Episode XXXVI: Too Many Secrets

One could go back knowing better the things that one fought against, knowing better the kind of thing one must build.
-Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country

journal excerpts...

5.13 "All at once the world can overwhelm me/ There's almost nothing that you could tell me/ That could ease my mind" This current adventure will soon be over and leaving will be as hard as leaving the Farmhouse. Nothing will ever be the same. This has been perfect in all the best and hardest ways. I often feel so lost and grateful.

5.15 Just spent almost an hour writing a letter and then threw it away. "No way, I don't need it, I don't need your love to disconnect." One of C.'s little friends has this new high five followed by a fist bump. He introduced it to me tonight. My time here has me feeling as if I know a secret that most people the world over will never be pinned up against.

5.16 My family had a barbeque for me tonight. It was also C.'s kindergarten graduation today, so we took some family pictures with him in his outfit throwing up the hang loose sign.

5.19 I have a viral infection. I usually wear nothing but a pair of board shorts, but I am currently wearing two shirts and I'm still shivering. Took my students on a field trip to the L. ruins yesterday. None of them had ever been back there even though this is a tiny island that many of them have never left.

5.27 "Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell./ Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,/ Yet grace must still looks so" (Macbeth IV, iii). Seem to be finally over that viral infection. Sickest I've ever been for an extended period.

5.31 Went to the north side of the island this morning to help build the new church up there. Shoveled a lot of sand. My back is sore.

6.6 Went diving yesterday and the day before. Saw a school of chevron barracuda the first day. Yesterday we dived around and through a bombed Japanese ship and gunned-down American plane from the Second World War. Visibility was less than thirty feet and the water was all eerie and green. Saw some rays too and L. almost ran into one because she didn't see it.