Lying on your back in the water invites a wider perspective.
I recalled The Great Expectations of youth: an ideal image of life; a renewable sense that something wonderful is about to happen; a unique potential within the heart that longs to express itself.
Here, on this island, I had no expectations, and yet I was fulfilled.
Here, my needs for food, water, shelter, and warmth were satisfied with consummate ease, giving me the time and the freedom to enjoy every moment as it arose in my experience.
I was surrounded by natural beauty every day, I was in harmony with my environs every day, and I was at peace with myself every day, especially as and when the sun rose or set.
What more could I want?
Here, my life was uncomplicated. I had no obligation to serve anyone, and when I surrendered more fully to the heart of my soul, obligation didn’t even feel like the most appropriate word to use.
If I never made it back to the mainland, I could still harbor The Great Expectations.
I could still imagine that my ideal life is here, with others, with close friends and loved ones, even if they had given me up for deceased, and even if they no longer found living in paradise appealing.
I could still renew my sense that wonderful things are about to happen – that I would be rescued from this island and returned to a life that allowed me a chance at a fuller version of paradisiacal living.
Fueled by the first and second great expectations, I could still believe that I had a unique potential to express myself, even if I might be the only one who would ever know about it – and appreciate it.
I couldn’t imagine going back and staying, but I could imagine going back and then coming back, but then, knowing what I know now, I don’t think I would change a single thing.
Many of the things I had now were superfluous. I really didn’t need them.
If ever I were compelled to choose, the only contrivances that I would keep would be my survival blanket and parang – more for the convenience of having them than out of sheer necessity.
I was tempted to release the past, to give up any attempt at rescue. I might, instead, make the most of what I had, devote my life to being at one with it all, and enjoy every precious moment I had left.
While offering a refuge for The Great Expectations inside the heart of my soul.
I wondered: for me, here, now, might this not be the ultimate in fulfillment?
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