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?