Of secret things and the worrisome world!

By Lumepa Hald 10 September 2017, 12:00AM

There are tourists from all over the world on the beach of Lalomanu. 

They bring secrets with them as we have our own too. But I watch them on the sun-soaking sand, sweat and all they seem to be. But the coconut oil is a fine thing, isn’t it? 

It does not hurt a single fish. 

It is Sunday where I write on the beach that, overlooking the sea, reaches back to me. I feel sometimes as if I am her guardian and she is mine in return. If we listen to the gurus of metaphysics, that is a good thing. 

God knows that speaking too much religion is not. So I love the sea, not the church, when I need peace. I love it for the grief she holds, is a familiar place to start from, as a grounded soul searching for the essence of everything. 

The worrisome world and all her illnesses are made sense by the harmonics of the waves in the sea. When I sit in a quiet place, I hear the sound of the waves pushing forward the sand, and running back playfully, like children screaming. Something oddly kind about hearing the waves in light of a child’s voice yelling out to stop what we are doing, and to breathe! I feel the joy of life is in it. 

Under the waves, when snorkeling, I find a place so deep in sorrow and the face of a child with long silky hair is there. But the sea does not let you cry when you are under her wavy surface. She forbids it. So I cry on impulse and internally. But I am prompted by my own funny Guy’s nudging hand, to notice the blue fish, the growth of the coral and the clicking sounds which only means there is life everywhere in the sea. So I focus on that, and my heart, though broken takes a shift and spreads her tired wings. 

The fragile sound of life in the sea makes me softer, I know now. I am reminded of pains that only mothers can take from the earth and color the sky with, when they are lost. Yes, there is reason to fear the death of a child in the Caribbean seas, because the emptiness a mother feels for one child is never filled. I pray for the safety of all their children too. 

When I think of all the problems we face as humans these days, I hear the clicking sound of the sea, and the notion that it means life is everywhere. I hear all the bells of churches ringing from the majestic churches and worship places. I think of all the street lights turning on in the cities filled with money, education, and bricks being laid side by side. I see the fate of children selling things and old men lying there, on the same streets, to die. 

If you can write me a letter in your own words, I beg you to remind me that you too are unimpressed by the world. For there is nothing more that I long for, but that of a poet’s wish I borrow, “I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”

Yes this world needs a lonesome solitude, kind of attitude. It is so busy with useless things that no wonder the fish, the trees and the good people and things are leaving.

But I am told that I can be a lighthearted person when I want to be. To be honest, I have no clue what that means. Only to say that when we are at peace with everything, it means that we are grateful, come rainy day or sunshine. To judge this life is a mistake. 

But this rag seems to be about secret things, and the painstaking journeys I sense from loving mothers in the weary world we live in. It also seems to be about the tourists who come here with their own secrets, untold.

Well, you can judge your own life kindly, whereas I have my own small pile of things to be secretive yet grateful for. One of them is the sea I watch each day, reminding me, that the purpose of life is to give back to it earnestly! How else do we live?

By Lumepa Hald 10 September 2017, 12:00AM

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