Serendipity

I am learning ...”to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. “ 

                                              Paul, writing his friends in Philippi

                                              The Message

Our apartment, on the east end of Guest House, Annex 1,  overlooks the valley below here on Shrinigar Hill, in  Buhusaidanda, nearly two kilometeres up the “Mission Road” from the Tansen bazaar. 

A few weeks ago, realizing our strategic location,  I asked Ganesh, our cordial Guest House Host, if I could obtain some plastic patio chairs to set outside our door at the base of the ten foot morning-glory-adorned rock wall that our entrance faces and supporting the guest house and the dining room above us.  

   I could then, as the sun is rising or in the cool of the evening, look out over the valley just now being cultivated by tractor or hand hoe in preparation for planting some one thousand feet below, with the recent afternoon thunder storm greening the brown landscape that greeted us on our arrival.  

 

Very occasionally, with delight, we can see from our bedroom window the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas to the north as they risk to peak out of the clouds like shy Nepali girls; heretofore,  their presence seemed but a rumor.

The view is not unobstructed, as electrical wires and water lines pass low overhead and water and sewer pipes poke out of the sloping ground like elbows through a torn shirt.  But with both mental and actual “Photo Shop” work those distractions can be eliminated.

This week, Ganesh brought the bright blue chairs by.  Dusting them, i readied them for the morning contemplation and devotion, setting them in position for the best view.

But shortly after, the hospital work crew began digging up the septic for the guest house which, opportunistically,  is directly below our sunrise-facing bedroom.  Apparently,  the buried square cement “tank”,  about 10 feet in all dimensions,  is full and ready to be emptied.  I have no idea how often that needs to be done, but it is covered by about two  feet of soil and rocks. 

 

Beside the tank, using the stonework skills common here on these rocky hillsides, the workers made a lovely pit that looked like it would make a delightful fish pond, the setting being right.  And with the lovely flowers we have come to enjoy here...roses, sweet peas, geraniums, marigolds, straw flowers, tulip trees, petunias,  bougainvillea., amaryllis... that would be a great idea.  

The next day, the three workers labored tirelessly as they lowered  a rope- connected bucket into the black abyss, emptying it into the newly built “fish pond” adjacent.  When the depth became low enough, one of the workers (presumably the newest hire) got into the tank and helped with loading the bucket until the tank seems all but squeaky clean and the adjacent pond, strategically situated next to the steps over which I view the Spring-awakening valley below, is full to the brim with black sludge.   I did not see him enter, nor notice his exit, but I could see his blackened hands lift the bucket up to his fellow workers.

         Marita has closed the windows, but with cold that I got a few days ago, I am unperturbed.

I talked with Ganesh about the plans, thinking on option...certainly not my first choice...was to just let the moisture evaporate over the next millenia and then distribute the fertile soil on a nearby flower bed.  Ganesh thought they might cover it will soil, which , in my opinion, would be an excellent site for “quick sand” trap for some unsuspecting intruder.  He thought it might be used as a flower bed;  in my view, a floating one, if so.

That prompted me to tell him the story of Jack in the Beanstalk, which was a new tale to him.  So, perhaps some morning I will look out the window at the sunrise and see a gigantic,  stout vine of a sweet pea wondrously winding to the heavens... and I will climb it to find a pot of gold...if not a better view of the Annapurna Range.  If I don’t come home as scheduled, at least you will know the reason (assuming I did not loose my footing and go splat in the “fertile crescent”)

I am not sure if this is what Paul had in mind when, according to Eugene Peterson,  he said that he was “content with his circumstances” and “could make it through anything.”

But at any rate,  I am thankful, at least this time,  for the serendipity of the common cold. *

PS.  Since, they have covered the black abyss with a few branches to deter kids from playing on the bog.  But, with Marita’s observation that the branches might actually attract the little kids around here to play, they added a more protective bamboo surround. 

*fortunate for me, I did not use echinacea