DEFINING MOMENTS

Early Sunday morning, around 7 am, I witnessed a motor accident where a Matatu (Omnibus public transport) crashed into a boda-boda (motorbike public transport) carrying a woman – this boda-boda guy rode right into the main road without looking and the Matatu swept into its side. The woman was sent flying but the driver and his boda-boda were trapped under the front of the Matatu and dragged along for about 15 feet. We were in another Matatu on the road in the opposite direction and had just stopped to let off some passengers when we heard the crash and grinding noise as the boda-boda was dragged along… We saw the woman lying in the road with one of her legs sticking up at unnatural angle, and after a minute or so she begun to call weakly and tried to get up off the road. She was bleeding profusely from her mouth and somewhere around her middle. Some men came to remove the man from under the Matatu and although he didn’t appear to have a scratch on him, he was all limp – some people in our Matatu said he was dead for sure…

That very day my volleyball team-mates and I were heading out to a town two hours away for a tournament, and since a couple of us were going to be using public transport, we were really shaken by that scene. Some of our other team mates were coming up behind us and they said they found the woman being carried onto the back of a pick-up truck, and that her leg basically snapped off below the knee as she was being lifted, causing them to cry out and avert their faces. About 50 metres beyond this point we found another Matatu that had crashed into a palm tree by the side of the road and the passenger side was badly crashed – we imagined whoever had been sitting there certainly had broken legs if he was lucky enough to be alive at all!

The first thing I did was to text my sister and ask her to pray for our safe journey – me - the one who has turned my back on the Christian God. What did this say about what I believe or fear deep down? AT the same time, and this has occurred to me quite frequently in the past few months, I considered JUST how close death is to us, or at the very least, mutilation, pain and suffering; and how one's life as they know it can change in a moment! We go around with this complete obliviousness of how close death is… Maybe it is nature’s way of preventing us from becoming immobilised by the knowledge – maybe it would be difficult to reproduce or eat or go about any kind of business. The Buddhists, though, teach their followers to be highly aware of life and death, and from a young age children are exposed to it. They embrace death and live with it everyday, which is why they choose to live simply and only do things that have deep and lasting impact, such as loving others, sharing their worldly goods, living peacefully and trying to attain enlightenment – which I understand to mean realising the ‘truth’? Or meeting one’s ‘true self’ or ‘true nature’ – not sure, haven’t studied it in that much depth.

I also thought about how my Mom is always worrying every time I have to go on a journey anywhere – saying I should be careful and pray and all that. I gained a new appreciation of that because as a passenger (or even as a driver), sometimes one has so little control over what other road users are going to do – so one really should pray. On the other hand I also considered the idea of fate, and if one can really avert what is meant to be – obviously one should take all precautions possible, but ultimately, we have little control over whether we live or die, or when we die. All we can do is try to lead a meaningful life (whatever that consists of), and to savour life in all its richness. Finally, at such moments one wonders if this life is so fleeting, is that all there is? What lies beyond life?

All in all, quite a defining moment for me!

OLD LESSONS

I have this habit: I buy packets of ginger biscuits, digestives and chocolate chip cookies, then, I put them in my biscuit tin in careful layers, so that I have all three in similar proportions all the way to the bottom of the tin. Now this is something I do all the time, but this morning I became conscious of the fact that it is a bit Brie Vander-what’s-her-name on Desperate Housewives! At the same time, I remember how I silently scoffed at a newly married friend of mine because she admitted to me that she polished the apples before she put them in the bowl on the kitchen table because her husband liked to eat shiny apples (At the time I tried to imagine that conversation in which the husband expressed a preference for shiny apples). Anyway, I felt that she was really overdoing the perfect wife thing…

Anyway, today I thought back to that and realised that if I could lay out my biscuits she could polish her apples - who was I to judge?? NOT being judgemental was a lesson I begun to learn in my final year of University - I clearly remember the Sunday afternoon that I sat by my window and reflected on how much I judged others! The lesson continues, many, many times I have to break off certain thoughts by telling myself to just let people be – especially considering that all I want is for people to let me be too…

Unkeen

In the past, when a guy I liked stood me up for whatever reason, or was late, I immediately threw a fit and refused to take his calls and fell to doubting his affection for me and on and on! Now that I am the recipient of TWO men's admiration, which two men I am not in the least bit interested, I see things a little differently. The book 'He's just not that into you' says he is not into you if he is not calling you - one of these guys is a total non-starter and can only make advances when he is totally drunk, or offer me gifts shyly when he returns from one of his many trips abroad, and that's about it.. (He has been in this state of non-starting for a good four years!!)

The other one (we are talking about the stalker now) calls me whenever he is in town, he gave me his satellite number and I promptly lost it, I have hardly ever called him, and even when we've been out of touch for days and he calls to wonder how come I have been so quiet I am totally unrepentant and he takes it - I figure if he wants me let him call me… And yet when it is a guy that I like I think ‘oh, let me call him, maybe he is not able to call, or I should call as much as him or – ’, tsk, what rubbish!

Anyway, the learning event occurred this weekend: I was supposed to meet the man for coffee on Sunday (at which point I was going to tell him as gently as I could that this was not working), but due to some miscommunication and my phone battery going completely flat, I waited for half an hour but he didn’t show so I went home. (Strangely enough, I was half dreading him turning up, not because of the bad news that I had to deliver, but because I really had no wish to see him and be subjected to his fawning and the rest of it)

Anyway, in the old days, if he had been a guy that I liked, I would have lost my temper and been pissed and been reading him the riot act the second he called (or calling him to read him the riot act) - but in this case, due to some glitch, I was separated from my phone all of the following day and was only able to switch it on today (Tuesday). This evening, he called and started of chatting like nothing had happened - I don't know if this was a ploy to get me to forget about being stood up but anyway, half way through I asked him what happened that day and turns out he got the name of the coffee shop wrong. Obviously I didn't care but there after he was chugging on full steam ahead suggesting that in three weeks time he and I should go away for the weekend - IS he crazy?? I have been on ONE date with him and only seen him physically one other time and even though we have spent a lot of time talking on the phone, there is no way I would go off on a weekend with him!! What, and spend hours upon uninterrupted hours with him? Forget it!

Anyway, the point is, whereas I would normally have begun to doubt his affection if I actually liked him, etc., this guy seems as sweet on me as ever! Is it the challenge of the chase? Is this what inspires these guys? Whatever the case, this conversation also showed me that I had to get the chucking done soon and very soon! He even mentioned the fact that he had two business class tickets to China because he had been invited by two separate companies for business in the same town during the same period (two weeks from now) so that theoretically he could transfer one ticket to me but I am not even slightly tempted!! Gosh!! It's bad!!