Meeting love, and other stories.

I was reminded about love that night I met with J. In fact it came and sat next to me.

Sitting on that bench, I watched her as she spoke animatedly. She was telling me about her travels that year that had just passed by. I listened. I listened silently as I was swept me up in the colours and tastes of what life had been like in her journey to a corner of the world I was a little familiar with, as well as the inward and more personal travels. It was gorgeous. She is gorgeous. It was one of those conversations where you are reminded of how truly large the world is and how small your place is in it. Listening to her reminded me of the many beautiful friends who had come and gone in my life, touching my heart with who they were, and giving me more love than I could have ever dreamed to have. Truly, I was fortunate and my life till now, has been fortunate. These are friends who come with no bullshit. These are people, and they are rare, who you can reconnect with and pick up from where you left off the many months ago or whenever it was that you last spoke with them. They accept you as you are. They are generous. They teach you about living with integrity, morality, with decency. They bring out the best in you, they leave you feeling energised, to go forward and be the best person you can be. These friends are hard to come by. We shouldn't forget this, and it is my hope that we have an abundance of them in our lives. 

Listening to J. that night talk about her journey through Sri Lanka, reminded me of a world I felt like I had completely neglected, at least in my mind...over the past year or so. I felt disconnected...and it could not have been further from my thinking. 

It has been almost two whole years since I had left the village. The village, at the northern most tip of Sri Lanka was Point Pedro, where my father’s people came from. There were a couple of people in particular who I had dreamt about, memories I drifted over. Listening to my friend now speak to me, took me back to that place. I was feeling nostalgic. The village was a place where I was challenged, and given life at a particular time when my life felt bereft of any depth or feeling. It was where I learnt a great deal about love, and so much more about my own insignificance. Like I said before, people can do that for you, through sharing and giving you an insight into their life, but places are equally apt at doing that as well. They say that the people make the place… I would argue that in this village, the same could be said of the opposite...and i will explain this. 

When I was in Point Pedro, I met a man who is one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. He had one of those contagious smile that refused to surrender until you too had a smile. I sat and talked to Jeyaruban late into the night that first evening we met. I remember sitting with the school teacher on the patio of the home i was staying in, swatting at mosquitos, drenched in sweat from the heat of the evening, as the town fell asleep around us. That night and other nights, I would listen to him tell me about his day at work. To hear about the conditions of a student' life - children who would work their asses off with very little, but it still wouldn't be enough to achieve all that they wanted... In places like this, the vast divide between opportunity and aspiration meant what we tell our kids here 'you can achieve anything you set your mind to', was not a reality for his students over there. Hope has little room to bear any real fruit there. One thing struck me about those stories and that was the business-like approach that he seemed to have to confronting what awaited him at school each day… In the face of the personal circumstances of his students, there was a unrelenting need to keep composed to do his job. J. would talk about times during the war, when he would be forced to walk the tight rope of balancing his role as a school administrator, teacher, ‘negotiator' with local rebel forces who were in the open business of recruiting child soldiers, as well as an army who could decide where and when they want to station their units within school grounds. At the end of each day he would go home, uttering silent prayers to himself...hoping that his moral compass was still working, social conscience in-tact, and that any compromises made had been minimal. As he explained it to me, his integrity was constantly being challenged by competing forces... "When I rest my head at my night, I need to be able to live with myself, whatever i choose to do...how otherwise would i rest?". Then there was above all, his uncanny ability to have a sense of humour. It is this that I remember most of all. One could so easily get caught up in the seriousness of life in the village, and there’s much to be serious about in the village. But J.’s ability to make me feel relaxed and comfortable as he unpacked the story of his people and the community he loved, was punctuated by the comedy that was and could often be village life. “It’s such a small town. We need to find a way to get along and love one another, or we are going to find ourselves tearing at each other…and the rest of the country is already doing a bloody good job of that”. 

On that last day that i was in the village, as I said farewell to J, I turned to him as he left to go home to his family... I wanted to ask why he had stayed in the village when he had been offered so many opportunities to leave. What had held him to that place. Was it obligation? Was it duty? Was it a commitment that he felt he could not betray? He turned to me, smiled, looked deeply into my eyes and said words that I have never forgotten, and recall whenever I feel like I am without direction and when life seems to get a little tougher than usual. Because in the face of these words, any difficulty i have immediately feels like a deep passionate french kiss from a tall dark beautiful stranger. 

..."You just can’t - 'not be here'... You come here initially because teaching is a respectable profession, but the nature of the job, relationship with your students, the realisation that you are their home outside of home, a family they may not have, and at some point it ceases being your work...and it becomes your life, and there is nothing else”. What I learnt from J. that night, from the time I had with him, and others that have been in a position to significantly influence the lives of others, is that when you commit to the work you do, at some point it becomes not about you but the life that you have so much influence on, and the knowledge that you love that life. And the one certainty in this life full of uncertainties, is that we will sacrifice anything, for who and what we love.