Moving Sands

April 22, 2011, 6:20am

Pisar – the island of change. Its name in Chuukese, “pi sar” means “moving sand.” It is remarkable how fitting I have found this name to be, physically. Everything looks different than ten and a half months ago when I last visited these sands. The drop-off point that we ran towards at full-speed, face-planting into the ocean, is much less dramatic (and, presumably, less fun). The southern shore at high tide is different, narrower, and at low tide, a surprisingly lengthy sandy peninsula suddenly appears. The flies have multiplied by the thousands and have an affinity for my toes.

How am I to feel? Last June, Pisar promised me nothing and everything. In one way, I suppose, Pisar doesn’t owe me a thing. By this, I mean that I fully understand that Pisar is an island. An island, in its very nature, being a mass composed of sand, a matter infinitesimal in size and multitude, must undergo dramatic change with each day’s tide. But in another light, Pisar owes me the world: knowing I would be back within the year, and knowing what  Pisar meant for me that summer, I knew what I wanted, what I expected Pisar to look like, to smell like, to give me this year.

And if I were to return next summer, would I not feel the same pull? A resigned joy at its having stayed the same is juxtaposed by a wistful nostalgia of the discovery of how it has changed. I have felt this pull in the nature of our retreat thus far, as well. We did community affirmations at the end last year, and this year, we were finished with them by the second night. Last year, the first day was in silence – this year, it will be the third. In my mind I have cried, That’s not how I remember it! That’s not what I expected!

And so it will be for me in a mere month and a half. The world I once knew and its people, smells, taste, sounds, and joys, is every changing. Its sands are ever moving with the tides of each new day.

And yet. I sit here imagining it, expecting it to look quite the same as it did when I left it in July 2009. In my anxious and longing mind, my relationships will pick up where I left them. My favorite foods, smells, and sounds will affect my senses in the same wonderful way they did when they became my favorites. And more than anything, I have operated by the misconception that I will not have changed. At “home,” two years ago, I was Samantha. When I plucked myself out of that “home” and moved 7500 miles West to discover a new name for “home,” Pohnpei, I became Ms. Cocco, Samenda, or Saman. And now I will travel 7500 miles East and I expect to find Samantha once again. And in part, yes, I will still be Samantha. But I will also be, for all time, Ms. Cocco, Samenda, and Saman. These identities have merged.

And what of my discovery that, as have the sands of Pisar, everything has changed? I may feel confused, betrayed, frustrated, and angry.

And yet. As there is comfort to be found in the unchanged, the stagnant, the  sameness, there is also great consolation in admitting that nothing worth loving can ever stay the same. In admitting such powerlessness in the face of time, we can find healing. We can accept what is now, not what was then, and search for goodness.

Everything changes, but does not necessarily fall apart, unless we allow it to do so. We’ve all heard Stevie Nicks lament, Well, I’ve been afraid of changing…the landslide brought me down. Can we alter this image? I would like to no longer imagine a terrifying, life-threatening wall of land at the hands of gravity that brings us change, but rather, in the theme of my Micronesian home, the tide. Listen this morning, and Pisar will tell you a little something about how the tide transforms…

The ‘swish’ as the water gently washes over the sands. The ‘swosh’ as gravity softly drains the water from the sand. The ‘swish’ as the water gently washes over the sands. The ‘swosh’ as gravity softly drains the water from the sand. The ‘swish’ as the water gently washes over the sands. The ‘swosh’ as gravity softly drains the water from the sand.

This exchange is anything but alarming. The great Pacific lives up to the linguistic origins of its name in these early morning hours. The water is unconcerned by gravity’s effects on it, with knowledge that it will be back, again and again.

Kobayashi Issa, an 18^th century Japanese haiku poet, spoke of the longing that can plague us when faced with change. He writes, The morning dew is the morning dew. And yet. And yet--  It is said that these words were inspired by the sudden death of his baby daughter. How can we comprehend that something so important as a human life be as fleeting as the tiny, perfect world in a drop of morning dew? And yet. As the dew reappears each morning on the blades of grass and leaves of trees, the world looking ever the same but ever different, our lives must also ebb and flow in the same way.

Ecclesiastes expresses this paradox for us in a timeless way: There is a time for everything beneath the heavens. All things, God has freely given in His love, for use and blessing each in its appointed time. There is a time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to find and a time to lose. Must we choose? Can not every occasion be a time for both? To weep at the injustice of life but to laugh at its irony; to laugh at the joys of life but to weep in knowledge that they will not last; to mourn while dancing, to lose one part of ourselves while also finding another.

As I sit here now, the morning sun on my face, my body strong from sunrise yoga, my feet sinking into the wet sand, my unchanging seated position reveals startlingly how the level of the tide has changed in my short time by the water. I gauge this by the frequency with which the soft waves wash over my feet, lessening every few moments with each swish and swosh. I catch myself feeling dejected – how I wish the water would keep washing over my feet! (It keeps the flies away.) And yet. Admitting my powerlessness against the BFG* that is the Pacific allows me to exist here on this morning with unspeakable freedom.

In the face of disappointment and devastation, can we remember to smile? Can we dance?

*BFG stands for Big, Friendly Giant, as coined by the genius of Roald Dahl.