The Friday unwind 005: the sweetness of being far away
Location: Honduras. The link between distance, undiscovered commonplace, hope, more
Fridays are for unwinding. Inward journeys, outward wanderings, departing flights to nowhere but good memories, are all welcome here. Take all the space you need. In this series, unwind and unravel with me into a daydream, into a place that feels like a Friday spent elsewhere.
Some places prompt you away from yourself, not quite to betray your own essence, but to tempt you enough to absorb a little bit of its scent, to become unafraid of it. To me, it feels like spending time with someone and then catching a crevice of their laughter in mine. I notice, after some days, a difference that pauses me midday to question who taught me how to do this. I think it’s one of my favourite things. We pick up so much. It sometimes manifests as a combination of people-watching and pretence; walking into a space the way it wants you to, observing wide-eyed. In March this year, Roatán, Honduras wanted this of me.
At first, I stayed in my almost dream space, high up in the hills, away from the noise of the tourist locations, near to moments of chaos. And then, for the last two weeks, I had booked somewhere closer to sea level and the tourism it generates. The mini-apartment was pretty much on a main road, the sound of speeding motorcycles every 5 minutes confirming it. Still. there was something in the undone simplicity of my lifestyle staying in West End, Roatán that left me curious, every morning.
Thundering nights that brought with them frantic birdsong and random power cuts became an unexpected norm. I was very far from home where everything, even nature, felt orderly and predictable. Sometimes I would begin cooking dinner with lights, music, and all my appliances at my disposal and I’d finish it with my phone flash light and the glow of the gas hub. It wasn’t exactly the island experience I craved. I craved soft with stability and regularity. And yes, electricity lol. I decided to prepare for, and not resist, this constant fluctuation that everyone said was out of the ordinary.
The time came, around 4pm, when the electricity went down as expected, and so as planned, I closed my laptop (I was almost done, I would complete the rest after the weekend), texted a friend I made on the island, and agreed to meet her at one of the ocean-front bars to watch the sunset since we wouldn’t have power in our homes for some time. I walked slowly, admiring the hibiscus adorning the bushes, walking with the curves of the road, knowing by now where it thinned, where the blind spots may be. The horses in the private fields seemed cinematic, even more beautiful than usual, and unconcerned with how long the blackout may last (they are provided for, this is good enough for them).
I’d walk some more of the way, satisfied with how much easier this is, to walk it off and watch as we all experience the blackout together at the beach, turning our backs on whatever we thought we had to be doing right now. I had nowhere to go so I went to the ocean. It felt like a new thing that I could do, opt to take a blackout walk and pay closer attention to the small things. Just to be how the island wanted me to.
I restructured the day not in the hope that the blackout would end soon but knowing it probably would while I was out and I would not immediately notice. Maybe mid-conversation the lights or the music from the bar would turn on or someone would say the bar has cold beers again and it would register. That would be great news, but my true attention would be captured on the volleyball game they’re playing in the middle of the ocean with whoever will wade in to learn the rules, and whatever small thought comes to mind that we offer to each other.
Recently I decided that hope doesn’t exist until you know that you’ve lost it. It is defined only upon your discovery that it has suddenly returned. The urge to gather small things, the micro-moments of boundlessness, finding someone delighted in something (a person, a reunion, a return, you, yours), a butterfly of a feeling that unravels stress, a short few moments of relentless sunshine on a winter’s day, a moment that only you and God may recall, a collective agreement that the inconvenience is only an inconvenience if we decide so together by the sea, all of these things precede or announce the return of hope. Sometimes they are weightier, sometimes not.
This week I spoke with a dear friend, a poet and wanderer, about being enlivened by the hope of being away. For him, being rerooted in his land, Barbados was the perfect space to gaze on this idea undisturbed. There is so much release in being aware of what you don’t want to hold anymore. Say, stress. It is finding commonplace even in paradise and the peculiar places it brings you to. To eat real fruit, to let life pass slowly while waiting for a bus to deliver him from the country to the city, to remind me that it’s not in his nature to wish for the speed of England while country living on the island, to let the island coat his voice and his skin at once. It’s tiny and huge.
I am glad to be reminded that it’s normal to go to another side of the world and feel warmed by something recognisable. Or to announce small things to be precious things because they help me work out that life is supposed to be so simple. I welcome these because they keep me away from and bring me back to the everyday.
A prompt for you
What small moments evoke wild emotions in you? [Dedicate some space to magnify them and make a big deal of those small miracles of hope.]
Affirmations
I invite sweetness with every breath
Ease loves my company
Life is in Love with me
Thank you for being here,
Amara Amaryah
“ I am glad to be reminded that it’s normal to go to another side of the world and feel warmed by something recognisable. ” I love this. I have this feeling so often when I travel, particularly when I travel solo- I think it’s less about the place and more the act of being free and on my own. Either way- you’ve put words to it so well!
Your writing is so poetic Amara! I love it. I would agree with your belief that hope doesn’t truly exist until you realise it is gone. Only then does it become something more palpable, and (perhaps) something you then start to feel and see it everyday. And that is really really beautiful, to be able to go from not having much of relationship with hope, to it disappearing, to it becoming so powerful and central to your life that it is everywhere! Finding the hope & joy in the really simple things to remind yourself that life is (and should be) simple is truly the best. It sparks such a different relationship with yourself it’s wonderful. It’s almost like an awakening?
Before I became unwell I can’t even really recall a genuine relationship with hope at all. And now we are best friends! I can’t imagine a day without her. I remember at a really low point this summer after being hospitalised again I was sat by a lavender hedge in my garden and I was thinking of how tired I was of being in and out of hospital and how much I wanted this new medication to work out, and a butterfly came and landed on my chest right where my heart was. I was so shocked and definitely teared up, and said to myself - this interaction with this butterfly is here to represent hope for me & my health. Because it’s landed on my heart, it wants me to stay hopeful. After it flew away, I had 4 more butterflies fly around me and land on me. Granted I was near a lavender hedge that definitely attracts them, but it felt very moving. And everytime I see a butterfly now, which was several times again in the summer, I knew it was hope coming to pay me a visit again, to remind me to keep going and that things would be okay. 🦋 I miss them in the bleak UK winter but I know they’ll be back.