Garota de Lalomanu

I write this in Melbourne, in winter, but 30 hours ago I was on one of the world's finest beaches gazing on the white sand, the clear warm waters, surf on the reef, lush green island offshore. And, not least, onshore a bevy of beautiful bikini clad backpackers continually distracting the easily distracted such as myself. All this I was about to tear myself away from, to motorcyle back to the town, to fly to the cold and the clothed.



I'm a sucker for the bossa nova song, "The Girl from Ipanema". The original Portuguese lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes ("Garota de Ipanema") are much deeper than the English version, and they hint that beauty can bring sadness, as well as joy.

Later he wrote of the girl, "the sight of whom is also sad, in that she carries with her, on her route to the sea, the feeling of youth that fades, of the beauty that is not ours alone — it is a gift of life in its beautiful and melancholic constant ebb and flow."

What had flowed was about to ebb for me, I gazed and loved, and embraced the sadness.

The Garota de Lalomanu was undoubtedly S. a lovely Dutch girl: Tall (oh, about 6'3") and Tan (of course, she is in the tropics) and Young (only 20, half my age and a bit less) and Lovely (a lovely nature too; I smile and she does see, she smiles at me!)

As I type this in my winter, I still love a bit this Garota de Lalomanu, I suspect I'm not alone.

Communicating with God about the tsunami

On wednesday morning I woke to this text:

"Hey boar did you hear about quake and tsunami in the samoas?"

My phone failed to recognise the number, so it wasn't in my contacts, but the writer clearly knew my name and that I had a Samoan connection (I spent a couple of years around the millenium bring books to the Samoan masses)

I replied:

"I do now! thanks mystery caller!"

And got the reply:

"Youre welcome, love from god."

This explains a lot. God is all knowing of my name and work history, but I'm the last person likely to have His number in my contacts. I said:

"Well god, might i suggest that you spend less time loving atheists like me and more time loving your adoring samoans. Stop working in mysterious ways! "

He said:

"I love all my kids, even prodigal librarians. Sounds like youre back on board tho if you think im responsible for the samoan earthquake..."

"i know you exist because you keep txt ing me. So, why attack the samoans.. They luv ya!"

"They went against god when they swapped road sides"

So there you go, that's it straight from the top. I tried ringing the number but it just rang out and no voice mail. Can't say I blame God for not having voicemail.

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I can't offer prayers, but my thoughts and best wishes are with the beautiful people of the Samoan Isles.