No Woman Is An Island Either

I want to live on the ground. Have a garden. I want my dog to be free to run in the grass. This is silly, isn't it? In light of snakes, bugs and floods being prevalent for people living on the ground. On my balconies, you can walk out (avoiding pigeon droppings) and look down at gardens and makeshift huts. If the day is not too smoggy, you can see a shimmer in the distance that people say is the sea. There is green and beauty everywhere. I am like a moon circling a planet full of wonders. touching but not part of it. From my experience, it usually takes two years before you are comfortable. Before you meet people you can trust and share real friendship with. Before people trust and know you.

The floods came all of a sudden. There was no tv, internet or telephone for me. I had water and electricity from backups belonging to the building society. It was much worse for others. They lost their animals, their homes, their lives. When even none of that happened, they had no safe water or electricity. And then there were those who did not have those things to begin with. I heard no news for a few days. Of the dairy buffalo all dying because they were tied in their barn. Of the pigs and chickens in cages. of the people under mud from a mountain collapsing. Taking advantage of disaster, some had the bright idea to call out that a Tsunami was coming and more died, trampled to death. Those "bright" ones wanted people to leave so they could rob them. The others shared all they had. They took people in their homes. shared water and food. My maid commended me for offering my own house, though no one came. She said one other offered first and they all stayed there. They knew that person. Funny isn't it? Even sharing, charity or whatever you call it... people want from non-strangers. That's an interesting thought to me.

I dream of living on the ground and getting to know people, language and realities. being part of the flow, and not a dugong-faced pariah, waving like a hand on a spring from my window of opportunity.

A person needs achievements. Ok, you can do that alone in your room, can't you? write a book or dance or have a conversation online? maybe a person needs tiny acclamations about her achievements? interaction. feedback. comraderie. being part of the whole I think, is more important to us all than many realize. Knowing someone well enough for them to say, "You're full of Shit!" or... "You and your existence matter in the scheme of things." Being beloved when sad or happy.

At home, you can put your hand on your weaving loom. on beads to make something. On paints and books about how to do a project. You can find a scrap of wood, or a sketchbook without having to go out. You have tools and spices collected for years. you have familiarities to touch. There is music. Building it anew in a foreign place takes ..........determination.
Beating the aloneness takes being able to make friends, though.

John Donne
Meditation XVII: No man is an island...
"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."