I can wake up any morning feeling like utter crap, rumpled and stained by bad dreams, or coated in the stale bread crumbs of old worries, but as soon as I get outside and up the hill and see the new day's sunlight tinting the mist an amber gold, and smell the freshness of the night's last moist exhalations coating the grass, and rest my eyes on the myriad shades of green plant life reaching up to the light all around me, I am refreshed, I am renewed -- as new as the day.
Which somehow reminds me -- how about those Jamaican athletes tearing up the track at the Olympics? Given the fact Jamaica is an island of great monetary poverty and has one of the highest murder rates in the world (according to the UN), what brilliant rays of sunshine and hope these brilliant athletes are. And I must say that when I heard how Usain Bolt finished the 100m, looking back, seeing everyone far behind and slowing up in laughter and joy, despite not yet reaching the finish line (and imagine what a time he might have had if he'd kept charging on instead of beginning to celebrate) I thought, how Jamaican of him.....
When I was in Jamaica in July, my special friend Morris and I had a lot of fun drawing on concrete and stones with sidewalk chalk. He drew a heart and then began to write: "Jesus love me and send (h)is sun to shine'. (Jamaicans don't pronounce the letter 'h' -- that's why he wrote 'is' instead of 'his'.)
(Morris, by the way, is roughly 15. I have written of him before. No one knows his true age or birth date, and he and his sister Kerry Ann, are true orphans, with no family to claim them. Which is a sadder thing in Jamaica, where it seems like everyone is connected to someone else somehow. Morris is also what people there call 'simple'. He is one of the sweetest, gentlest souls I have ever encountered.)
I was so inspired by him that I drew a bright yellow star on a large round stone sticking out of the ground. I wrote the word 'Shine' beneath it. And when Morris repeated the word 'shine', I told him he shines, I told him when he smiles, he shines.
Our days are full of shining stars. May you see them, may you greet them, may you know them, and may you shine right back at them.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
I can tell you the performance of the Jamaicans in these games have been an inspiration to the entire island, even my two-year-old seems to know what is going on! It is only a pity it can't be a magic wand that waves away the crime. I'm glad you enjoyed your stay in Jamaica and hope you'll come back.
ReplyDeleteI thought that excerpt on your side bar was from Phillip Roth's Human Stain, until I saw the title. Roth uses the crow as well as a symbol of survival, and you wouldn't guess it, but purity too.
Have a great week-end.