I’ve come to love the Caribbean, at least what I’ve experienced of it.
It’s sunrises
and sunsets.
Its deserts
and donkeys,
and feathered friends.
Early January we spent a week in Puerto Rico with Sarah, Zac, Oliver and Charlotte.
A week later we were in Puerto Morales, Mexico with Larry, Barb, Joe and Sandy.
We’re packing up now in Aruba, having spent the past seven days with Kate, John, Liam and Nora.
Each destination wonderful in its own way.
But now I’ve got the itch to be out in the world in a different way, exploring a country and its people half a world away.
I think of Mahmoud Darwish, the great Palestinian poet,
writing in his prison journal:
I feel a burning desire to leave my cell for the café. To sit alone with a cup of coffee and a newspaper, read and immediately forgot. A paper curtain over which to peek at others. A lady speaking to her dog with familial affection. A general eating ravenously. A coquettish young woman bringing a lock of hair down onto her forehead as she waits. A journalist jotting down notes describing a man sitting across from him trying to solve a crossword puzzle. And when I peek at myself, I discover that I’m not thinking of anything, not waiting for anyone, and feel no emptiness, sickness, or boredom.
And I think of the poet Rilke,
and understand his desires as well:
You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything.
The darkness that comes
with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.
But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.
You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.
And so I set sail on April 1st from Des Moines,
aboard Lufthansa flight 763 bound for Cairo.
I want to see the pyramids and temples, thousands of years old. And sit in cafes with those of a different skin and faith tradition.
But most of all, I want to see the faces and hear the stories, so that I might share them with my grandchildren - stories told to them by their Papa so that they might live on.
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