Thursday, March 22, 2007

The way I feel... in someone else's words

http://www.xanga.com/pngpianist/577845149/i-miss-png.html



Mandy, thank you for writing this. I have read it half a dozen times now, and I feel like I am back there each time I read it. The pain never does go away for me. I stuff it back into a corner of my life most of the time, so I can get by in this 'new' place (even though I've been back almost six years now), but it's always there. Whenever I get lonely, whenever I sit by myself somewhere quiet and think, it all comes rushing back. For those few minutes I am back in Ukarumpa, Goroka, Madang. Back with people I knew and trusted, back walking the familiar roads, riding along the ridge, walking through Madang at night stopping and talking with people we knew. Back at the Bird in Goroka for the day, enjoying the pool, buying old shilling coins at the market. Back at the Teen Center for a swing dance, for Soul Purpose, for Banquet, for basketball on Wednesdays, and hamburgers on Fridays. Back at Jais Aben, diving the wrecks, or Pig Island. Back at Gusap airfield, walking through the wreckage of old warplanes, finding spent casings and bomb shells. Back in Port Moresby staying at Mapang for the night on my way to somewhere else, sitting on the porch in the hot evenings swatting mosquitos. Back at Lae International, playing with the band there, staying at the Guesthouse for a class retreat...

Thank you.

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