When she first noticed my ears, Samaya asked me to move into the light.
“Yes! That’s very funny actually!” she said with a laugh with the sun hit them just right. “They look neat!”
The 76 year old says that noticing light like this is relatively new. It’s one of the reasons she’s hung four mirror balls on her balcony and is hoping for more.
“I find them positive, encouraging and joyful,” she says.
She likes the way the light dances across the darkness and transforms the shadows. “I get dark inside,” she admits. “And I don’t like it very much.”
Back in 2005, Samaya’s life couldn’t get much darker.
“I got stabbed six times by an ice pick,” she says. The attack happened while she was volunteering in Jamaica. “I was sort of on the down-side [afterwards].”
She recalls feeling hopeless. “What's the point of doing anything?”
Yet, during the recovery from her physical wounds and even deeper emotional ones, Samaya felt a deep desire.
“I had a sense,” she says. “Where that comes from, I don’t know.”
What she did know, was she had to go to Africa.
Despite describing herself as a poor pensioner, Samaya says she’s been to Kenya 12 times. She volunteers to help the local women in whatever way she can.
“I don’t belong to any group, I’m just there.” She says the experiences have changed her perspective on life.
“Financially they are poor. But the generosity of spirit is just remarkable.”
Samaya says they gave her the courage to realize her dream of earning a PhD at 70. She also found a way to feel grateful for her darkest days.
“You’re grateful you were stabbed?!” I ask, before she answers.
“I am grateful because I would never be where I am now [if it hadn’t happened],” she says.
Samaya says she always strives, despite the inevitable darkness in life, to find the ever-present light.
“I can laugh and see the sunshine and sunbeams.”
She starts laughing as the sun starts illuminating my ears again. “Now the whole ear’s lit up! It looks like somebody’s plugged you in!”
And we both laugh, finding joy in the most unexpected of places.
