La Isla Bonita: Take Me Back to the Heat

I don’t want a careful holiday.

I want heat.

I want a white shirt that was ironed beautifully in the morning and has absolutely no chance of surviving until sunset. I want music coming from somewhere I cannot see, streets that smell like food, flowers and warm stone, and a sea so blue that it makes every serious decision I have ever made look slightly ridiculous.

That is what La Isla Bonita does to me.

The song begins and suddenly normal life feels badly designed. Why am I indoors? Why am I answering emails? Why is nobody dancing in the street? There should be a guitar nearby and somebody should already be telling me that tomorrow’s plans are cancelled.

The island in this song is not really a place for me. It is the fantasy of becoming lighter.

You arrive carrying your calendar, your responsibilities, your little collection of worries. Then the sun looks at all of them and says: adorable.

Five minutes later you are walking toward the sea.

I love the romance of it too. Not tragic love. Not the kind where everybody spends six months discussing feelings in a badly lit kitchen. This is warm-night love. Eye contact across a street. Music getting louder. Somebody saying your name in a way that suddenly makes your own name sound more interesting.

Will it last forever?

Who asked?

Sometimes forever is an unnecessarily ambitious plan for a beautiful evening.

There is something wonderfully shameless about wanting pleasure without turning it into a philosophical crisis. Eat the fruit. Dance badly. Stay outside. Fall in love for three hours if necessary. Let tomorrow’s sensible version of yourself deal with the paperwork.

And yes, eventually morning comes.

The plane leaves.

The tan disappears.

Reality finds your phone number again.

But for a few minutes La Isla Bonita gives everything back: the heat, the music, the impossible blue water, the fantasy that somewhere there is a place where life is simpler because nobody has remembered to make it complicated yet.

So take me there.

I don’t need directions.

I’ll follow the music.