taking our leave of Colombo

I really don't know how to write of the feeling this photo evokes in me. It is the cover photo of Michael Ondaatje's book of poems Handwriting about Sri Lanka. It is a scene that reminds me of an early morning as we took our leave of Colombo as a family for the last time.
The raffia mat is identical to the one in the photo. The slack hand as a resting place for slumber too. The spill of dark hair. The serious eyebrows. Bright fingernails. The thin sari that she sleeps in. The open air, the public room.....
That day, as we were taking our leave from Colombo we were escaping the day that would be, the day that was not quite as yet. From our bedroom we stepped quiet as could be into the living room and there, across the floor on a thin mat, lay the house-servant and her daughter sprawled soft asleep against the hard floor.
And there was that hand. It was the hand of the daughter, so light and untroubled, cradling her inner world. A cascade of oiled hair flowed and gathered on the floor around her, dreams pooled and flowed in the currents of her easy breathing.
It seemed a life unimaginable to me as we tried to carry all our clothes and gifts and life at the other end quietly so as not to wake them up. Yet that slack hand on her easy head on the hard floor seemed so eloquent. She never stirred as our packed suitcases made their way overhead towards the taxi and the flight and the sky towards everyday life back in Scotland.
Even today, over a decade from that morning, this photo brings back such a powerful sense of yearning. I want that ease...
 I imagine the raffia imprinting on her cheek, the tropical light and noise warming and rousing her from her sleep. Then a blink and her bright eyes are awake. The mistresses guests are on their way and she stretches and smiles and looks to her mother as to what is to be done on this new day. In the garden a bird shrieks and shakes through the leaves, the bright mangoes in the tree might make a treat later. The soles of her feet find the cool of the floor even as her forehead perspires. She stands and stretches. Her mother gathers up the raffia mats and she follows her into the kitchen to get busy. In there is the tiny shrine to Ganesh, and each time she sees it she smiles fully toothsome to herself at the luck of finding a new day.