Pebbled stones and happiness

By Lumepa Apelu 22 March 2016, 12:00AM

On white pebbled stones, as a child, I recall, the spots of playing marbles with other children, smoking a black plant, racing stick figured canoes in the cleaned eel filled “vaipe” and running through the village only to be stopped by crashing face forward from clumsy feet. 

The noises of being young in a village inside Apia, were like the sunrays falling on the top of the morning roof, shiny and sweet. 

It was a lively neighborhood, where I closed myself in a bubble most times, and heard the noises in the trickling of rain, the faces of loved ones and the loneliness of it all, when they went away.

But I write this to reach from a memory bank I treasure. I realize that thinking is a struggle for human beings. Knowing is peace, something we all aspire to. 

But sadly, our ability to think deludes us to say that we know better than other living things. But we must capture the innocence of a child, the wisdom of flowers and the loving serenity of trees. 

To learn of them, we have to stop, inhale, take our ego off our shoulders and be as elegant as a yellow butterfly. The secrets of this world are not hidden inside our offices, not our library shelves, not even in our sacred names, or inside our homes. 

They are all within our souls. Sometimes, you can see them in another person, if you care to really know.

I look around our world of small towns and villages, and realize that when we praise too much the men we worship, we become like the broken hearted, powerless. And if we paste too much value on what we have, people will begin to steal them. Sides of a coin are not complicated. But the over thinkers almost always complicate this life with messy things. 

The children on the streets, come rain or shine continue to grow and the majestic words of promises can hail any storm but I wonder how long these children will stay there; till they grow old? As if the life of paradise was a promise to heaven anyway. I often bow my head, in silent need of a prayer to touch me. 

There are waves yet to crash over us. And more rain will fall heavily to bind us to the earth, and to hone us into her unsaid pain. 

The wars of the ether world will forge as they have begun long before we arrived here. A child saving another seems to be the ways of the weary. Happiness; What is that, really?

If you ask me, happiness is in the flow of a river to touch the beginning of the sea. It is the end of the road when you have reached your destiny. Happiness is when you live life to give to it earnestly. 

By Lumepa Apelu 22 March 2016, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

Upgrade to Premium

Subscribe to
Samoa Observer Online

Enjoy unlimited access to all our articles on any device + free trial to e-Edition. You can cancel anytime.

>