While it is true that business ideas have flourished in the past few days, this subject feels easy compared to the depths I need to excavate for my other endeavour. The novel. It has begun to seem like my time might be frustrated by lack of clarity on this project; the structure struggling to emerge from the confusion of techniques and perspectives that this story could be told from. How impatient I am that early on the third day I am wondering if my barely formed habits would be powerful enough to bring forth the clarity I seek.
Sure, I have designed some business ideas within the first few days, but this is not the nut I came here to crack. This story has been sitting on my heart for more than five years, and deep down I have felt that I am a writer for as long as I can remember. The snatches of words I corral together read with a rhythm and a pattern of prose that sings from the page - it was meant to be, I had concluded again and again in my mind over many years, I just need time.
My reason to be financially independent was in secret part to buy myself the space to write and write without need for working for income; to buy myself a job-free year or two with which to indulge this urge to write this story. Here I am, and here I have been for a few months now, but the more I think about it the more twisted the story has become. Who is the narrator? Is the point of view “I” or “She”? Does the story unfold as a flashback from the crisis scene or unfold in the linear fashion of the adventure story it aspires to be? The more time I spent thinking on the technicalities the more confused I have become. Which brings me back to the decisions bringing me to the island.
The space to work out what next for my life. And the space for the story to begin to tell itself.
And so back to the habits that will create the space.
I am nothing, if not militant in my approach to creation! 😂
Habit 1
Today I am grateful;
- For Stephen, who reminds me when I forget to hold my head high and be valuable. To walk past those who don’t recognise my worth without a backwards glance.
- For the graciousness of the local Fijian staff who willingly shared what they had even as they were no longer on duty. They shared their guitar, their singing and their kava with myself and another kiwi traveller. Magic.
- Dancing under the coconut grove this morning, lost in the beat, panting in the heat and the effort and the rhythm of my hips to the music.
- For the big space I feel opening up around my heart like a soft, place-holding joy.
Habit 2. Breathe out the thoughts of all the people, things and circumstances that do not serve my exploding forward in joy and abundance.
Day 3, Habit 3. Each morning I am beginning the day with 20 mins of yoga. I then fast until 11.
I wrote, planned, scribbled ideas and listened to my audiobook. I had a few moments of scrabbling for my notebook, but mostly true inspiration eluded me. The day passes like water through my fingers, sun pounding the sand in throbs like the rock reggae rhythms pouring from the thatched communal spaces.
The dancers perform a matinee for a the day trippers that arrived for snorkeling and to be entertained. I had already watched the punts come and go with barely disguised disinterest, unloading their expectant tourists here to be passively entertained by the pageantry of island life. The laid back mood of the staff switches to one of hosting and the guitar was always there to greet each punt load of paying customers. To whet the appetite there is firewalking and lovo (fire-pit cooking) demonstrations, then the matinee of dance and fire and spinning machetes. After lunch the tourist is willingly lead into congas and snake dances, white shoulders and legs burned varying shades of red in the merciless equatorial sun, mirroring the colours of their racing hermit crabs stumbling through the sandy circle in the hot sun.
But it was the evening, and the departure of the day trippers that brought the joy that is filling the space I have been practising holding in my heart.
It began last night.
Lovo digging, hermit crab races and Fijian dances entertain the visitors
Pageantry complete, and tourists dispatched, the local mob lounged around the recently vacated dinner tables in the semi-darkness. A guitar held the tune to the sweet chords of 'Islands in the Stream', and the group of mostly lads; island workers, fire spinners, dancers and few harmonising women sing quietly, soft in the warm night. Two men stood in the centre of the loose circle working kava powder in a fine mesh bag through a bowl of murky water on the table. Fill and wring, fill and wring the root squeezed its flavour into the water, brown like the river. The half coconut got dipped and filled, passed around the crew. Bula! Each would exclaim, meeting the eye of at least one other before thirsting back the contents of the coconut bowl. The filling and wringing continued. I drifted over to the music and sat on the edge of a nearby table. A nod and a smile, I knew myself to be welcomed, and I sang where I knew the lyrics. There were some appreciative nods. I was not completely void of musicality, but in my everyday surrounds I forget to sing. This strikes me suddenly as terribly sad.
The kava was passed to me with a gentleness that let me know I was allowed to refuse. I accepted graciously. Bula! I met eyes and smiles. Muddy anise root water mingled with the joy of human connection and acceptance. I would stay with the singing crew for the remainder the late evening alongside one reprobate kiwi who kept trying to buy the local lads beer. The kava was passed around continuously and my mouth and tongue tingle with the sensation, simultaneously numbing and exhilarating. I wondered whether the water mixed with the root would make me sick tomorrow. I wondered whether the kava would make me kava-drunk, but all I felt was my heart slowly filling with the joy of human connection, found in a place that I did not expect, at time when I was not looking for it.
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