Journal Entry 10.3.23

I have been noticing places of weaving and unweaving all around me. In Kathmandu the traffic is the most incredible example of cooperative and civic mindedness I’ve ever seen. Traffic has to weave together without traffic lights or traffic control officers. Generally, people take turns and move forward, allowing each other to merge into traffic or cross lanes in a natural order. People blow horns and inch forward, but without the insistence that they will “win” and get ahead of the next guy. Motor bikes, cars, buses all flow in and out of each other at a slow and steady pace.

The rivers in this district slow and speed up, gathering strength from streams along the way, slowing down and depositing silt in wide glacial valleys and then turning into raging torrents as they suddenly descend, crashing over rocks, swirling in vast, deep eddies.

It reminds me that there is a natural order to grief. While I have been locked in a stagnant pool, unable to escape or make progress, grief is not to be rushed nor can I know when to expect it to slow or speed up.