My last ramble for this see-saw year...2011 get outta here.

Why does it always seem like I am starting over.. and then over and then over again?

Not that anything was wrong with what I was doing at the time – it seems my life (much like my mind) doesn’t have the ability to just shut down, sit still and just be….
No – I am not complaining – just commenting.

My life is good. It has always been good. Even the bad turned out good – out of each fire I came out a little shinier, stronger (or something!)

“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.” Khalil Gibran once said.

My only addition to that statement is when you grasp it with all your heart (faith, that is) – the proof arrives…  (otherwise what is the point of faith if it doesn’t eventually yield to you the Hopes in your heart – be it tangible or intangible).

 You know, I was first introduced to this author when I was in Standard 9 (11th grade).  It was my history Teacher, Mr. Jeppie.  He wore strange little round glasses, a brown plaid coat and a bow tie.  He taught us nothing about History.  He was too indignant  towards  our “bad manners” as humans to care to impart anything but his classical music blaring some cacophony out of a boom box, put his feet up on the table and tell us to read “chapter – whatever” because it will “be in the exam” and close his eyes.

Ofcourse, no one listened.  Except Sharlene and I.  We were dubbed “the cabbage church kids” (play on the Cabbage patch kids dolls) – because we were the virgins, the goodie-goodies.  I would sit and read my text book, trying to ignore Zunaid (who had been in my class since grade 1) passing me perverted notes or teasing me about something trying to rile me up to join in the misbehaving fun.

Sidenote: The boys in our class came to school to do nothing but cause trouble and laugh about everything!  What fun they had – while me – I studied & wanted to learn – go figure.

I tried in that “history class” to absorb South African history ** I hated South African history ** I would much rather learn about the Egyptians or the French Renaissance, but not about some silly Boer war (which my activist group – “the SRC” told me was all lies anyway! “Free Nelson Mandela!” LOL).

 Nevertheless, I sat quietly and looked at the little Zulu pictorials fighting the Dutch and / or the British and get conned out of their diamonds with bartering of cows and other useless dull items; and every now and then I would look up and Mr. Jeppie would open his one eye and look at me with a grimace Snarl  disgusted look… One day after class – he asked me why I was always quiet and always reading, when no one else seemed to care.

**PS: This wasn’t the time he found me late for class handcuffed to a tree that I was barely tall enough to reach (common pranks the boys played on me because I was little and the youngest) – but that is a story for another time.**

I was confused and couldn’t really answer – I was honestly interested in learning – I loved English (Thanks Mr. Thompson - forever in your debt) and History.  He (Jeppie) said, “Since you like reading, here – read something that atleast can teach you the “meaning of life””.  WOW – the MEANING of life.  What 15 year old wouldn’t want that!  So, I read “the Prophet” and I fell in love with all the created misunderstandings my brain could not comprehend at that age.  I blame my wandering mind, my insatiable passions for the pursuits of the depths of humanity and the soul on Mr. Jeppie and his stupid “meaning of life”.

About a century later – fast forward to present day – I am in awe of the writings of “the Prophet”.  I feel that stirring in my inner being, the capacities of myself into which I am yet to adventure, come to life.  I see from a place of all kinds of corners of nowhere and everywhere the chambers of my love for this world and its people. And to want to know why life is so deep, so vast and I wonder if I can indeed drown myself from the inside out in her glory and not wither away.  I don’t know why I am the way I am.. not sure why every stitch of my makeup yearns for such magnitudes.
Some pragmatics / logical or rational people will call my musings an emotional faux pas or philosophically naïve or whatever.

Some days – I wish I was different and didn’t have these endless scrambled need to find the fragility of  mankind and our capacity for pure and sacred love.. inconvenient, aching love.. going beyond the walls of what is possible or conceivable.

I haven’t tasted of every part of my imagination yet.  And time is ticking away.. I have tasted some.. and drank of the wine of life with so much of its ecstasy and I just want more – to know what dwells beneath, what lies within, what goes beyond myself.  I have also been stung by the sorrow and heartache of where that place takes you.  And I don’t want one without the other..  I want the intimacy with life that one embraces it all.

Being who I am comes with its own cross to bear.  It’s not that I constantly feel unfulfilled. It’s that every filling empties itself into a garden of newness and I am left hollow again, wanting another.

“Only when you are empty are you at standstill
and balanced. When the treasure-keeper lifts
you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs
must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.”  (Guess who?)

**clears throat** - So back to new beginnings

As if Saturday (2011)---> and Sunday (2012) will be two different life experiences.. will  Sunday magically wash away Saturday and every negative event that preceded it? –

Probably not – but the hope of newness is always what makes New Years the celebration that it is.  It does not matter what pain you faced, what joy you inhaled, what love you drowned in or what betrayal crushed your heart.. we all hope that “Next Year”.. is a new year – of New beginnings.

Hola – 2012 ---> Miss you Mummy, Daddy, Clint and Alton.. see you next year!