dark clouds

Haven’t seen the sun for several days now. It rains throughout the day but only periodically with varying intensity. The temperature has been relatively cool and damp. It reminds me much of Seattle and this makes me miss home and hate this place.

I’ve noticed that I’m kind of snappy with people around me, and due to language/culture barriers I often think that I’ve given off a bad impression of myself. Several times now I’ve surmised that people are after my money. And the instant status I’m given by being an American I find to be both a blessing and a curse. I catch myself recalling my travels to other isles of this archipelago and thinking they are better (e.g. beaches are prettier, people friendlier, grass greener etc.) than the one on which I’m committed to live.

But what stings me most are the intensely bittersweet, phantasmagoric daydreams which visit me randomly throughout the day of previous chapters and characters of my life. How rich the past seems to me now! The freedoms I once knew, the complexities and intricacies of “modern society,” the culture I’ve always either taken for granted or despised. These things I miss, but what affects me most of all is the recollection of all my friends/family. Conversations and shared moments are relived, all to the effect of reminding me of how uniquely dear they/you all are to me. How good it would be to bottle you up and take you all with me wherever I go, just as we had been at one time! But the river of time just keeps moving us along. I need not go into the senti details, for I’m sure you know what I mean.

Anyway, here on the Phlipside there seems to be, at least on the surface, such a nonchalance, an indifference even, about human interaction, that I wonder if I’ll ever find true friendship here. This concerns me but then again it is still very early and I’m aware that what seems apparent on the surface is not always true.

All of these perceptions most probably have to do with my subjective inner state of being. Symptoms of the “culture shock” I’ve heard about. And like the rain these dark, brooding moods pass as quickly as they appear, and I am once again awake to the present. I have yet to seriously dwell upon the question of whether or not I’ve made a mistake in coming here, but I pray, and I ask all of you to pray for me, that I will have the courage to face that storm if/when it visits.