Gollum

From the desert Isle of Juana la Cubana:

He doesn't pay attention. His eyes go blank when I talk to him of things that he finds boring. He wants to do things his way. I am glad I do not live with him or I think I would go nuts. However as he passes by and drops in from time to time, I must still put up with chairs being placed just so, convenient for him, but in my way, or other such things. He does not want to listen to my arguments for something different, so I put up with him until he leaves again.

Then Gollum will suddenly appear, with some project he has been working on and asks my opinion. I am not sure why he wants it, as most times he is not interested in what I think. Perhaps he is just excited about what he is doing, and in spite of him he needs to share that excitement with another. Perhaps my opinion still does not count, and this is just one way to get some kind of approval or compliment. Perhaps it makes him feel generous to let me voice an opinion on some subject of his choosing.

But how does one politely decline the honour? I am not interested in voicing my opinion on anything to him, if my opinion has no worth in more important issues.

Juana la Cubana's rant

From Juana la Cubana
Thoughts from a desert isle...

I used to think it was a given that if you cared for a person, you would go out of your way to make that person feel special in little ways. I thought everyone thought like this. With the exception of course of crappy, criminal-type people. I was wrong.

It just doesn't occur to some people to do that sort of thing. Either they were not brought up in families that made a big deal about each other, or else they are actually oblivious to the fact that people around them have gone out of their way to do something to please them and do not think to do the same in return.

Oh they love you, they don't want to see you hurt or poor or sick or in dire straits. They'll help you out if you ask for it. But if you're far away and lonely, they won't think to send photos or keep you up to date as if you were close. They don't care if you do anything for their birthday or not, and expect you not to care either. Birthday and Christmas gifts, if they get you any, are symbolic tokens only because they really have no idea what you like, because they don't make a point of remembering when you exclaim over something.

They aren't mean-hearted, they aren't cheap or miserly, it's not like they don't appreciate you, they just don't see the point in getting excited over nothing.

For someone who delights in doing little things for someone they care about, it's hard to understand someone who doesn't. In fact, more often, we might tend to think that that someone doesn't care at all. Even when it isn't true.

Disappointment comes in waves, like the ones crashing against the shoreline of my island, and then it goes out with the tide.

Truth

Truth hides in the little things. Truth burrows itself into the details. Light still escapes between the shades of a window. Fossils long buried eventually come to the surface. What's left unsaid, what's left undone speaks volumes about who you really are. Pieces of the puzzle come together, a clue here, a hint there, a sudden revelation.

Sometimes fate has a reason, some things were never meant to be. You might never lie, but you hide behind the blinds. You take advantage of distance, you only show what is convenient to you, but you can't hide forever. You will be found out. Truth oozes out of the wounds you leave behind. It trickles out in the tears cried, it pours out from behind the dam broken.

Juana - the queen of metaphor

On the road of life, there are Ups and Downs and every once in awhile, a sudden intersection. I haven't hit one of those in awhile. The last time I hit one, I think I took the wrong road. I was in the Highlands for awhile, but then I hit gullies. A lot of them. My road has gone through quicksand and badlands. Found some fossils there. Which way should I have gone? Where are the mountains? I just want to soar like the eagles and be free for awhile.

From the road I am on I sometimes glimpse those peaks, but the road does not take me there. It bends and twists, and sometimes I think I am coming back to gullies I have visited before. I am so tired of the prairies. With all this open space you would think I'd be free as the antelope, but I am a prisoner of the road. I am the river obliged to flow always in the same bed.

There are days when the sun shines bright, and things seem better, except for the dust this creates on the road. Sometimes when other people go past, I can't see anything for awhile because of all the dust they've kicked up.

There are days when thunderstorms come. I am wet and miserable, but at least the dust is gone. It's turned to mud, and it cakes my shoes.

I want to know, when will there be an intersection in the road again? Will I have another chance to change direction? Which way should I go? Which way will take me to the mountains? Will the road I am on eventually get there at all?

From the lost island

I believe that if I had a scale on my island, it would tell me that I have lost weight again this Christmas season, in spite of the fact that Gypsy Queen brought goodies with her. Nothing like a little seasonal depression to make one lose interest in food. It's the rainy season, and besides, Christmas with no family does tend to make one feel a bit lonely, and who wants to go fishing in a downpour?

Balance

I do not understand a world which makes such a fuss over fleeting things. We are spiritual as well as physical beings but we have forgotten the spiritual. That emptiness, that void inside us, it cannot be filled with physical things.

On one hand, I am a physical being. I take pleasure in simple things, coffee that tastes just right, raindrops on my nose, the sound of waves crashing on the beach, the feel of sand between my toes.

On the other hand I am a spiritual being. I need spirit to spirit contact. Long talks with close friends, philosophy, a song whose lyrics mean something, a poem, a conversation with God.

There is balance to be had. A life filled with carnal pleasure alone is a very lonely, empty life indeed. On the other hand, a life empty of carnal pleasure is a very sad, boring life. One cannot replace the other.

In the same way, a mariage based on only one or the other of these two poles is an incomplete mariage.

I wonder sometimes, just how does prayer work? How can you ask God for the conversion of another person when God leaves us all free? If prayer is so strong, how can God give us our freedom? Or is praying for someone actually kind of like your soul appealing to the soul of the other person. Is it in a way, a silent calling of one soul to another? Does the other soul hear even when the person does not?

A new year...

It has been three years now since that boating accident that took the life of my husband and stuck me on this island. I still miss him, in spite of enjoying the solitude. One does not care for a person and forget them so easily. It was on New Years Day three years ago that I ended up here, the result of a carribean holiday gone wrong.

It is funny how a person can be lonely, yet not alone and then turn around and be alone but not lonely. Perhaps it is because in my solitude I feel the presence of God even more and I am never alone. When life is reduced to the basics, gathering food, making shelter, getting fire, it puts life into perspective. Everyting else is superfluous.

I have become more effective in gather food in the past years and now I have time to dedicate to such things as weaving. I have tried weaving different grasses, and I have gotten so good that I have invented different patterns of weaving. The floor of my hut is full of grass mats. It is art, it is creative, but most of all it is useful.

I sing all the time out here, because there is noone to hear me but the monkeys. I sing to hear my own voice, any voice, a human voice. I sing to praise God for the beauty of this creation that I can no longer ignore.

Yes, some persons do stop by from time to time, and I am mostly glad to see them, but I am more often alone than not.