SILENT NIGHT
All is quiet in this sleepy little country village. I can't sleep - a rarity, as I am usually blessed with drifting off almost as soon as my head hits the pillow. But rather than fight it, I thought I'd see what rambling thoughts surfaced in the middle of this gentle summer's evening.
The open window allows in the cool breeze and night sounds. It is particularly quiet tonight though - a few frogs are singing but all else is silent, so much so that even my fingers on the keyboard almost seem intrusive in the silence.
I think about the planet turning and how the sun we watched set several hours ago is currently bringing light and daytime to so many of my fellow humans, those who sleep when we are usually awake here in Australia. It is the wee hours of the morning here, so a busy part of the day in many other parts of the world.
For some reason I think about scuba diving and the times I have dived on a reef, mostly the Great Barrier Reef, or anywhere that I've been able to touch the ocean floor. On such occasions, I always want to do somersaults. So I do. I twirl around and do somersaults and handstands, always thinking that - wow, here I am doing somersaults on the ocean floor while the world goes on with all of its madness - at the same time I think of somewhere incredibly busy, like Martin Place in Sydney at lunch time, downtown Calcutta, a main street in Beijing, a peak hour train in New York, or numerous other places. I don't know why I think this way. Perhaps it's just the sense of freedom I get when I can do somersaults on the ocean floor.
Anyway, tonight I am not doing somersaults on the floor of the Great Barrier Reef, though I must say I have done a couple of night dives a long time ago, which were pretty amazing. Seems another lifetime ago now. Instead, I sit at my desk at two in the morning, wondering about people I know in other parts of the world and what they are up to right now. I think about people I don't know too and wonder about the many different lifestyles unfolding elsewhere as I sit here.
It is 11pm in Singapore and the smell of ginger tempts my wakening taste buds. In Jerusalem it is 5pm. The best falafel roll I have ever eaten is remembered with reverence. At 10am in New York, a radio announcer who interviewed me recently goes about her day. I hope it is unfolding well. In Stockholm, it is 10am and a friend comes to mind as I smile. In central India, it is the mother of one of my closest friends who I am thinking of, in Hyderabad, and I wonder how much longer she is of this Earth as her time winds down. At 10am in Bogota, I ponder how creative a Columbian journalist I had contact from recently is feeling.
In the meantime, I hear a distant car and think about the occupants. Is it one person driving through the night alone? I cannot count how many trips like that I have done. It is both beautiful and not, to do so - beautiful to have the road to yourself, beautiful to choose your own music to listen to, beautiful to enjoy the peace of the country towns you drive through. But challenging too, having to keep yourself alert, being aware of the potential of kangaroos jumping out in country areas (such occasions are capable of killing either the driver, the roo, or both, from impact or swerving to miss), and deciding how far you can drive before it gets too dangerous from fatigue.
So I wonder if that driver is alone. Or is it a family travelling, perhaps having a weekend away to a relative's wedding for example? Maybe it is a few people on a holiday of their lives? Or people who are travelling with sadness, on an unexpected trip? A large music festival is due to start nearby tomorrow, so perhaps they are travellers who are reaching the end of their journey and can sleep well later tonight, knowing the trip is behind them, with only music and fun times awaiting them when they wake.
And while all of this goes on, I hear frogs singing quietly and no other sound now except for my fingers on the keyboard. The household sleeps here and yet I cannot. There are things on my mind, good things. For some reason, even when my life has been at its most difficult, I rarely lose sleep over bad things. It is usually only excitement that challenges my quiet, evening mind.
I recall one night years and years ago, another very rare one when I simply could not sleep. The night was spent fantasising about a trip I wanted to take, deciding on what towns to visit, which bag to take, what clothes would be best, did I want to lug a full camera or a simple one, what food I would eat, and numerous other finite details that could surely wait until I was actually in the position to take the trip in the first place! Oh the madness of the mind!
Living on a massive farm for the last couple of years was beautiful. Home is now equally but differently beautiful, in a little country village, a short distance from a decent country city. Magnificent mountains surround the village, with my favourite river weaving through the valley. What it means though, is that there are other people to consider. Living back on the farm, I was so far from anywhere that privacy and noise were not things one ever had to think about.
So tonight when I am full of life, I wonder what I would do if I didn't have anything else to truly consider and strangely enough, I feel like playing basketball, just spending some time shooting hoops. Bouncing, shooting, bouncing, shooting. Somehow I don't think the sound of a bouncing basketball is truly going to be appreciated at this time of night by those within earshot. Damn!
Instead, I shall return to a book I have been reading and allow my eyes and mind the luxury of growing tired, instead of tempting them to stay up all night, lost in this flow of creative writing.
Wherever you are tonight, or today as it may be in your world, I send cheerful thoughts out to you. And may these happy thoughts weave and dart all over the place, joining up with your own happy thoughts, hopefully reaching the other beautiful, like-minded people we know are out there too.
The frogs and I say a fond farewell to you on a beautiful summer's evening, from rural NSW, Australia.
God Bless.
