Next stop Namibia

I haven't felt too busy or overwhelmed or too engrossed by pesky productivity here - At least I haven't felt those emotions, nor have I been obsessively occupied here the way I was at home. The United States has a different work ethic than the rest of the world, we have no restraint on our productivity - even if it's worthless and slow suicide. I have yet to feel that fussy, rushed feeling here that American society burdened on my life. Then again I know all that blame cannot be put on my country alone, but on myself as well. For that ridiculous unsettled irritation that lived within me, came out shouting whenever

I found an open slot in my schedule.

So here, in my new season, in my current home,

it has been very relaxing, very slow - yet productive.

And I look back over the last 112 days that I have spent here in South Africa's surf and a lot

has happened for me. I was able to participate in multiple learning environments from a variety of instructors - in order to gain knowledge and wisdom. I traveled the 681 kilometers from the eastern cape to the western cape. I have surfed in waters ranging in a temperature, from bearable to having my hands and feet blue and numb. Surfing in Strand I had the sun shining down on me, surrounded by locals with the wind whipping all of us across the face of those waves - gazing at the mountain range as it stood strong in it's beauty cradling the city along it's valleys.

I toured a winery and a township - seeing firsthand the extreme differences in cultures here in South Africa - between the whites and the blacks, between the conservatives and the radicals, between the rich and the poor, the old and the new... The harshness that separates the classes here is not a fine line, the extreme differences between personalities, world-views, and upbringings is acute and maximal. And yet it is the rainbow nation. And so different from every other country on our planet.

I have worked behind the stages, helping create structure and continue sustainability in the Aleph program as well as the National Conference;

One which has made me fall in love with 14 local boys, who's eyes are big and age is juvenile, who's tongues are sharp and experiences in abundance for their youth. Street boys, township boys, rude and respectful, scared and strong, full of fear, full of potential. My heart burns when I pray for them.

Being integrated in the infrastructure

here has made me fall in love with surfers, skaters and south africans.

I already loved surfing, skating and South Africa - but these days have attached me to the individuals behind the board.

I see individuals who love their sports, they find their identity on boards - individuals who are harsh and brash, who are too independent for their own good, individuals who know community, individuals who have souls that are being damaged by the world, who's flesh is being damaged by concrete waves. I see individuals who love - whether it's friends, their board, the Lord - they understand love and dedication.

And now After 112 days of living in South Africa's sun, I'm venturing out of South Africa. I leave Jeffreys Bay soon and then I depart from Cape Town Saturday morning headed towards Namibia. Swakopmond, Namibia that is. Driving up the entire West Coast of South Africa, 4 others and myself will go 2,114 kilometers from where I currently sit, outside of these border lines, placed on Africa's west coastline, placed in the middle of a massive desert. I am leaving Jbay, alone, to set out on this journey - because the experience was not just me leaving America, alone, the experience is life.

So while I'm on an adventure, I'm jumping on this vagabond wagon and and veering towards this new escapade. Because its the experience within the experience - and what you take from that, what you allow to shape and mold you from that experience - those are the exciting adventures, those are the escapades that color life!

See you in Namibia!

Sea wandering

This morning I awoke, read a bit and hit that pavement that curves all around J-bay. The hilly pavement led me astray to the sanded shore. As I walked up over a hill I sat, cradled in the sand watching a storm move on and another move in. The gray colors in the sky blended into one another overtaking the blue hues. With the billows beckoning to the sea, to mirror it’s heaviness.

I sat there, with the crisp chilled wind blowing across my face, burning my bare legs. I sat there on the shore, so far from home, where the water meets. Questions overflowed my heart and it was as if I looked to the sea for my answers. Set after set the waves echoed an answer to my heart; there is adventure ringing true in the depths of this world. Those small waves were crashing on the beach break, but they were just the aftermath from the severe and solid waves of massiveness that were playing beyond my eyesight in the sea’s hub.

Sometimes the silence is the most crowded place, when my thoughts begin to outgrow themselves and my dreams begin to outlive the realm of reality. So I found myself on this beach, 4 months into this adventure, toes in shoes and arms in sleeves, no sun to see but salt to smell. I found myself accepting this opportunity, exactly as it has come, exactly as it has woven itself into my life. I’m finding I’m not the same girl here that I was at home, not with people who know me – falling into days where it seems like I have nothing and no one. But honestly, it feels like falling into freedom.

“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive” Am I falling back on some form of inner madness? A madness that in reality keeps me sane and helps me move, helps me dance in the discomfort of formality of a society I have never longed to be a part of? A madness that is saving, because it really is part of the package. When you step out of your front door, and you leave security and you leave all you’ve ever known, even yourself, you have to have your feet steady on something in order to survive.

If you haven’t ventured, if you haven’t seriously stepped into that realm of unknown, into a land where you had to leave yourself and everything you once thought to be true than you, my friend, have no idea of what I am talking about. Because with this madness, when looking to the sea for answers, you don’t know the pain that comes with it. Unfortunately, you don’t know the gain either.

The sea beckons us, the unrevealed and the unfound, the adventure and danger, it beckons to certain souls. Igniting them with a flame that arouses a wanderlust that can only be fulfilled by those waves that are unseen to the people who stay on their own shores. It is those uncharted waves, those that are unrealistic, that can kill you, the ones you find in the stomach of the sea – It is those that keep the flame of the wandering vagabond satisfied.