Movies and moods..

Wednesday 1 February 2012

We’re home a bit later than usual tonight. Went to see the new George Clooney movie, Descendants. The promo commented that it is his best performance yet, and I have to agree with them.

. The movie is set in the so called tropical paradise of Hawaii. But I don’t’ want to write about the movie rather than what it made me think of, which was PNG.

We lived on the tropical isle for three long years. I’m often asked what I did over there, and my   answer is almost always that I learned to drink gin and play cards. It sounds a flippant answer but it is true.  From the distance of years I can see that I suffered from SAD, seasonal affective disorder. A depressive disorder triggered by not enough bright light. OK I can hear you thinking, how can this be so in a country that is in the tropics which must mean that there is plenty of sun.

Plenty of sun yes, but is was always too hot to sit out in it. Anyway the houses over there are but to keep the sun and therefore the heat out. So I spent much of my days in the subdued lighting of our flat, or someone else’s. My morning routine consisted of seeing The Man off to work, or dropping him off if I needed the car. Followed by an hour’s brisk walk with a friend while the haus meri did her thing. Later after a shower there would be nothing to do except read or stitch or a visit to the local CWA, or perhaps a shopping trip to the local market. After lunch with The Man the afternoon would be a repetition of the morning. Except on Wednesday. The highlight of my week. Cards day.  Eight of us would each take it in turns to host the afternoon’s game of Canasta. We played and laughed and cried together. When you live in an expat community your friends become your surrogate family who share the highs and lows.  We lived in an artificially created reality, where for some alcohol became an escape, others couldn’t cope and went ‘home. Most of us just got on with it and tried to make the best of it.

Weekend were a joy, I could escape with The Man out in the boat to fish or to dive. Diving was my salvation. It was pure pleasure to don the gear and flop over the side into the glorious underwater world. The total concentration of diving left the topside world behind. It was like flying. Frequently visited dive sites and their inhabitants became familiar. We would know where the eel garden was or where the striped painted shrimps lived. Where to watch the cleaner fish feeding on the parsites of much larger creatures and to avoid the saucer shaped depression in the sand, the breeding ground of very aggressive trigger fish.