No update yesterday. No energy, no words, nothing to tell. I always loved writing but haven’t been telling stories for a long time. I guess I was too caught up in paradise life. The day after the earthquake I was drawn to my notebook. It was the perfect way to let all the chaos out and to keep my loved ones updated about our situation here.
I can recommend everyone to write. Pick a word and see where it takes you. Because I’m convinced that you store everything in your body; the gorgeous, the ugly, the painful, the ecstatic. It’s all there locked away in your cells where memory, tension, and confusion remain day after day, waiting to be set free. You don’t have to show it to anyone, not even yourself again, if you don’t want to. But when it’s written down as a list, as a paragraph or poem or story, you can go to bed with a greater understanding of yourself, of the world or even both; yourself in this crazy beautiful world. And it all begins with just one word.
Trial & Error
Yesterday morning I woke up completely exhausted after another night with hardly any sleep. Staying strong and positive in this situation is not the easiest but staying strong and positive when you are so tired is a completely different story. On most days I wake up when the mosque starts the call for prayer at 4.30 AM. Having a nap during the day is almost impossible as there is no safe place where you can find some shade.
I know I need to rest so I can stay strong for myself, my sunshine and my boys. Our dear friends Andrea & Marge offered us we could stay in their house on Gili Air whenever we want for as long as we want. This morning seemed a good morning to take them upon their offer. It was the first time in two weeks we laid down inside a house. It felt weird, not sure if it was weird in a good way or a bad way, it just felt weird. One hour passes by and I slowly feel that my body start to relax.
Suddenly I start to feel anxious again and I feel that every muscle in my body becomes tighter. It starts again. Would it be possible that by now, after more than 500 earthquakes in 2 weeks, we developed a sixth sense and we can feel it coming? After 2 days of silence, the world starts rumbling. Again!
The saddest kind of sad is when your tears can’t even drop and you feel nothing. It’s like the world just ended. You don’t cry. You don’t hear. You don’t see. We wait till it stops and decided to go ‘home’ again. We are definitely not ready to be inside a building.
Magical sunsets
Our favorite place on the island – Mowies – is opening for the first time tonight. Everyone is excited. The sunsets on Gili Air are pure magic and watching the sunset is a big part of our daily life here. When I arrive at Mowies in the late afternoon the girls are already standing outside and they give me the biggest hug ever. They tell me their stories and I keep telling them how brave they are. It feels great to sit on the beach together and I’m so grateful for this little moments of happiness.
It never stops
We are all asleep when it starts again. I immediately know it’s a big one and I wonder: is it ever going to stop? We check online and see that it was a 7.0 (!!), same as the very first one 2 weeks ago. It seems there is no break from these awful destructive earthquakes at the moment. Just last night we had more than 15 earthquakes.
When I started my day this morning I was so frustrated with this feeling of extreme fatigue, now I’m grateful for it. Because even when we just had another massive earthquake we are all so tired that quiet quickly we all fall asleep again like nothing ever happened.
It can’t get worse than this
All our buildings got so extremely damaged during the first earthquake that we don’t even worry about them anymore. I even got to the point that I actually can’t wait for a team of engineers to come in and demolish our little paradise. I don’t want to see it anymore. I want to leave this chapter behind and move on. I want to world to stop shaking.
Today is day 15. I have no idea what this day will bring. But if I learned anything from life, it’s that sometimes the darkest times can bring us to the brightest places. We have to keep going. Even when we are scared and strength seems gone, we have to keep picking ourselves back up and moving forward. Because whatever we’re battling in this moment, it will pass and we will make it through. We’ve made it this far. We can make it to whatever comes next.
Love Rose
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