Isa Lei...

I'm writing this from LAX, where I landed from Nadi a few hours ago and have another few hours before I'm getting on a plane to Boston. I don't know if my medication is affecting this, but right now I feel seriously depressed. I'm shivering while wearing a fleece outside in LA, all of a sudden there are white people everyone that are all dressed up, and the FOOD there's hundreds of restaurants with anything you want. People everywhere, walking quickly, yelling at each other, not saying hello to strangers. I kind of wandered down the middle of the terminal in a daze staring at everything. This is ridiculous. I talked to Tyler on the phone and started bawling because I can't stop thinking about how dull and brown and dead and cold and sterile everything looks outside. Even the palm trees are like this. Everything's just been muted, like I was walking around outside all day and then put on a pair of thick sunglasses. Or if you had a vibrant photograph and kept sticking layers and layers of scotch tape over it until it only looked like fuzzy shadows of what it used to be . I'm crying because I'm scared that it's going to be like this back home too, and it probably will.

I'm sure that in a week or so once I get settled, seeing friends and family, going around familiar areas in Massachusetts, Fiji will be just another positive memory. But for now all I feel is real sadness about leaving that place. I hated it at first, grew to love it, and now it's painful to think about leaving it. I'm not in a good place here, sitting in terminal 48A.

Then again, this is probably just because all my drugs are refusing to wear off and these are the rantings of someone heavily dosed by Valium. To go on with the emotional mode that I'm in right now, here's the Fiji Farewell Song:

Isa, isa valagi lasa dina Isa, Isa you are my only treasure
Namu lako au na rarawa kina Must you leave me, so lonely and forsaken?
Cava beka ko a mai cakava As the roses will miss the sun at dawn,
Nomu lako au na sega ni lasa. Every moment my heart for you is yearning.

Isa Lei, na noqu rarawa Isa Lei, the purple shadow falling,
Ni so sa na vodo e na mataka Sad the morrow will dawn upon my sorrow,
Bau nanama, na nadatou lasa Oh forget not, when you're far away
Sonaisali nanuma tiko ga. Precious moments at Sonaisali.

Vanua rogo na nomuni vanua Isa, Isa my heart was filled with pleasure
Kena ca ni levu tu na ua From the moment I heard your tender heart greeting
Lomaqu voli me'u bau butuka Mid the sunshine, we spent the hours together,
Tovolea ke balavu na bula Now so swiftly those happy hours are fleeting.

Domoni dina na nomu yanuyanu Over the ocean your island home is calling
Kena kay wale na salsalu Happy country where roses bloom and splender,
Mocelolo, Bua, na Kukuwatu Oh if I could but journey there beside you
Lagakali, Maba na rosi damu. Then forever my heart would sing in rapture.

Peace out baby. I hope I can come again. Thanks to anyone who took time to read this blog (even if just for a minute) - I write it mostly for myself, but to hear that other people like reading it makes me very happy to know that someone's learning about some tiny aspect of the amazing life that I've had here.