minding the gap

Like every other new blogger on the block, I’m tempted to say I don’t know how I got here. But that’s not really true. I do. I got myself in this mess. I even went so far as to take a little break from the usual writing gig so I could clear all excuses off the table and “just do it”. So here I am, entry one of the that blog I’m gonna write, and I feel like the dog that’s caught the bus. I suppose any newcomer should start with an introduction. My surname is Afrikaans, but my accent still clings to America. 13 years ago I married a man with kind, laughing eyes, along with his country, and set down roots in the red earth of suburban South Africa. Before then Africa was primarily the place of postcards and documentaries from 8000 miles away. I had lived in dung huts and Swahili mountain villages and a bush town where the lions actually did roam in my backyard. (So annoying to have to admit that at Christmas cocktail parties.) But now under the shade of the acacia tree I’ve learned to navigate malls and discern flat whites from cappuccinos. I’ve gotten an opinion on washing powder and screamed too loud on the sidelines of soccer fields. I’ve paid bills and swapped recipes and just done life, year in and year out, with all the unremarkables that someday leave you longing to do it all again. I’ve gotten “all grows up” here and managed to reproduce three small human beings who keep calling me Mommy and thinking I know something. But the truth is, I do. I know something great. I’ve learned that life is what we make of it - and life is what He makes of it. I’ve learned that the pages are stark white and waiting to be written on - but the script is also finished. I’ve learned it’s better not to take yourself too seriously - but you better damn well take yourself seriously, because the One who fingerpainted celestial infinitude into existence has your name carved into the palm of His hand. I’ve learned that you can live anywhere because you are more than what zip codes make of you - but I’ve also learned a place can seep into the cracks of your soul and make you who you are. So I’m okay with the gap that never quite closes in. I’m comfortable with the sense of not exactly which rests on me gently like an old worn-in jacket. I travel back to America and feel strangely on the outside of conversations between friends and family battling to make sense of the times. But in South Africa I can be utterly derailed by something as innocuous as a seagull crying or a maple leaf bursting red. The smell of cut grass or Bob Dylan whining genius can gut-punch me out of the blue and have me aching for home. Those little things are the “secret signatures of the soul”, as CS Lewis puts it, grafted into my fingerprints and intimately a part of me. So the gap is my gift. It reminds me that this ain’t all it. That we’re all ultimately passing through. And at the end of the day, I’d much rather live with a little bit of longing than tragically make this life the final destination. And I’m learning to embrace the not quite’s of this life on earth, because I know the Completion who waits for me around the corner. He’s the full stop of all my sentences. So there it is. Entry one. Kind of melodramatic, but hey, what can I say? I did a lot of drama and listened to Joni Mitchell’s Blue way too many times. But please subscribe to the blog and help me fulfill my vision to make millions from the convenience of my coffee shop couch. Until next time….