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Pain. Pain sucks. I sit here on a train moving swiftly through the southern half of Thailand. It is early in the morning. People are starting to wake, and the porters are beginning to do their rounds quietly saying, 'coffee.' The green drape lies between me and the hallway, and I sit comfortably on my pull down bed. Lisa is asleep on the upper bunk. Has been since ten o'clock last night. She always seems to sleep so soundly. If you have been reading our diary, you will know that I have been ill. I had a fever the last few days, and it didn't allow me to do much during our visit to the capital. So now we are on our way to Ko Pha Ngan, an island off the south coast. I am awake, and my throat is aching terribly. The pharmacist gave me amoxycillin for my condition, and my fever seems to have decreased slightly. That may be due to the copious amounts of Advil I have been taking though. Now it seems to have moved to my throat. Very sore. Very sore indeed. When I was a child, I think I had something similar. I now seem able to override my body's desire to keep my mouth shut and swallow nothing. I am force feeding and force liquidating myself because I know it is good for me. It is strange being an adult, isn't it? But back to the pain thing. Pain, I know is our bodies way of telling us something is wrong. Don't you thing maybe a little cuckoo clock or tiny little bells in our ears would do. I mean pain is not a very nice thing. I am going on about it because I have been up for two hours contemplating my aching, and I think I have come to the conclusion that compassion is needed in all cases. With everyone. Some people are in pain, whether physically, emotionally or mentally, and perhaps they can't help themselves or are in the process of healing. We need to be compassionate and non-judgemental. How can we judge. Looking at me, you would only notice the dark circles under my eyes, but the pain in my throat is excruciating. So how do we know? Lisa has just woken up, and seems to want to turn our beds back into chairs. Looking across from me through the green curtain I see that our neighbours have done just that. The landscape is covered with palm trees, fairy green grass and seems to be very flat. It is getting warmer. I have to go. - E. J. 28th of January, 2000 |