That kamikaze feeling

My world was closing in on me today, and yesterday and the day before for that matter. It was cabin fever amongst other things. I have taken to donning the nylon veil and leaving the house to do logistics purchasing with my staff just to get out. Today after renewing a visa I said to my driver and co-passengers, ‘Let’s take a picnic’. I joked about taking it to the conflict zone areas to the west and they thought I was totally joking until I said that I was joking about that particular location but that I was not joking about needing to get out and wanting to go for a drive. They indulged me and we drove across the city and out to the edge of one of the districts. I like to call it my kamikaze feeling and I get it from time to time, usually in certain extremities of situation or feeling. I do not take extreme risks in such situations but somewhat more than I should perhaps – this time it was ok, but my colleagues did warn me that insurgents sit in corner shops all day waiting for targets of opportunity like us and then ring ahead and warn another post of the possible target strike etc. Also, the said district is safe in some areas and absolutely no go in others. But I so needed to get out. So needed to see beyond my compound walls. Needed to see what life was like and if it was still real. My life has felt somewhat unreal for some weeks now, not nightmarish, nor fantasy but just unreal. I wanted to see if I could remember why I love this city, what my heart feels like in the open not just in the office or the bunker.

And what did I see? What did I feel? I saw open space, I saw mountains, I saw dust, I saw filthy open sewers and dogs asleep in them. I saw dry river beds and yet green trees. I saw modern monstrosity buildings and ancient, crumbling mud ones. I saw girls chatting in the street like old ladies, carrying bread on their heads. I saw camels herding fat bottomed sheep. I saw men washing wool in the river bed and laying it to dry in the sun. And the most astounding thing I saw was a woman sweeping the dust. She sat hunched on her haunches sweeping the dust with a reed brush, there was no defining line to the space that she would sweep for it was an open space on the dry river bed. There was nothing in front of it but more river bed, and nothing to the sides but dust and river bed, only behind her was her tent some metres away and yet she was cleaning away the unending dust that spread out before her. Is this the only people who sweep their dust? They are also a people who water their dust. Although absurd it caused me to wonder – what does it show? There will always be dust in such a place, that dust will never be clean, there are no boundaries to that expanse of dust and she will not think to sweep the whole river bed, just the area in front of her. That and the green trees that have no visible water to speak of and yet deep down they have a source that keeps them green – these things speak to me of hope. It is not seen, nor do we have always full explanations that satisfy us or others when describing our hope. Hope that is seen is no hope at all, it is evidence of things unseen and who hopes for what he already has. Maybe that woman hopes for a clean space, a defined space, a same place not a new one every season? There is hope to finding a hidden source of water deep in the ground that makes the trees green despite any visible sign of what makes it so. So hope is found. Thank God. And so today I take another step along the road...I had almost ground to a halt.