I was sitting in my little Polynesian bungalow at the Hotel Kaveka, watching a slow-burning sunset after an afternoon of heavy rain, contemplating the pending conclusion of our more than ten month travel adventure, thinking: "Have I changed, as a result of all this?; Have place, and people, as P.K. Page asked, changed me?" And the answer, from a new, quiet, but knowing place, deep inside, that I discovered, (or perhaps rediscovered) while away, was "yes".
The hard-driving, Type A woman, who used to measure the day's success by the completed column on her to-do list, (and woke up one day on an ambulance gurney, as a result), had left the building; in her place was someone who was, and is, straining at a much deeper "to do" and, (especially) "to be".
The woman who felt an expanding sense of fear both for and about the world now has a heightened sense of the fragility of this world, but also a greater confidence in the unseen force guiding it, and the strength of the shared bond of love between us -- the "one love, one heart", as Bob Marley so aptly said. And she has a renewed sense of beauty -- both the astonishing physical beauty that is all around us, but also the quiet beauty in each life, or "the light that can shine out of a life", as Mary Oliver so beautifully phrased it.
Thinking about that beautiful light, and the bonds of love that seem not only intact but growing stronger, while gazing out across Cook's Bay, was almost too much to bear. So I will just say this: We are all in it together in this beautiful, fragile world; we must make our way delicately, but with great purpose; with a deep, breathing respect for the world and all that is in it, and, (especially) with great Love, which in the end, is all there is.
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