The Undeserved Favor of Life

What odds, from the mud caves and ping pong beer of Yangzhou, the decadence of Bounty and the karaoke brothels of Sengiggi... to 11 years later in Zanzibar, watching - at that old randomly met comrade's instigation - a Jehovah’s Witness video about family roles (of all things) speculating about the everlasting.  Mysterious ways.  Swings and roundabouts.  Miracles and wonder.  At least a glorious turn of phrase for 1 Peter 3:7.  In the style of Hitchens, that seems a titular phrase worth remembering.  Even as the gin in the campari does seem to be of his invention - applied first to irony and then, his mother.  Likened in the ironic definition as well to the knight's move on a chessboard, the cat's purr, the knot in the carpet.  Exquisite.

Back from the beach, feels like a full day today though so little was done.  Slept in until just before 10AM, breakfast, walk to the market and wine shop, then along the flat white beach, photos and Fat Mama, no wallet for the Jambo plate, short swimming lesson interrupted by the old man arising beside his blue radio (remember?).  Supper time stories of Mangos tied together, undershirt, as an unsuccessful way to avoid the insults from the boys about the lack of breasts... memories of water being poured into the dirt as a time challenge for errands to be run before the ground is dry.  Pride in being the first girl in the agriculture class, avoiding home economics.  Such a special lady, a real love.  

The crickets in the background, as she rests over there, reading.  Now making some coffee before bed.  What would it feel like, if this was infinite, and not a moment in time?  How different?  That never seems to bother.  Always there is Cardozo's quote - "The inn that shelters for the night is not the journey's end.  The law, like the traveler, must be ready for the morrow.  It must have a principle of growth."  The look to the next place, the distractions before any concern over monotony.  Although I wonder about the so-many that I pass in these Zanzibar streets.  What think they, day after day?  In the quiet moments.  The time to just sit, through the long hours.  As the day is long (seems Much Ado the source for that, how unsurprising).

Hitch, too, had a valediction in his letters to a young contrarian.  Not so young now, but they still hit home, and maybe in a way in which the personality of the recounter yields further texture to the advice (why did I just flash to Achill and the three-pour Guinness barkeep at that thought?):

"Beware the irrational, however seductive.  Shun the "transcendent" and all who invite you to subordinate yourself...  Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity... the grave will supply plenty of time for silence."