Manuel Antonio Oct 15, 2013

6;23am. I've been awake since 5am, when the sun came up. Well, except the sun didn't actually, visibly come up. It is foggy and the rain is pouring down all around me. The sound on the zinc roof is soporific.  This house is temporary, because I must hike a steep hill to get here and there are 3 flights of spiral stairs to get to my apartment. Which I did 3 times yesterday and will continue to do for 2 weeks. My legs ache today--a good sign--I must be getting stronger. I couldn't come up or go down the hill (road) in the rain. Too muddy, slippery, precarious. Still, for this 2 weeks, it is a marvelous vacation aerie (had to look that one up) and I consider it like a 2 week spa and exercise retreat. Raining harder. These glass walls surrounding my bed are the only walls, except kitchen and bath, so it is like being in a glass tree house with the rain pounding all around. Two doors open onto the overhang covered terrazzo so the breeze--wind--blows through the room. A little damp, but cozy here in my bed in the midst of a wilderness. Wet, beaten down by the pounding rain, tropical trees are hanging over my railings. They lash and wave in the rain. I am content. Nothing I must do, nowhere I must go, got my protein drink and my blender, an apple, a peach and coffee. And, in case of an emergency, chips and 1 diet Coke. Also a package containing several kinds of cookies. These were sent by Manuel's mother. So far, I have resisted them. Today is  a discontinuity  in time. No before, no after, only today on the roof in the rain. Selah.
"“Selah” is also thought to be rendered from two Hebrew words:s_lah, “to praise”; ands_lal, “to lift up.” Another commentator believes it comes from salah, “to pause.” From these words comes the belief that “selah” is a musical direction to the singers and/or instrumentalists who performed the Psalms, which was the hymnbook of the Israelites. If this is true, then each time “selah” appears in a psalm, the musicians paused, either to take a breath, or to sing a cappella or let the instruments play alone.   When we consider the three verses in Habakkuk, we also see how “selah” could mean “to pause and praise.” "