POWER

POWER

 

A common expression in Thailand is for people to say "today I have no power."  It means the same as "I have no energy", but somehow I like it better. 

The last few days I've had "power", and it feels wonderful.  Rainy season has at last really arrived.  For weeks we worked in anticipation of the rains:  fixing the eves; cleaning out the ongs (the large clay or cement "jars" that collect the rainwater); planting the rice and getting gardens ready.  But we worked in the hot sun and with hard-packed clay soils, all of it unrewarding. 

But now the rains are here and I wake up every morning anxious to be outside.  I have power!  When I go to sleep at night every muscle in my legs and arms aches, my knees barely able to climb the steep wooden stairs, my hands and knuckles inflamed, almost frozen in place.  But each morning, like everyone else, I go outside and happily walk from garden to garden, looking for what has germinated the night before, looking at all the life.

I am so often these days reminded of first living in Asia, in Trivandrum, in Kerala, in South India.  It was the first place I'd ever lived in Asia, so at the time it was all that I knew.  I arrived in October or November, 1977, and I stayed for five months in Trivandrum until moving to Sri Lanka for another three months.  Both places were intensely tropical, just like here.   The first few months I was there it would rain nearly every day.  Men wore sarongs and flip flops, always.  It was hot and wet, and there was LIFE in every nook and cranny. 

Kravan is a very different place now compared to a week ago.  I'm not the only one with power.  Kids bicycle home from school drenched in rain, laughing.  Last year, toward the end of rainy season, I remember almost looking forward to dry season, but for now, all I feel is power.