She Will Not Be Tamed

Puerto Rico | February 2019
(From the series: Pilgrimage to the In-Between: Travels Through Soul and Soil)

I arrived in Puerto Rico with the snow of Pennsylvania still frozen to my bones. It was late February—cold, gray, and relentless back in Pennsylvania—and when I stepped off the plane and into the soft, humid air of San Juan, I thawed quickly.

There were palm trees swaying in the breeze. Music in Spanish spilling from car windows. The night was thick with scent and celebration. I was ready—ready to rest, ready to warm up, ready to let go.

But Puerto Rico had her own rhythm. And it didn’t include my plans.

Initiation at the Airport

We landed late, tired and craving ease. But the rental car office was closed, even though we’d booked our pick-up for that exact time. So we rerouted, found another company, and eventually got a car. When we turned on the GPS, it spoke—not in Spanish, not in English—but in Japanese.

At first, we were too tired to notice. We chalked it up to our lack of fluency. But eventually we realized the voice giving us directions was definitely not speaking anything we could pretend to understand. And we couldn’t figure out how to change it. Still, somehow, we made it to our hotel, laughing at the silliness of it all. Maybe that was Puerto Rico’s first message to us: you won’t always know where you’re going, but you’ll get there. And it’ll make a good story.

The moment we arrived, we were met with midnight chaos: revving engines, blasting music, people dancing and shouting in the streets. There wasn’t any special occasion. No holiday. No festival. Just people celebrating life—because they could. That’s how it was here. Joy didn’t need a reason. It just needed rhythm.

We asked for a quieter room and were relocated to a windowless one—maybe on the first floor, maybe the basement. It smelled like chlorine. Like we were sleeping in an indoor pool. By morning, we had headaches, fatigue, and a clear decision: we weren’t staying the full three nights.

Luquillo and the Peepers

We headed southeast, to a quieter town called Luquillo, nestled between the ocean and the edge of El Yunque rainforest. It was still recovering from a hurricane one and a half year before—parts of it looked weathered, scarred, held together by soul, sand, and bright paint.

It wasn’t perfect. It didn’t try to impress. But it had roots. It had heart. It had nothing to prove, and maybe a few stories to tell. The air smelled like salt and something zesty—like life was being stirred just a block away.

Our Airbnb was a sanctuary—owned by artists, painted in every color imaginable. The walls pulsed with vibrancy. It smelled like food and ocean and possibility. That night, I fell asleep to the sound of hundreds—maybe thousands—of peepers, little frogs whose song was far louder than katydids. But it was soothing. The symphony of amphibians mating lulled me to sleep.

When the Ocean Said, “Not Yet”

One afternoon, I tried to go scuba diving. I was excited—really excited. I’d always wanted to see that otherworldly place of coral and silence and light.

But I couldn’t breathe.

The mask forced me to inhale through my mouth, and my sympathetic nervous system went on overdrive. My body panicked. I tried again and again, but I couldn’t do it. I sent my partner along with the tour group without me, while I stayed behind near the shore.

And even though I was disappointed, the ocean kept me company where I was.

I made friends with the palm trees. Watched lizards sun themselves on rocks. And I sat quietly among a flock of black birds—Greater Antillean Grackles—with their sleek feathers of metallic blue, purple, and green, and sharp yellow eyes. They were everywhere. Bold, noisy, and completely at home.

I didn’t get to go deep that day. But I did get to listen. Maybe that was the deeper dive I needed.

The Ocean Still Wouldn’t Let Me In

The next day, the ocean was wild. The waves were so enormous we couldn’t swim, couldn’t even sit near the shore. It was all movement and power. So we drove into the rainforest instead. Stopped for coconuts. Drove up winding roads. Got out when we could, listened to the sound of water rushing down stone, the trees rustling in sudden, unpredictable rain. Then sun. Then rain again.

It was a dance. And we had to keep changing our shoes.

The Horse That Wouldn’t Obey

On another day, we went horseback riding near the rainforest. I thought the smaller Puerto Rican horses would be calmer, easier to manage.

Nope.

I was paired with a small white (they called her gray) horse with so much attitude. Because I had more riding experience than others in the group—one year, which wasn’t saying much—they placed me up front with the guide. And my horse? She wanted to take off. She was feisty and fast, chomping at the bit, trying to bolt forward at every opportunity.

The guide kept talking to her calmly, keeping her in check. But it was clear: this horse was Puerto Rico in equine form—passionate, restless, untamed.

Paddling Against Myself

One of the most unforgettable nights was the kayak tour of the bioluminescent bay. We went under a nearly full moon, paddling through mangroves with 20 other couples. My partner and I, though? We couldn’t paddle in sync to save our lives.

We kept steering into trees. He tried to direct me. I resisted. We argued, quietly but intensely, as everyone else glided forward like swans.

Eventually, we had to be towed with a rope by one of the guides.

It was humiliating for him. Uncomfortable for me. And also, strangely … telling.

Because the truth is—I wasn’t just struggling with him. I was struggling with surrender.

I was still holding the masculine. Still trying to stay in control. Still convinced that I needed to steer, to decide, to fix. I hadn’t yet learned how to soften. How to trust someone else’s rhythm. How to trust life’s rhythm.

And of course that lesson came on the water. On an island that doesn’t care about logic or order. On a bay that glows when disturbed. Puerto Rico was showing me: you don’t get to direct the flow. You get to feel it and join it.

When we finally reached the open water and stopped paddling, we sat under the stars. The water glowed as though it had swallowed starlight and was breathing it back to us. And my body stopped bracing. Just for a moment. We had to be helped. And that was okay. Surrender came not through grace, but through struggle.

God Was Loud That Morning

The next morning—still sore and adrenal-fatigued—I was jolted awake by Christian praise music blasting from speakers at an open air church service just a block away. Voices raised to the heavens. It was 6 a.m.

It wasn’t Sunday. It was during Lent. Apparently, services were happening daily.

Spirit wasn’t whispering that morning. She was shouting, and I was being dragged out of bed by the Holy.

The Beach and the Self-Appointed Parking Prophet

Eventually, the ocean calmed. The beach turned to pale gold, the water clear and glowing. We tried to park and encountered another piece of Puerto Rican magic: a self-appointed parking attendant. Not a city employee. Just a guy who took initiative. He pointed to spots (most of them illegal), took tips, and no one questioned him. Not even the cops.

No one was ticketed, and no one was towed. It was a community in rhythm with itself.

The Hammocks and the Healing

One of my favorite places was a smoothie shop not far from Luquillo. They sold juices, vegan sandwiches, and tropical blends that tasted like sunlight. I drank strawberry-mango smoothies in a hammock, surrounded by blooming flowers—hibiscus, bougainvillea, ginger, heliconia, plumeria. The air smelled wild and sweet.

There, my nervous system settled once more—not from silence or order, but from beauty and lushness.

The Coffee, of Course

And the coffee. My God, the coffee.

Even the stuff in the grocery store—in a can, off the shelf—was better than most of the “good” coffee I drank back home. It was black, robust, unapologetically strong. We drank a lot of it. It grounded me. Woke me up in the gentlest, fiercest way.

A Final Night, a Little Too Much Wine

On my last night in Luquillo, I had dinner in a small, unremarkable family-owned restaurant—not especially exciting, not especially memorable, except for the wine. The food was simple—fresh-caught whitefish, lightly seasoned—but what lingered was the crisp Albariño, a white wine with citrus and sea-breeze notes that echoed the island itself.

It wasn’t part of my healing protocol—nothing about adrenal fatigue recommended wine—but that night, I let myself say yes. I drank a little more than usual. Let myself feel light. By the time I left the restaurant, I was tipsy and swirling, dancing my way back to the Airbnb, laughing under the moonlight.

Puerto Rico had worked her way into my cells. Even when I resisted, she moved me.

Puerto Rico didn’t offer me what I wanted. She offered me what I needed. I came seeking softness. She gave me wildness. I asked for control. She gave me chaos and communion. I wanted rest. She gave me movement, loud music, surrender, and color.

She reminded me that the wild feminine doesn’t follow your rules. She asks you to dance anyway. She asks you to trust anyway. She asks you to fall apart a little—so that you can be held by something vaster than your own will.

And in the end, I did.

I left the island not with a tan, not with peace—but with something more important: a deeper relationship with life itself.