Islands of Comfort and Stability

 

 

We all have “islands of comfort and stability” in our lives that provide us relief from everyday stress we encounter and times of hardship.  It helps us relax and prevents us from going crazy.  These “islands of comforts” can be an activity in which you enjoy doing, people you enjoy being around and socializing with, or just simply taking time to “sit and smell the roses”.  Individuals may also turn to religion to vent form the stress we encounter throughout our lives.  Everybody has their own way of finding a way to cope with life and the stresses that are associated with it.

 

 

  When I look at this subject, I can say that I have ways that I like to unwind, which help stabilize me from being overwhelmed all the time. I am a full time student at Chico State University and I also have a job where I work on average of 30 hours a week.  Being that as it may, I find myself working all the time whether it be homework, classes, or working at my job. Sometimes I need to just disassociate myself from school and work and go on a three mile run. Working out and socializing with friends helps me keep my sanity.  If not for these “islands of comfort”, I feel that I could go into a state of madness or depression. So overall, I feel that it is necessary to have these to maintain a healthy mental and psychological state of mind.  What about those individuals who already are in a state of madness?  Can they be saved from their madness with the help these “islands of comfort”?

 

 

 

This is an answer that I cannot give, nor can anybody realistically. I have not experienced a breakdown in my state of mind where I can provide personal experience to help explain the answers to the above questions.  Although I cannot offer some insight to these questions, I turn to Elizabeth’s character in “A Question of Power” by Bessie Head to help give a possible answer.  This novel is about a women’s mental breakdown and her struggle to find her place, and her sanity, in this world.  Elizabeth leaves South Africa with her young son – but without her husband, from whom she is fleeing - to live in neighboring Botswana, a country that has escaped some of the worst evils of colonial domination. But in rural Botswana she is once again faced with a constricting social system as the African villagers are suspicious of her urban ways and frown upon her individualistic behavior. Further, they bear her ill will on racial grounds because she is light skinned like the bushmen who are a despised tribe there.  Elizabeth suffers not only social isolation but intellectual deprivation as well. One of the few people with whom she can converse as an intellectual equal is the American peace corps volunteer, Tom, who acknowledges that "men don’t really discuss the deep metaphysical profundities with women" (24). During the four years in which Elizabeth is plagued by tribal suspiciousness, terrifying dreams, economic hardships, and two hospitalizations for mental breakdown, it is Tom, and her own love for and obligation to her young son that help her to survive this ordeal and find herself in the end.

 

 

I view Tom as an “island of comfort”, in which Elizabeth socializes with in the novel that helps bring support and clarity to her.  We are first introduced to Tom in the novel as on Pg. 110 of the novel in the following quote: “He had an absentmindedly friendly face with slightly squinty blue eyes and a small mouth which he kept partly open. It made him look permanently surprised. His short-cropped hair stood straight on end.”

 

I think this quote shows Tom’s importance to Elizabeth struggle to maintain stability: “People made unlikely friendships on the Motabeng projects.  First they were thrown together through work……Then it seemed that people from other parts of the world were very similar to people in Africa, but she wasn’t the sort of person Tom could get along with. …….They were all friends.  At the end of their lives they’d both have the same number of friends, but Elizabeth’s would be known and known deeply. Tom’s would be unknown to him. She could see it in his gestures.  He moved about restlessly, shifted and twisted distractedly, but when a face or word arrested his attention, he caught hold of himself and sat and stared like a quiet, still spider trapped in a corner, looking at life with gently waving feelers.  It must have been the second time he came to eat at her house that she noticed that he was not only rough, carefree, crude.  He had the most beautiful expression of deep wisdom in his eyes, and turned and stared at her like an ancient man.” (pg. 121-122)

 

 

I think this quote shows that Tom is a supportive character to Elizabeth, where she sees him as a source of wisdom and a deep friend. Tom did not realize that his friendship with Elizabeth meant more to her than he thought. It is apparent in the above quote. Even though she says that she could not be friends with Tom and sees him as “rough, crude, and carefree”, he is a source of comfort and stability to her. An “ancient man” of wisdom is how Elizabeth sees Tom.

 

 

Another piece of hope that Tom inflicts into Elizabeth’s recovery takes place on Pg. 188 of the novel.  In this short discussion, Tom provides Elizabeth with a moment of “ordinary” compassion and discussion of Elizabeth’s soul journey. After telling Tom that she loves him, he provides some good insight in which she seems to instantly recover from her confusion. Here is what Tom says in response to Elizabeth’s show or compassion: “Don’t you love everyone? Remember what you said to me that day we first met in the vegetable garden? You said that if the garden had a big street down the middle with lots of side-streets people could come and look around at everything.  You said you thought the vegetables would like it too. And I thought to myself: What do we have here – fish or fowl? This is one hell of a girl. Ha, ha, ha, how does she know what vegetables like?  Isn’t that love, not only for people, but vegetables too?”

 

 

This short response to her compassion towards him had a big impact on Elizabeth, which is apparent in the next excerpt form the novel:

“Her soul-death was really over in that instant, though she did not realize it. He seemed to have, in an intangible way, seen her sitting in the coffin, reached down and pulled her out. The rest she did herself. She was poised from that moment to make the great leap out if hell. (pg. 188)

 

This shows how Tom has been a source of help and hope for Elizabeth through her struggle. This is why I consider Tom to be an “island of comfort”, in which Elizabeth was able to overcome her madness. Although Tom and other characters seem to play a big part in Elizabeth’s journey, I would like to look an activity that has provided stability for Elizabeth.

 

 

 

The garden where Elizabeth works at in the novel also is an “island of comfort”.  “Everyone is a gardener at heart” and is true in this case with Elizabeth. This activity can be a stress reliever and a chance to clear her mind. This is somewhat similar to me and my extracurricular activities that I use to maintain my healthy state of mind. Throughout the novel, we see that there are many factors that benefit her as she works in the garden, whether it be the social interaction with other characters, or the time to reflect and converse with her “demons”. The garden seems to reflect Elizabeth as well in the novel as the Cape Gooseberry.

 

 

Elizabeth has had success in the novel in transplanting this non-indigenous plant, which is use to a more moist climate, into a dry climate with a silty sand type of soil in Africa.  This can refer to Elizabeth in the novel because she is not from this area, she is trying to fit in, and she continues to thrive throughout the novel in a bad environment. Even the village women in the novel call Elizabeth “Cape Gooseberry”.

 

 

Overall, we can see that there is “islands of comfort” in everybody’s life which help provide stability and help in our everyday life. They can also provide hope and assistance for those individuals that are already in a bad state of mind or struggling to maintain a healthy mind, such as in Elizabeth’s case.  The can be friends, acquaintances, strategies, or even simple activities that help us unwind. I feel that it what keeps us motivated and sane to some degree, but nonetheless stabile in this crazy unpredictable world.