Lately feeling this restless burden as though fate had blundered over me to be an artisan for the whole remaining years of my existence…feeling as though I would suffer endlessly, feeling myself born for every delicacy and luxury.. only to spend the wealth of my charms, skills and abilities on making another rich..(that is what work feels like lately) I stretched and wracked my thoughts to come up with mind blowing, life changing inspiration. Or atleast just some peace and comfort in my emotions.

I realized the last few weeks that my words were dead.. my heart was sunken into a world where I could not find any inspiration anywhere, not even within myself. The contented bliss and peace which I had become accustomed to in the past few months seems like a distant memory.
All of a sudden I felt like “Candide” – the character in Voltaire’s tragic comedy with the same name!

Ok, so it took me a little while to get over the death of my turtle. Some people found it kind of funny, some people found it tragic – either way, I don’t think it was as much about a reptile as it was about having something which you value and brings you joy.. only to lose it.
So life goes on and I still have big turtle and I still love him.
At the moment I am sitting on the plane flying to Hong Kong….
You know – I don’t even know how to start this blog and you know that something is seriously peculiar for that to be the case, right? When “Miss Delise” word-freak – suddenly becomes speechless.

It is funny how in a moment your life can change you forever.

This is how the story begins:
4 weeks ago my good friend, close to my heart, was in a motorbike accident, he is in the hospital still, temporarily paralyzed.. My heart aches so much it makes me unable to eat properly – food no longer is appealing... I just can’t seem to concentrate on anything else – I feel helpless. Why? What do I do? How can I make it better? Where do I get the power to go back in time and change things? My mum has told me endless times, because she knows me so well – she would say in her Afrikaans: “ You cannot take so much of people’s pain on yourself and in your own heart, you need to be stronger so you can help them, and you need to put things into perspective, your life cannot cease because it’s hurt”…. I didn’t listen. The day after I found out about the accident (which was already the end of the day after it had happened), I called her – wailing from my soul. Broken. I was not even able until today to write about it… it has been so hard.

So there I am – asking God – what can I do? How does the pain go away?
Last Friday I decided to do something extremely unorthodox and out of character…. There is a speaker whom I had known for years, whose teachings I have followed and who has had a great impact on my life since I was 15 years old. I heard that he was in town, but he was speaking at a men’s conference an hour and a half drive away -I thought bugger it – I need to go – I need to have my soul enriched and have the darkened places brightened with some encouragement.
So, I get there and I thought maybe I could be inconspicuous and just sit in the back and listen… but when I arrived all heads turned – all these guys looked like rough biker boys gathering for a fist fight, a drag race or some other animal sacrificing ritual or something! They were so friendly to me, though, they gave me free stuff and all seemed very apologetic that they had not thought to dress more carefully – which I found kind of funny!
What a great message and a great service, I got over my discomfort enough to just allow God into the pain. And as it turns out it was as if in the corner of a dark room a tiny light was lit.

I don’t know why – but I just knew that night, my whole life was about to change – not sure how, who, what or when.. but I knew it and a sense of peace starting to creep in.

Later the weekend, I met up with a good friend we talked – we laughed, we connected.. Have you ever sat with someone while your heart was buried – and it is as if they just took a shovel and dug a little hole…and the more time you spend with them and the more you talk with them.. the hole gets bigger and your heart starts to see the light of day?

That was the beginning. Today on my flight to San Francisco – I walk to my seat and a young gorgeous girl – with awe striking beauty is in the seat next to me.. she looks up at me and smiles, her face radiant – she has the deepest dimples and the most perfect skin – I think wow what a beautiful girl. I sit down next to her and she is singing a song…However, I think to myself – she can sing, but I hope she won’t be chatting because I am so tired, all I want to do is sleep. That is what flights are good for these days!– I can’t hear the song, but her voice resonates inside me… she starts talking to me and that was the end of me for 2 hours! The first thing she says is words from a poem… she tells me that she has learned how to live her passion, how to take her soul from beyond the opinions of people and live freely with it.. she sparkles as she talks, her eyes like fire – Her face a true index of her mind. talking about how if you live with only an open hand or a closed fist you will be paralyzed because your life has to constantly open and close to the joys and pains.. and now you KNOW I am listening – right?? Who does that sound like!! She talked about how she shaved her hair off once because it made her look beautiful and it was not that she didn’t value beauty she wanted people to see her – even if in shock, she wanted to deprive the world of enjoying her femininity only to see her soul and to hear her voice. It didn’t work – because people found her all the more exotic and intriguing. We had a fantastic conversation, a young mixed Native American and Spanish, intelligent, passionate stranger who awoke my spirit for 2 hours.

My heart is strangely touched… all of a sudden because of recent encounters – I am awakened.. my heart flutters at the thought of positive possibilities.. an anticipation grows in me. I realize that does not take away the pain entirely, it is not supposed to.. but when one is infused with the smallest of hopes that you will find and be what you want to find and be in life, what your soul longs and searches for… it makes the pain bearable, it gives you strength.. that is the power of hope and it comes in all forms… in this case the recent encounters with people.. unexpected long lost friends and perhaps even strangers.