White Lotus, Season 3 era, sipping French press coffee that was delivered earlier by the property’s security guard… because room service hadn’t started yet, and I had asked. I’m particular about my coffee. It needs to be fresh, and it needs cold half and half. It’s a small thing, but it matters. What wonderful service, too!

Inside, James is still asleep in a four-poster bed draped in mosquito netting. The bedroom is air-conditioned, but the rest of the cottage is open to the tropics… our own little space with a plunge pool, an outdoor shower under the stars, and a daybed that practically insists on an afternoon nap.

It’s the kind of rustic luxury we love. It reminds us of Bali, of our honeymoon, of a time when life felt both full and simple.

And it is the perfect setting to write.

But even here, in all of this beauty, the world has a way of finding you.

On our first morning in St. Lucia, I was struggling to connect to Wi-Fi. (Is that really such a bad thing?) A friend commented on one of my Facebook posts:

“Did you see the news in Baton Rouge?”

And just like that, the outside world filtered in.

An active shooter incident at the Mall of Louisiana. A place I know well. A place my daughter shops. A place that fell within my former fire district.

The kind of call I used to respond to.

The kind of call my former colleagues were now responding to.

And I couldn’t help but think: if I had made different choices, if I had stayed, if I hadn’t taken early retirement…

That could have been my shift.

There are no words for that kind of realization. So you don’t try to force them. You just sit with it.

My grandmother, Helen, used to say,
“I don’t know why people travel. They’re only running away from their problems.”

I’ve carried that with me for years. Not because I agreed with her, but because I understood where it came from.

But I see it differently.

Travel isn’t an escape.

It’s a pause.

And for some of us, especially those who have spent years in high-stress, high-stakes environments, it’s not just a luxury. It’s necessary.

During my years in emergency services, I worked long shifts filled with other people’s worst days. Disasters. Emergencies. Loss. And occasionally, moments of life and hope that stayed with you just as deeply.

And in between those shifts, I built something else.

I took short trips (sometimes with my children, sometimes alone) and I started writing.

Not as an escape from reality, but as a way to return to it better.

Clearer. Steadier. More able to carry what needed to be carried.

What many people don’t realize is that those trips weren’t vacations.

They were work.

Travel writing became my second career, one that lived on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from emergency services. Where one demanded everything from you in moments of crisis, the other required observation, reflection, and the ability to translate experience into something useful for others.

My entire career started because of one disappointing family vacation. We had saved, planned, and expected something meaningful… and it didn’t deliver. It felt misleading. And I remember thinking, I don’t want other families to spend their time and money on something that isn’t what it claims to be.

Because for many people, travel isn’t just time off.

It’s their pause.

And that pause matters.

After writing about that experience for a local newspaper, opportunities began to open. Invitations came in from resorts, from destinations, asking me to experience what they offered and share my honest perspective.

And so it began.

For years, I balanced both worlds. Fire service and travel writing. Shift work and site visits. Emergency calls and early morning flights.

And while I’ve been incredibly fortunate, I’ve also learned that not all travel is restful.

There were press trips where every moment was scheduled. Every experience curated. Every hour accounted for. I would return home more exhausted than when I left, and at some point, I realized that wasn’t sustainable.

So I became more intentional.

About the assignments I accept.
About hosted stays.
About how I spend my time while I’m away.

Because my time has value. And so does what’s being offered to me.

The truth is, most of our travel is still just that…ours. James and I book our trips like anyone else. We go where we want, when we want, and I write about it afterward.

And sometimes, yes, I’m invited to stay somewhere with the understanding that I’ll share the experience.

But even then, it’s not just plunge pools and cocktails.

There are meetings. Conversations with managers. Time spent understanding the story behind a place. And always, the quiet work of observing what lingers, what actually stays with you once everything else fades.

The other night at dinner, James asked me something that comes up more often than people think:

“What do you do if a place doesn’t deliver it’s best?”

And the answer isn’t simple.

I don’t believe in tearing places down for the sake of it. We’re all human. Businesses have off days. People do their best. I try to approach everything with a level of grace.

But I also won’t recommend something that isn’t worthy of someone’s time or trust.

And I won’t give something a glowing review just because I was invited.

That balance matters to me. It always has.

This trip to St. Lucia was never meant to be just work.

It started as something else entirely: a small group trip with family and friends, celebrating a milestone. A retirement. A moment worth honoring.

We were invited into someone else’s dream trip.

And we said yes.

When a publisher friend asked if I would write about St. Lucia, I agreed…but with a boundary. I wouldn’t spend my family time rushing through site tours and meetings.

So we found a middle ground.

James and I came down a few days early. We arranged a couple of hosted stays, starting at Serenity at Coconut Bay and now here, and did the work first.

And this afternoon, we move on to the part of the trip that is simply ours.

I am aware of how fortunate I am.

But I’m also aware that life doesn’t pause just because we do.

There are still hard things happening. There are still people I care about carrying the weight of them back home.

And there’s a version of my life where I would be carrying that weight alongside them right now.

So I sit here, in this quiet moment between work and vacation, between two versions of life, and I don’t try to reconcile it.

I just acknowledge it.

Because this…this space, this breath, this pause, isn’t about running away.

It’s about gathering yourself so you can return.

And sometimes, that’s exactly what we need.