Since my last post, I have been struggling to get back to writing more. There seems to be a large part of me not willing to continue on with the blog. I am not really sure why I fee this way, and so decided it was best if I just let it go for a short time. During my absence, I have been taking photographs and there are stories in my mind lined up to share, so I suppose there is still a part of me wishing to pass on the beauty of this journey. But I feel as though I am back where I started, lost and confused.
Something happened the other day while I was standing in line to buy my return ticket to Apuela. In front of me was Kayanna, the woman who’s home I was staying in while the strike was on; a person whom I spoke of in my last story. I hesitated when I saw her, wondering if I should leave and come back once she had gone, and then anger began to replace my fear of facing her. I could feel the emotions bubbling up from the pit of my stomach and forced myself to remain calm. While I stood there, I made the decision not to acknowledge her if she engaged me. Not wanting my feelings to get the better of me in conversation, I realized, given past experiences it was better to be silent rather than say something I would regret, or worse not be able to say the right thing.
Turning around after buying her ticket, she looked up to see me standing there, surprise at suddenly facing me. I realized I had been fortunate to have had time to collect myself and decide how I would handle the situation. She said “Gabriel…..hello”. I said nothing, kept my focus in front of me. Then she said “I did nothing to you, why are you not talking to me”. I did not answer, so she stood there, threw her hand up, shook her head and thought for a few seconds before walking away. I felt sick.
This experience was on my mind off and on during the day as I wondered if I should have handled it differently. The next morning, it came to me, the best thing for me to do was to send an email with my reasons for not wanting to begin a conversation with her on the street in that situation. I wrote the letter, but could not send it due to the power outage. Sometimes, I think, it is a good thing when you can’t accomplish a task right away. After conversing with a friend about the experience I had, and my idea to send the message, I felt a review was necessary. He was of the impression perhaps she might have been intimidated by Louis’ behaviour on that fateful day, and was concerned about reprisal had she spoke up in my defence. Having been in situations with Patrick where this was the case for me, I realized I had to give her the benefit of the doubt, thereby making slight changes, doing my best to remove the anger I still felt towards her.
In my letter, I pointed out that in doing nothing, she was doing something. Her defence of Louis encouraged him, gave him permission to kick me out of her house without an intelligent reason. I explained how others I spoke to did not understand how I had put them in danger, and how they felt she was likely afraid to stand up to him. But it was her lack of concern after I left which made me believe otherwise. She never checked with me to see if I made it home safely, which meant to me she just didn’t care. It took several days for her reply to arrive, something perhaps I should not have read. This experience has left me wondering once more whether I desire to continue with my writing. It seems to have set me back to a time when I believed it was better for me to remain unseen, unheard.
The power came back on yesterday and my morning began with reading her letter, filled with hateful, insulting remarks, including one about why my children don’t speak to me, my book wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on and I have the mental capacity of a 12 – 14 year old, to name a few. There was more, including a couple threats to my safety and a few hours later another one arrived, which I deleted before reading. I wondered why she had been concerned about me not wishing to speak to her the other day as I read how little she thought of me. I wondered if I was this horrible empty person she described. I fell into a hole and I cried for hours, unable to comprehend such hatred.
My friend stopped in on his way home that afternoon. He had bumped into Kayanna in Cotacachi while there, explaining how she stopped him to give her version of the situation during the strike. He listened to her knowing she was lying and wisely let her vent. As he allowed me to talk about it, giving me support, I slowly began to feel better. Then I said something stupid, something I wish I could take back, something that made me realize how easy it is to allow your anger to give you permission to judge.
The week before the strike Kayanna’s house was broken into and they stole a great deal of costly items. In her letter, she accused me of being negative, that my story was nothing but negativity, and of course this only attracts more negativity. So while I was talking to my friend, I started to say how I wondered if her break-in was due to her negativity. Then I realized, as I saw the look in his eyes, how awful what I just said was. His home had been broken into last year, a terrible ordeal for him and his wife. In that moment I saw how easy it is to decide the cause of someone’s misfortune when you are upset or angry or both. This man is a very kind and gentle person, his friendship means the world to me, and I had just slapped him in the face. I did not know his wife, but understand she was a very spiritual lady, and their love for each other a beautiful thing. Who knows the true reason for what happened to them that night, but I would not consider it was due to them being negative people. So I had to ask myself – who knows the reasons for the theft at Kayanna’s house, and who am I to make any presumptions. I apologized, he said it was ok, but I do not think it was not ok. We continued our visit and I learned more from our conversation on a different subject, the same thought process. It seems it was a big day for me learning, seeing where I needed help changing perspective. I am grateful for his gracious demeanour, his kindness and his knowledge.
I am trying every day to be better as a person, see problems, reactions and actions from a different perspective to improve my insights. I make a lot of mistakes, old habits die hard, but in being here, I feel I am being given the opportunity to change, shed the way of thinking from a life lived in constrained circumstances. When we listen to someone else’s experiences, we can change our perspective on matters that perhaps were limited beforehand.
Sometimes saying your sorry is not enough to ensure forgiveness. Sometimes trust cannot be regained. Sometimes loss is not recovered. Words cannot be taken back, actions cannot be undone, inaction cannot be turned to action after the fact. I cried for a long time after he left, the damage caused by Kayanna’s angry, spiteful words still pound in my mind as I write this. I do not know if I want to continue writing the blog, be responsible for things I say here anymore. Thinking many times over the months I have changed, I wonder now at the truth of that idea. Kayanna’s perspective of me is pretty much exactly the same as what I grew up with. Does any of this matter? When you realize how you are seen in someone else’s eyes, and that perspective is the same as your childhood experience, can you allow yourself to be deluded into thinking you have changed? This is the source of my sadness, confusion and tears, this idea that in reality, I am the same person I always have been, the tiny pieces of my soul scattered to the winds. It is a sharp contrast to what I feel when in the presence of someone who is kind and thoughtful. Anger and hate has the ability to destroy the beauty, something I am struggling to prevent today.