My brother came and we watched surfing, hung out in Jbay, laughed with lions, drove the garden route to Cape Town, played with penguins, stayed with hipster friends, took a train for brekkie, drove the peninsula and had lunch on Cape Horn, hiked up Table Mountain, strolled the shops of Long street, slept in the Amber Tree Hostel on Kloofnek street, ate Asian with friends, jumped the world’s largest bungee, drove north (getting lost and finding ourselves in a deserted African town), cruised the game land of Addo Elephant national park, and spent our last day on PE’s boardwalk eating burgers and icecream.
It was amazing having him here, beyond amazing. I think I was smiling the entire time, it brought me so much comfort, so much joy to have him near. It seems as if every time we are together we get a little closer, I’ve quit picking on him and he has matured – and our brother/sister relationship has flourished into a friendship that I don’t know what I would do without.
Having him here though made me think, it brought so much love into my heart that the community I have been missing and longing for hit a vein even deeper in my heart than it has this year. ( I have a community here, an amazing one full of impressive individuals, but God did something unique inter-twining those hearts of my Joplin family). It didn’t make me cry myself to sleep at night, or whine to him, it didn’t make me write long sappy letters to those I’ve left behind; it just made me say o so solemnly that being the adventurous wanderer that I am is quite a lonely thing.
I am ok with it at times, being alone with only my independency as my company, and when I was 18 I preferred it that way, but living in Joplin almost bea the lone-wolf out of me. I cannot and would not want to live life without my adventures, and I realize I write a lot about being adventurous and my adventures, but I only write about the alluring and enchanting side of adventure. Truth be told: adventures truly are risky, most of the time to your physical being, all of the time to your emotional well-being.
And now as I reflect on life I see how I still love adventures and still allow them to have a major role in my life and my relationship with God. But I now see how I cannot (will not) live without community.
As I spoke to my dear friend Kaitlin about her upcoming wedding we spoke about how marriage is a grand adventure. I believe those people trekking this earth, scheming schemes and playing with perilous escapades – have an adventure they are missing out on. The adventure of relationships, friendships, marriage, being a component in a community, being a member of a church, being an element in a neighborhood.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” — Henry David Thoreau
Its easy for me to agree with this quote, with my love for nature and solitary - knowing that the woods can teach you things that you cannot learn on a computer. But if the trees can teach you and the rocks can discipline you and the waters can awe you, the impact they contain for you is miniscule when compared to the deliberate life you could live when you are living this life with other lives. When the vagabond grows roots and and ties knots to other souls so tightly that not even the seductive allure of this world could sever them - that is a day when kingdoms are made and adventures are had.
I shed a tear every time I read one of your blogs...so insightful and extremely well written, you have a gift, many gifts and I thank you so much for sharing your soul.
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