In Paradise

The day after the ground shook in Norway, everything moved so slowly on the island. What point was there in sun-basking, in happy socializing? I drowned in newspapers and stared into distant walls. We offered to make blueberry pie for the evening’s barbecue and I jumped at the opportunity to gather berries, needed the distraction.

Nature so quiet but the iPod so loud, between songs I would realize the stillness around me and it was only disconcerting. The blueberry patches stretched infinitely around me, it’s a good year this year, and I stood in a sea of blue, plump berries in every direction. Picked one. Picked hundreds. Filling my bowl, I had more than enough. Picked more. One by one, unable to stop, I simply focused on the simple act of carrying each berry to the bowl and stretching out for more. The loud music and repetitive behavior numbingly comfortable in an incomprehensible world. My fingers turned red, dark red, blood red. The pie was made, we still had blueberries for days.

Most of these days have passed in silence. It is too hard to speak of what has been, it seems impossible to speak of anything else. Life will return, words will return, it is inevitable. It’s just a matter of enduring the silence in between.