this was monday. tomorrow is tuesday.

This weekend was a blur in my eyes. It went so quickly. Then again at the end of this week we will be entering into April. It went so quickly. This weekend I studied, I researched, I read, I listened, I wrote and I wrote. I ate chocolate and drank green tea. That was Saturday night.

I stood on the skateboard as Nathan, the small curly blonde 3 year old, pulled my arm. Along with pulling my limb he pulled the skateboard and Cailyn, his blonde 7 year old sister. We watched cartoons, we swung on the rope swing. Nathan got impatient, like any other 3 year old. Cailyn just wanted someone to play with her, like any other little girl. We ate banana bread as the westerly wind blew in through the glass windows that over looked the crashing waves. This was Saturday morning.

We left the house at 7am, driving along the highway, along the green vegetated road. Seeing wildlife, seeing townships, watching the mountains grow smaller in the background - We left Jeffreys Bay for Saint Francis. We turned into Saint Francis, passing the 'Wild Side' a part of the bay named for it's hectic waves that crash upon monster rocks and blow their wave back straight into the air. It is named correctly. We then found ourselves sitting in white lawn chairs behind our table with our 'Wors Rolls + Coke = R20' sign. We grilled wors (which is equivalant to America's bratwursts) and sold 30 of them to hunger surfers and gazers. We were set up on a patch of grass with a dirt trail at a feet, leading down the trail - the judges table, friends and families watching. Up the trail, cars, bikes, surf boards, and all of their owners. We were at a surf trial competition. You win this trial, you go onto the next and then you compete against the rest of South Africa - If you win there you join South Africa's surfing team. With the sun beating on my face and the wind blowing my dry, sunburnt legs I watched the waves rise and crash. They weren't even 100 yards away from me, the surfers bobbed, each one in a different color so the judge could differentiate. Each set of waves made you think it was a different sea, one set small and messy, the next

one following was double-overhead clean from the off-shore wind. Beyond these waves, that crashed at my toes I could see the other side of the bay. I was about a mile away and the waves were so large I could see them scoop the water up and then throw it down, playing too hard. They were just dancing in front of the mountain's cliffs that sat like an entranced audience. The whole sea opened up in this bay, I sat there watching the water just roll getting anxious from the groundswell below it, ready to grab some air and then explode into the sky. 6pm I sat in the car, with tangled wind-blown hair, dirty feet and sunburnt lips. By this time the wind was too chilly to be sitting in its path, by this time all the cars and bikes and surfboards left with their owners, by this time the sun was saying good night and the chokka boats were turning on their lights. We sat there watching the final four have at the last set of waves. By this time even the judges were all packed up, over the day's surfing. Eventually we too left the parking lot, every car, van, jeep gone - every longboard, shortboard, boogie board, skim board gone - every bike, piece of trash, towel gone. The land cleared and everyone went home done with surfing for the day, but the waves stayed - they kept rolling in and crashing (I'm sure). It didn't matter to them whether they had surfers playing on them, or sun warming them, they stayed whether it was for the late night chokka boats or for the twinkling stars up above - the waves stayed and crashed carrying on with their life. That was Sunday.

I had to work a shop-shift at CSA's thrift store, so I rode my bike up and down the hills to the shop. Got there hot and sweaty and took my spot behind the counter. Soon enough I was antsy enough I needed something to do, to read. I walked over, through the boxes, through the donations, passed the vinyl records and cassette tapes, passed the dishes and vases, across from the clothes, I walked to the book shelves. 'Vegetables' - I like veggies, I eat veggies, I'll read this. An old South African cookbook, with few recipes. It had pages full though of the art of vegetables, how to cook them, steam them, cut them, chop them. It made me want to go to culinary school - or just cook a really good meal that night. So, I rode my bike home, I borrowed the car, I drove to the grocery store, and I loaded up. I came home and cooked 'baked eggs and ratatouille with steamed cabbage and asparagus. And then I had gelato for dessert. That was Friday night.

Today is Monday - the start of a new week. The beginning of the end of March. Tomorrow is Tuesday, already it has come to fast. Tonight I cooked steamed veggies for dinner, tonight I will do more studying, today I worked in the thrift store. hhmmm.... Sounds like my life is stuck on the repeat button at the current moment. Doesn't matter though, the minimal things that fill my days don't effect the sun rising the next day, they don't effect April's coming, they don't stop the wave's sets from rolling in.

Simply Food.

Today, because it is a warm, sunny Saturday after a busy, productive week and because there is a chilly breeze blowing the tree's leaves and I'm wearing a over-sized wool sweater - today's writings will be on food. Although it probably has nothing to do with the easy, breezy Saturday - but more with that fact that I started my day of with home-made South African ripe fig jam & for lunch I'll be devouring my left overs from last night's baked eggs with ratatouille dinner.

Food. Something that we all can't live without, an item we have every single day. I have seen people destroy their lives because of food, idolizing it in some way or form. I have seen people change their lives with merely their diet. I have watched individuals succeed in life physically, emotionally, financially simply because of food. I think we over look the power food holds on a lot of individuals, I think we overlook the essence that lives within most foods.

Now food can be utterly disgusting. It can taste bad, smell bad, be bad for you. It can be loaded with repulsive ingredients and sold at revolting prices. It can make your tummy nauseous as well as overly plump. But I don't want to think about those foods, about processed, chemical-loaded, junk-filled, fast-served, stomach-turning foods. I want to talk about delicious goodness...

I absolutely love food! I love raw foods, raw ingredients. The idea of growing something in your garden, letting the earth and the rain and the sun do the work, picking that food and then being able to energize my body with it, warms my soul. I like natural foods, healthy foods; but what about my favorites...

The list could go on and on about my favorite foods; ham has always made my mouth water, I have an ever-growing sweet tooth, and on and on. But for this sunny breezy day, two foods I have learned I lust after: Pumpkin & Figs. Give them to me in any shape or form and I will devour them.

But on another edible note: what about South African food?? ... Well South Africa's top choice is always to braai, grilling meat over an open fire. Which I have grown overly-fond of. Now so far a lot of my food hasn't been ethnic Afrikaans, but it has been so deliciously scrumptious. You will find biltong (kind of beef jerky) and dried fruit around any corner. And a step up from their braais is when they have a potjieko (type of stew) which is, of course, divine. So, there are loads of food I have heard rumors about, loads of delicacies my mouth has already watered over. One edible item that I will eat until I'm sick is a roostercoek (essentially its a ham and egg sandwich, but only if you could see this bread and meat and egg, wow!)

To sum it up: Some food is bad. Some good. Some entirely divine. At one point, over-rated, at another not given enough credit. South Africa: beyond succulent. How ever you say it, nutrients, cuisines, edibles, rations, nosh, grub, chow - food is needed by your body and your soul. Not only a necessity, but a pleasure. It's common ground, anywhere in the world, with any individual.

Go eat. Eat something lip-smacking, finger-licking, nummy, yummy scrumptious. Feed your tummy & your soul.

identifiably falling

I think you get the feeling that I enjoy falling away, falling away from this world of structure, this world of suffocated individuals who tend to lose themselves and their identity in jobs, in material possessions, in relationships; in things our structured society has to offer. Yea, on a normal day my mind does not live

within those walls, my heart song does not play within society’s fortress. Although, I fall into this society more than I’d like to think, I fall corrupted and chaotic - at a loss for my identity because my soul has been sold to the society of locked seams and cycles that will eventually destroy all we are, or it will build us back into Babylon’s pinnacle of mankind.

Can we delineate the motives and the ingenuity behind the Sistine chapel? Because I don’t think a heart sold to society could have generated a masterpiece such as that. I’m not trying to be one of those hippie, mind-wandering, heart-wavering seeking truth and identity in a route that consists of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing type of person. I just know that I am not created for concrete walls built from social status, roles and social networks. I know that my self-esteem is a mere erroneous appraisement of myself.

There have been chokka boats (calamari fishermen) sitting out at sea every night for the past week here. I love seeing them, It makes my heart a little warmer when I can look out over the rooftops of Jeffrey’s Bay and see the dark waters to only be decorated with floating lamps. High, high up above these waters the moon is painted pretty colors of harvest sky back home. High, high up the stars twinkle with white and red hues. High, high up there is a God living with a fire of love, crazy over what he has made.

High,high up is where my soul exists. Not of this world, but of His world. High, high up above this horizon line my hope lies within a man not of this realm.

Can we delineate the motives and ingenuity behind our own hearts? Can I truly say that I live with an identity fully thrown into the identity of the Lord? If I look at my life, where my time is spent, where my money is spent – If I look at the way my heart warms over chokka boats, harmonica chords and rhubarb pie. Can I judge how the little things of our world can prick my heart chords, the same strings God plays. My motives: selfish, majority of the time. My ingenuity: normally runs by caffeine and would actually be much more productive if I allowed it to run by an amphetamine drug like speed, thankfully I care more about not going jail and my bodily health than I do productivity. (plus being addicted to a bearded president who kept his notes in his top hat, is weird enough).

I do like to think though, that I am honest with my motives and my ingenuity. Seeing that it’s practically impossible to insult me, that only comes from honesty. Seeing that I have freedom; not because I have rebelled against our society by

burning my bras, but I have freedom because I’m not only free from the opinions of others but I’m trying to be free of my opinions of myself. Accepting the fact they matter just as much as stranger Joe on the corner’s opinion.

“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done absolutely nothing to earn it or deserve it.” And accepting that “Any identity outside of a radical definition of one beloved by God is an illusion.”

So… What I’m trying to say is that you should try this whole ‘falling away’ thing. Not falling away from our world, from our productive, self-sustaining confident society – But falling into a loving God. What I’m trying to tell you is that if I am honest with myself I tend to lose myself quite often in these concrete walls, not that society locked me up in but the walls I locked myself up in. That I would keep falling away into darkness and despair and self-destruction if I didn’t look in the mirror at the ragamuffin spirit I am. For the poverty of my soul is identified in the tremendous, mysterious love of God. Everyday I forget that, I lose myself. Everyday I remember that, I fall into Him.

For Japan

SEAdream

With oats, soy milk and green tea nestled inside my tummy. I can say today was more productive than yesterday.

Although, I'm trying hard to avoid busy productivity [you know the productivity that just keeps you busy, surface and blind to the sweet (and at times sour) smells of our world] I'm yearning, striving more for gumption, for ingenuity.

In the midst of striving for those, you can't help but dream...

You can't resist but smiling at that desire to pack up your life, all of your belongings, throw responsibilities out the window, taking what you need & kiss it all goodbye.

To only travel with feet so light, a heart so pure, a hand tightly held and lips lightly kissed,

To only travel with ambition, with creativeness, innovativeness, imagination and enterprise.

To master the skill of 'thinking outside the box'

To hone the skill of 'living outside the box'

sea.surf.

Currently Ugly Casanova is playing lightly through my ears. I can hear the waves stir and crash just down the road, feel a light breeze on my sandy feet and smell my coffee as it grows cold.

Aside from the dirt whipping around my skin and the sun beating in contrary to the chilly wind, I wake up every day here in Jeffreys Bay. I wake up in this season. A season is a division of the year marked by change, a result of the yearly revolution of the earth around the sun. So here I sit in a new division of my life marked by the change in the soil that now sticks to me, and a change in the wind that blows over me. This is a result, a result from change, from a revolution, from innovation. Just as my life has been adjusting the last couple months to this new season so has Jbay's waves.

The new season for proper swell is just around the corner. This week we had the biggest waves we've had all year. You can sit on the beach with the clouds roaming over head and look out over the sea waters as you look upon a handful of surfers, understanding why sharks mistake them, surfers do look like black seals bobbing at bay in their wet suits. But the waves here are different. It's not like most coasts you sit on and hear the crash of the waves, or the push of the currents. You sit on this beach and it sounds like you are inside of a giant rainstick when these waters sway, as the water rushes to you and pulls itself quickly back to the body, It's harmonious.

I stood on the beach my feet open to the cold waters that rushed quickly over them. I stood there with my hair whipping around my head and my right arm over my 6'8" red and yellow surfboard; leash tied to my ankle and wet suit fully zipped ready for a dip. I stood there watching my three mates paddle out into the line up to catch waves, as I stood there knowing full well there is no way I can go to the back of the set, there is no way I can surf waves that big. Not yet anyway. The dilemma: Do I paddle out? Do I try to hold tight to my pride, try to prove myself (to myself)? Do I act on instinct, like I normally naturally do, by just charging it? OR do I admit and accept my skill level, stay in close, stay where its safe, stay where I can handle it? ... For the first time in my life, I swam in the safe zone. I paddled where I knew what the beach did underneath me, I stayed off the waves that were taunting me to come dance with them.

I saw more jelly fish, bigger, moving fast than I have in my entire life. I would start to paddle out farther, thankful for a smaller set and then before there was anything I could do; here came another unattainable large swell. Pulling myself, relentlessly, out of the waters I found myself sitting on the shore, board by my side, waves still taunting. My hands were blue. My nose burning from the salt. My pride hurt from my lack of skill. My shoulder sore from a prior car accident and thighs burning from a prior morning bike ride. My heart throbbing from the tragedy in Japan, from the pain I see in the street boy's eyes, from the agony some of my relationships back in the States face. My heart pounding from the urgency to spread healing and love, from the need for surf ministry and the lack of funds. My heart pulsing from getting rolled under that last wave.

Maybe this season of life is like my surfing. It needs dedication and devotion, it won't be easy and if I expect anything to come from it, I've got to work hard; I must have ingenuity and gumption.

Although I wonder if ingenuity and gumption are two things I can put on me in preparation, like a wetsuit, like sunblock. Or if they are out there hiding in the waves and I have to go find them.... then again maybe they wear a different mask. Maybe they are the dedication a surfer has to get up for his dawn surf. Maybe they are the muscles you build from yoga and push ups.

Wherever these two things lay: Ingenuity and Gumption. I need to obtain them, immediately.

Sea.Son.

I don't know if anyone is even reading these, but these words in my head and this heaviness on my heart must go somewhere. So here I am, again procrastinating my homework, pushing away my workload, pausing from prayer because like I said these words must fall somewhere.

Season. The word of the day, the theme for the moment. So bare with me, I'm going to be completely illogical and not practical or realistic, or true to any law of grammar deciphering or to any hermeneutic maneuver. Season. My current season of life is exactly as that word looks. Sea: I'm living a short walk from the white breaking waters, my entire internship/job/lifestyle is revolving around a sport performed on the sea. Son: my entire life is revolving around Him, chasing Him, pursuing Him.

This morning I ran. I left my flat and I ran down the winding hill 6:20am. First a left, another left, curve right, cut through that yard, down the hill, onto DaGama Street, look for cars and cross, run the gravel, past the park, turn right, up that street, wind the hills and houses, last right into the small parking lot 6:32am. I sat on the wooden bench, breathing. As the surfers walked slowly, looking hesitant & disappointed in the lack of swell. As the clouds sat upon the water's crest, looking dark & heavy, tired as if they lost a night's sleep. The waves small, deciding to break right on the rock's face. To the left, the vegetation gave a trail into the fog that hid the houses and the arching bay. To the right, the shrubbery shrugged off the fog and opened just enough to see the entire town

sitting under this cloud. 6:40am back on Dagama, back to the flat. The next time I stepped out my door the sun was well endowed and taking his rightful place in the sky 8:20am.

All this to say, sometimes you can't

even see the waves your suppose to surf. Sometimes you can't even see those waves your suppose to sail, but you are still obligated to paddle out. Because we, as the human race, no matter our season of life are still obligated to participate. I can't fully explain this season I'm in, other than the Son has all of my attention and I'm flirting with the sea more than anyone else.

So this is the season I think Im in. A season that when the clouds are resting on my playground, I still get out there. On those days I feel inadequate, afraid or broken-hearted I still set sail. When I'm sitting in the midst of sleep deprived clouds, I need to know confidently that the Son will come out and take his rightful place and lead me into the day.

Today I decided I wanted to see the world a little more like Dan Eldon, I wanted to fight more like William Wallace, I want to speak like Abraham Lincoln and I want to love like Mother Teresa. In words I want to be an artist, an adventurer and an activist; I want to fight for what I believe in no matter who stands in my way and how outlandish my vision may be; I want to be introspective in my silence and speak out with pure motivations to humbly lead people in the right direction; I want to stay

so close to Jesus that I may spread love into every corner and every heart of this world of ours.

So I ask you; What season are you in? What lens are you looking through, what are you fighting for, what are you saying, who are you loving?

Forecast: Seasonal

As I sit in my flat with the dark of the night leaking through my window I listen as the random guitar playing from next door leaks in leisurely along with it. Can I tell you how wonderful my day was?

I began my day with errands and then met up with two girl friends. We went thrift shopping - where I found a wonderful 80's sweater full of purple and teals and beautiful fabric that I am antsy to use in my next DIY project. After 5 thrift stores and a craft store we finally made our way to 'In Food.' This precious little cafe here in J-Bay that serves the best coffee in town. I had an americano and we split a Mediterranean platter and a harvest salad platter, so delicious. Our stimulating conversation was accompanied with 'Hot Wasabi' a local band that consists of two gentlemen, one vocals/acoustic the other sax/flute/clarinet. Their music selection was mainly mused from Bob Marley - which made me smile a little more.

After my time basking in the sun and melodic music with the two lovely ladies I spent time with a dear girl from Holland; watching documentary trailers, drinking Starbucks coffee, trading stories of adventure and Einstein. We then proceeded onto her house (she's in a program called 'Surf Masters' an intensive year long program through a local church with 13 others.) In which we all ventured to a family's home for a delicious home cooked meal where I realized I'm not allergic to wheat so I indulged in pasta and succumbed to my lack of self-control and ate far too much ice cream. (definitely TOO much, considering I recently realized I'm allergic to sugar :( which is devastating me and my sweet tooth by the way.)

And I topped my day off by skyping with the infamous Kaitlin Smith and the handsome Dakota Kildoo.

Normally I feel like I'm in between dreams, or I'm at least chasing them. Recently, here in J-Bay, here with CSA, I feel as if I'm in my dream. Today with every person I spent time with, whether they be South African, American or Dutch; 18,26,28; married or single; in every conversation 'seasons' came up. These 'seasons' of life that we all get placed into, whether we leap willingly head first or we get pushed in blind-folded. Our lives are made of seasons; each season with a hardship, with a silver lining, with a goal. We've had seasons, and there are more to come. I'm just warning you, I'm doing research, thinking, reflecting on this whole 'season' thing .... And I'll get back to you. If you, dear reader, carry any insight, any questions, any reflections please respond. I'll love to read your scribbles that are the reflections of your heart and soul.

Right now a very 'light' & 'surface' view of my season: Daily Amazement and Inadequacy, Red Wine, Philosophy, Theology, Mistakes and Apologies, Dreams dissolving, Dreams dancing, Dreams developing, Inspirational.

What's on my mind today...

This looks so delicious, I wonder where I can find figs over here

You have to watch this, these are the dance moves I like to bust out most

I tend to think everyone must love cheese as much as I do

Maybe I'll go to school here next year

The person I miss the most is this little lady

I want to live here

Although I'd give anything to be in this winter - probably cause I miss snowboarding like crazy

But I'll always be content living here, where I currently am

At the moment I'm helping with the creation of a brand new campaign for CSA

Help me out, go here and just click a little button

Get inspired here & start something that matters

And Have a fantastic Day! xo