Escape

It may have been my Christmas present in 1956, or perhaps a 9th birthday gift the following February. At any rate, it was thereabouts that I was given the Kodak Brownie with which I took a few photographs when I went back to boarding school in Kep.

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It was about as basic as a camera could be, yet it took a decent black and white picture. If I could have got the film processed locally, perhaps I would have taken more photos.

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The image I would love to have captured required colour film which was unavailable.

In any event, it is unlikely I could have adequately recorded the sheer splendour of sunset over the Gulf of Thailand, the Plateau de Bokor across the bay standing out magnificently against a brilliantly scarlet sky.

There were days when the spectacle was so awesome, we were released early from our homework to go down to the beach and contemplate it.

We had a little free time before supper and I Iiked to go across the road to the tiny chapel run by Franciscan friars, where I sat enjoying the hush and the peace of the fading light, the scent of incense. Sometimes I heard the monks chanting.

They lived very austere lives and I respected them.

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Although we rose early, we were quickly herded to breakfast and didn’t have a chance to properly appreciate first light, however dawn and dusk have been my favourite times of day ever since.

The year I spent at that school in Kep was unpleasant in a number of ways, but the setting could not have been more wonderful.

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It was there that I first really noticed the Moon which rose behind a hill across the road. When it was full, I’d never seen it look so huge. I sat on the steps gazing at it, wondering if my mum was looking up from her home in Thailand. It made me feel closer to her.

Celestial bodies were the one thing I could rely on. Even when I couldn’t see them, I knew they were out there, tiny pinpricks of light. The vastness of space and time comforts me as it renders our brief and minute existence insignificant.

Not that it feels good to be meaningless, but I find it helps to dismiss problems as trifles. We have no choice but to deal with whatever challenge comes our way, but I have learned not to fret endlessly, or to allow myself to waste time worrying about things I cannot change.

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In old age I learned the art of letting go.

Letting go of resentment, of wishing my life could have been different. It is pointless wishing for what cannot be. Better to acknowledge and dismiss it.

And who is to say whether different would have been better?

Leaving Washington State at the age of 70 was some sort of catharsis for me. I had no idea it would be so and I do not fully understand it, but it was as if I packed up all my emotional baggage and left it behind.

Arriving at my new home back east, I was unencumbered and it was as if scales had dropped from my eyes. I began noticing the Natural world in a way I never had before, seeing beauty in the smallest things and celebrating the subtle differences in each day. I marvel at the passing seasons that I have always been aware of, but never fully valued before.

And I am so grateful for it all.

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The greatest surprise and the most wonderful gift was discovering that I was no longer depressed. Doctors had convinced me, long ago, that I suffered from a chemical imbalance which they treated with a whole series of anti-depressant medications. For chronic headache, I was prescribed pain relievers and when life became too stressful, anti-anxiety medication.

A friend who was a chemist told me once that the drugs would kill me, but I thought they were my lifeline. The medical profession eventually came under pressure because of the so-called “oxy-crisis” and my doctors told me I must abandon the medication which by then I had become dependent on.

Apart from the very real physical dependency, I couldn’t imagine coping with the crushing depression I remembered. It was a very stressful time, the weaning unpleasant and lengthy. I tapered the pills slowly, until I suddenly realised it had been days since the last dose, yet I was fine. I waited a few more days before announcing that I was free from the clutches of those awful medications.

It was something to celebrate!

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Still, I wondered how it would be next time a crisis arose. How would I cope with emotional turmoil? Before long I found out that I was stronger in the absence of mood-altering drugs.

It would no doubt have been better to approach my problems a different way when I was young, but at the time there was no alternative and I do not dwell upon it. I write about it occasionally when I remember, in gratitude for my escape.

And because perhaps someone else will read my words and find hope in them, since it was in other people’s stories that I found strength and inspiration.

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