The hotel manager stopped me cold in the lobby. I was damp, frazzled, checking my phone for the third time in as many minutes. An hour late from immigration, I was already mentally sprinting through the rest of my day: file the assignment, shower if time allowed, make the first event. He smiled and said something that landed harder than it should have: "Slow down. You're right on time."
I needed to hear it. April had been a blur of constant motion. Island hopping mixed with podcast production, book edits squeezed between an eight-hour workday, networking events, watch parties, doctor appointments, helping my nephew with college applications. Every hour spoken for before it arrived. I was moving at a speed that exhausted me.
I came to Jamaica on assignment, but what I found was permission.
The first afternoon, I met Scheed Cole, a sculptor whose life-size bronze figures of Jamaican heroes line the halls of the S Hotel in Montego Bay, the only Jamaican-owned resort on the island. Bob Marley stands nearby, as do Nanny of the Maroons and George William Gordon. Cole gives free tours daily, teaching visitors the stories behind faces many have never heard.
His process cannot be rushed. He researches dimensions and facial features, yes, but he also sits with families and descendants. He listens for the person beyond the headlines. "It's a spiritual experience," he told our group. "The pose I want to represent comes from their persona. It's very personal."
He quoted Marley: "The day you stop racing is the day you win the race."
That line hit different when you live by speed. In media, I've chased the next editorial feature, the next podcast, the next book deal, the next opportunity. I enjoy the rush. I love the energy of journalism. And honestly, juggling multiple roles, multiple income streams, feels necessary in an uncertain job market. It's financial armor.
But I'd stopped cashing in on the best part of a fast career: actually stopping.
The next day, my friend and I walked to the beach. We didn't check the time. We talked for hours about spirituality, relationships, the weight of being first-generation daughters in America. We sat in silence. We walked into the Caribbean water, feeling held by a region that has always felt safe to us as Puerto Rican and Dominican women. We moved at the pace of the waves.
Jamaica is still healing. In October 2025, Hurricane Melissa devastated the island with severe winds, flooding, and landslides that destroyed homes and disrupted essential services. Recovery cannot be rushed. Nature doesn't allow it.
On the last day, we visited ANR Farms in the Trelawny hills, a 50-acre operation built slowly from scraps by husband-and-wife Adrian and Marnett Robinson starting in 1994. Adrian calls it his "little miracle." In 2023, he won third place for National Champion Farmer. But the hurricane wiped out crops like papayas that are only now regrowing. Business dipped. Tourism slowed. "Our economy doesn't let you do things fast," he told me. "You have to have patience."
The irony is sharp. In an industry that worships speed, that measures worth by output and immediacy, slowness feels like a luxury I cannot afford. But Jamaica offered a different math. I can pursue multiple creative paths and remain ambitious without doing it all in one day, one week, one month. I can give myself the same patience Scheed Cole gives his sculptures, the same patience Adrian Robinson gave his farm, the same patience Jamaica is giving itself.
The hustle won't stop. The deadlines won't disappear. But they don't require me to disappear into them.
Author Jessica Williams: "Speed is not the same as productivity, and Jamaica proved that rest is not laziness, it's strategy."
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