Lala Gahle

“Lala gahle,” she told me.
Tears sprung to my eyes in the pitch black of her basement bedroom.
“Lala gahle,” I said, trying not to let my voice crack, wondering why the wish, sleep well, sounds so much more beautiful in SiSwati.

I decided on Wednesday to leave town. Thursday after work I was on my way. It was only somewhere between Saskatoon and Lloyd that I realized I had an itinerary of Hands at Work people to see. Kristal. Dayla. Laura. Lacey. Maybe Dave and Marilyn?

Suddenly I am wondering if my subconscious has ambushed me.

My heart is breaking in little ways today. There is something under all of this that I cannot discern. What am I looking for? And what exactly is it that I am worried I won’t find?

Kristal welcomed me like a proper African: into her home and life exactly as it lay before my arrival. She assumed, rightly, that I would rather sleep in her bed than on the couch. It was right to share her bed last night. It made think of Danny sleeping with a man his own age named Decorate. And I giggled. Then the thought to Shane sleeping beside a man, a pastor, named Blessings. Yes, the Africans have a different way of welcoming. All the way to the bedroom, under the sheets.

I’m missing that proximity of community. I’m missing people in my bed.

I’m asking tough questions, questions everyone asks like: What the H am I doing with my life? Where the H am I supposed to be? Why are there so many “good” ideas and no real certainty?

The highway between Lloyd and Edmonton is beautiful today. The sun rose behind me like a bright, pink kiss and the snow reflected her love with sparkling enthusiasm. I am on a strange adventure. Here. Tomorrow. Life. Forever. Who knows where this path goes?

oops...

Dreams float around like butterflies on this warm, winter day. Feels like Spring. Feels like Hope.

My web browser is open to a Google search for au pair positions in France.
My latte is steaming over the brim of my coffee cup.
My imagination is darting between Europe and Africa; solo adventure and romance; today, tomorrow and yesterday.

I’m not sure what happened today.

Well, number one, Carissa finally came home. She has a way of stirring me up. She draws something out of me that I never knew was there. She’s like a clown that keeps pulling scarves out of her sleeve. Bunnies from under hats. (But her hair is better, and her feet are tiny). Only it’s mysteries from my soul that keep surfacing in our little, innocent chats.

The point is, I thought I was going to Africa with Shane. That was my plan until breakfast this morning. Somewhere between the coffee and the eggs a new dream crept in. A new vision of life with my guitar and my notebook and the magic of Paris. Somehow independence and adventure took hold of that part of me that refuses to go down quietly into the status quo.

I know. How do you go from Zambia to France? How do I get from mud hut to corner café? I don’t know. I know. I don’t know.

But what if this is the moment? What if marriage and babies are right around the corner? What if this is my last chance to follow my own dream on an adventure with my own self for company?

Do I even want to admit this to the rest of you?

Post. Don’t post.

Post.

meaningless

The demure sky held a party this morning. He stood silently behind the festivity: cotton candy clouds exploded like slow motion fireworks around a tangerine sun. The giant orange in the sky stood proudly at the center of the carnival of colour. Winter has been ruling with a tyranny of oppression, dark, low stratus drizzling rain and frigid cold. Until this morning when life burst through the frozen layer of death to make a statement.

It was lost on me.

Everything is meaningless.

I can’t help but feeling like rolling my eyes at Solomon when he says it.
I’m not sure how he managed to earn "wisest man" award for that one.
But sometimes I can't help thinking he's on to something.
At least it feels like it.

Just a chasing after the wind.