I spent five nights in Suva this week —
three nights too many.
Working out with a trainer
kept me in the city,
trying to shift the winter weight
I now carry.
Invisible costs, made real.
Of flesh, blood
and sinking stone.
***
After Kyoto,
Suva feels like chaos.
Tension in the air.
A buzz in people’s movements.
Something’s unravelling,
coming undone.
***
Most days, I’m on alert —
scanning the streets,
breathing shallow.
It’s hard to describe —
this low hum.
Nameless. Unsung.
The safety I felt in Japan — long gone.
***
I head for the seawall.
I watch the tides shift through the mangroves.
I scan the shoreline for my old friends —
the herons.
These walks feel different.
I feel different.
More complete, less alone.
***
Miles away, I sit by the ocean —
for what feels like hours —
and let the sound of rolling waves
carry me home.
*
SLEEPING BEAUTY The Arts Village, Pacific Harbour, once a cultural mecca, has lived through many lives. Now, it sits in the midst of a quiet renovation. As you walk its corridors, past the sprawling waterlily pond and shuttered storefronts, there’s a ghostly hush to it all. A faded beauty in clothes once fine, now threadbare; a fresh coat of paint that can’t quite hide the soft lines time has drawn. May she awaken — slowly, quietly, into something new.