when the coconut drops

“Aargh!” It was a guttural cry, an animal cry, from before the age of words. It took a moment for me to realise that it had come from me. Thinking is a time consuming business, always a moment behind reality, never quite with it, never quite now.

That instinctive shout coming from deep within reminded me of another incident, a few years ago, when someone snatched a watch off my wrist in the streets of Lima. My arm had been yanked backwards and a similar cry had erupted from deep within. Before I had even realised what had happened, the thief had run across the road and away to the next junction. He paused there and gave a cheeky grin before disappearing around the corner. I had bought the watch a couple of weeks earlier: a cheap watch with a velcro strap, in case someone stole it from me in Peru. You could say that I was unlucky to have a watch stolen. You could say I was lucky that it was only a cheap watch. You could say that I had a great intuition that I was going to have a watch stolen. You could say that I created the stealing of the watch by putting the energy into buying a watch for that purpose. Or you could just say I bought a cheap watch and it was stolen. Life unfolds in all its glorious suchness and we create our little story from it: a jolly story or a depressing one, depending on our mood.

On this occasion I looked down and saw a large coconut lying on the ground. 

It had fallen from a tall palm, perhaps 12 or 15 metres high, and hit my left hip whilst I was leaning forward in a chair at the Sunrise Café. (This being India, it is not possible to see the sunrise from the Sunrise Café. There are some splendid sunsets on offer but another establishment had already called itself the Sunset Café.) If I had been sat back in the chair, perhaps leaning a little to the left, then the coconut would have landed on my head and I would not be here to tell the tale. But life is too short for “what ifs”. A concerned looking café owner suggested that I move to another table. But I stayed put and asked him to cut open the coconut. Within a few minutes I was munching its milky flesh: what a kind gift from the coconut palm!

(December 2004)