Aug 26, 2011 | Guest Posts, Stories
The Hubs’ folks lost a dear friend on Wednesday. We’ve made a spur-of-the-moment decision to travel down to the coast with them so that they can attend the funeral. They’ve found holiday accommodation near Knysna (pronounced Neyes-nuh — as in that first syllable rhymes with “eyes”) where we’ll enjoy one last holiday together before we depart these shores on the 7th.
(Which is like, twelve days from now? Has anybody seen the Tank’s passport?)
Funny enough, before leaving Gordon’s Bay, HH and I were sorry that we didn’t get to visit Knysna just one more time before leaving. It’s one of our favourite places in SA and holds a lot of special memories for us. Here we are at the last minute, looking forward to one more hurrah!
Life has a way of suddenly throwing a lot onto your to-do list all at once. It can take you from having a few things in mind for the weeks ahead to suddenly rushing to catch up on laundry and shop for a new pacifier (you know, to replace the one the monkey stole) and pack a few suitcases and make a shopping list and plan a few meals all at once.
And it’s when life feels busy like this that I often struggle to find those green pastures and still waters where I hear the voice that speaks peace to my soul.
Care to join me over at Signposts today, where I’m talking about listening for the voice of the Shepherd?
xCC
P.S. Did I share with you that I’m now the behind the scenes website manager over at Signposts Ministries? What a privilege…score! It’s three hours a week that I am enjoying immensely! I’ve been slowly making changes to the site and as a team we have some exciting plans for the future — I’d love your thoughts about how things look so far! (Especially if you’d visited the site before the makeover!)
Aug 23, 2011 | South Africa, Stories
{This post is continuing from Join Me in the Bushveld (part one) right here.}
We enjoyed a scrumptious brunch back in our holiday accommodation, keeping an eye on a mischievous monkey {who may or may not have stolen Blake’s dummy} keen to hop up onto the balcony and join our feast if no one was looking. We piled back into the car to hurry into the park in hopes of seeing more game…and specifically hoping for a good sighting of some lions.
Once we’re inside the reserve, the Bear scurries into the front passenger seat to sneak candy from a very willing Grandpa. He is finally getting the hang of looking for game, and we’ve been keeping him entertained with books and toys and special treats.
Through thick bush along the roadside, we spot a striking waterbuck who seems to be observing us, just as we are observing her.
We’d seen a hippopotamus in similar scenery that morning. It was special to see this delightfully cumbersome creature on the land instead of in the water. We watched him graze for quite some time, making sure our car wasn’t cutting off his path to the water — they don’t seem to like that too much.
Now a Greater Blue-Eared Glossy Starling is hopping alongside the car. I stare down, so impressed with his magnificent colouring.
We ride along quietly for quite some time and then come down a dip in the road that crosses over a dry river bed. We stop for a moment, half expecting to see something coming along this sandy thoroughfare at any moment. I search the sand for tracks, the Bear now on my lap, us leaning our heads out the window.
“That must be gruffalo poop!” we giggle, and I encourage the Bear to keep his eyes peeled for a gruffalo nearby.
We look up the hill in front of us before the Hubs begins encouraging Mr. Potato Head to begin the grumbling ascent, but this scene awaits us at the top of the hill:
HH moves the car slowly forward and then we’re motionless — watching as elephants are coming out of the bush and crossing the road right in front of us. We suddenly make another discovery: nature has called twice, and the baby has made a poopy which has gone straight through his onesie, his swaddle cloth, and onto Gammy’s nice white blouse. Sigh.
While elephants crack branches and munch munch a few feet away, we’re in the backseat trying to clean up the mess. The juxtaposition of the peaceful scenery of the grazing ellies out the window and the wild scene inside the car make me smile, and Mom and I laugh that this will be a special memory.
Once bottoms are cleaned, clothes are changed (except for poor Mom) and babies are back to smiling, I have the joy of gazing at the gentle giants outside my window. With strength and graceful movements, they knock over a tree and feast on the roots before moving on.
We linger watching the elephants for ages…it feels like such a privilege.
It’s time to start heading for home, so we move on, just pausing to smile at the monkeys now dotting the road in front of us.
We grumble along for a bit longer and then notice a lonely wildebeest. He grazes near the road as the sun begins to fade in the sky.
At last it’s time to hurry along to the gate, our last day of viewing game at the Kruger National Park coming to a close. In a great day-end surprise, Mark spots another leopard — we watch, awestruck that we’ve been privileged with three sightings of the least spotted (though very spotted) of the Big Five in one day. As other cars pull up in hopes of enjoying a good look at what we’ve seen, the leopard slips off into the bush again, and it feels like that special moment was planned just for us.
Up one hill, just before the descent toward the gate, you can see for miles — the Mpumulanga horizon breathtaking with fields and trees, the sturdy profiles of mountains outlined in the distance.
The evening sky mirrors the sky from early that morning. Silhouettes of wiry trees pass outside our window and my heart feels a little heavy as I wonder when I’ll have the privilege of being in this special place again. We approach the gate, stars are beginning to appear, and I find myself praying, “Lord, thank You. Please let us return to this wonderful place again soon.”
xCC
P.S. The Hubs grabbed memory-card-loads of five-star photos during our time in the Kruger, which I have not been sharing here, because they will be up in lights on his website. He has already begun posting a beautiful new photo every day over at Quiver Tree Photo, so please drop by and enjoy!
Aug 22, 2011 | South Africa, Stories
The Southern Cross and her companions are still twinkling around a sliver of a moon as we load up the car for our final trip into the park. We’ve spent two days in the Kruger already and seen game aplenty, but on this last day we’ve decided to race daylight and arrive in time to watch the bush wake up with the sun.
After everything is loaded into the car, HH loads the Bear into my arms, still in pajamas and wrapped in a heavy blanket. He lays a sleepy head against my chest and stares out the window, up at the stars he asked about counting the night before. He comments on a star he sees and we decide to name it the Goeie Môre star, the Afrikaans for Good Morning, {pronounced HWEE-yuh MOR-uh}.
Mr. Potato Head grumbles along the two dozen kilometers to the entrance of the park, and the sky closest to the horizon starts to change from dark into a lighter shade of blue. There’s just enough backlight to watch the silhouettes of the trees along the road, leafless on this cool winter morning, their wiry branches arching in every direction like spiny, weathered hands. We pass a bus that will take people from the outerlying settlements into town for a good day’s work.
The sky that’s touching the land begins a beautiful transition, deep red, then yellow, then orange layers slowly stretch toward the stars above, and I wonder how you pinpoint that beautiful moment when night is actually day again. A few dozen silhouettes surprise me, standing along the roadside, and I realise they must be waiting for the bus we passed a wee way back.
With our entry ticket on the dashboard, the diesel engine hums us through the gates and we peel our eyes, ready to see the animals of Kruger National Park waking up. The baby has fallen asleep in his car seat, the sleepy Bear is now ready for the action to begin.
We drive for a while, trees and tall grass out the window, areas where fire has burned the veld, then dense bush where you wonder if you’ll see anything at all. Suddenly we spot three giraffes enjoying their breakfast, their graceful necks stretching toward the high branches of thinly covered trees. One is eager to cross the road, so we back up when we realise we’re blocking the path he would like to take.
He has a bad knee and is limping a little as he goes. We watch with a little sadness, knowing he’ll be easy prey if a predator takes note of his disability.
After we have a handful of snapshots in our minds and the camera, we move on to look for more. We ride mostly in silence until someone spots an elephant — no, two — no three! And then we’re enjoying a beautiful moment with these ships of the bush.
With the engine turned off we listen as they crack branches with their dextrous trunks — they munch and browse and are always eating. Pictures just can’t capture their magnitude — those graceful tusks protruding on either side of a trunk with deep grey skin. They look weather beaten, even the youngest among them.
The morning slowly drives on and by half past eight we’ve spotted lots of buck, smiled up at more ellies and giraffes, discussed which birds are perching on nearby branches, seen rhinos at a distance and more up close in thick bush. We pause at a rest camp called Skukuza for a leg stretch and a bathroom break, and a glance at the sightings board in hopes of gaining a tip about where the lions that have been eluding us might be seen.
Vervet monkeys bring a bright smile to the Bear’s face, a large troop of baboons causes me to hurriedly roll up my window. A hornbill flies past the window and makes me think of Zazu in the Lion King.
We’ve decided to head home for brunch today, and we choose a route that will keep us inside the park an hour longer before our exit. On that last road on our way out, the Hubs suddenly sees a tail on the side of the road. The striped rings of it make him think of the lemurs we love to talk about, which are only indigenous to Madagascar. Perhaps it’s a wild dog…
No, it’s a leopard.
The least spotted of the Big Five…an animal that one should feel privileged to see in the wild…there he is alongside the road. This strong and majestic cat has a mission in mind, and he decides to cross the road right in front of our car.
The Hubs captures shot after shot after shot, we grownups are silent and watch in awe. Wow. After two minutes of practically holding our breath, as quickly as he appeared, he is gone again. Through straw-coloured grass about as high as the tail he carries in the air, he disappears.
As we start along the road again we excitedly chatter about what a magnificent leopard sighting we’d just enjoyed. They are such silent and majestic creatures…stealthy and strong and beautiful. We grow silent again, mindful of the little one sleeping in my arms, until HH pipes up again:
What is that?
Another leopard is travelling along the road, headed in our direction, and once in a lifetime is now twice. Mom and I are craning our necks from the backseat to see, and there he is, momentarily shaded by a small tree on the roadside. In the heat of the day, on the move.
Another two or three minutes of wide eyes and fast photo fingers, and the big cat is off into the bush again.
By the time we leave the park for brunch, grins are stretching across our faces from ear to ear. This isn’t a zoo — you don’t get directions on where to go to find what you want to see. We feel privileged to have seen so much, and look forward to a second trip into the park after brunch…
xCC
Aug 15, 2011 | Stories, The Parenthood
The idea occurred to me around one a.m. At least I think it was one a.m. — you reach a point when you stop wondering what unpleasant hour in the middle of the night it is that your children have you out of bed after a while. The Hubs, the Tank and I were asleep on a blow-up mattress in HH’s sister’s place, and the Bear was tucked into his tent at the foot of our bed.
He woke up with a frightful holler: Mom-muhhhhhhh! Mom-meeeee! And I got up and grabbed him, with the expectation that I’d be comforting him back to sleep because he’d had a bad dream. Instead, once he was in my arms he uttered two simple, but very profound words:
“I feel.”
He wimpered and then repeated them: “I feel.”
And before I had a chance to make sense of what it was exactly that he was feeling, I had an unexpected feeling: the feeling of his dinner of sausage and mashed potatoes, which made a second appearance on his shirt, all over my shirt, and in my hair.
Bummer.
Hero Hubs began the arduous task of tip-toeing into the master bedroom and giving the Bear a bath while I began the equally arduous task of rinsing all of the items that had been so gracefully baptized with bangers and mash.
We’d been in the Kruger National Park looking for game for a few days prior to this incident, and the only animal out of the Big Five we’d failed to catch a glimpse of was the lion.
The last article of clothing I was busy rinsing chunks from at that delightful hour when all is well if all are asleep, was the Bear’s little pajama top. That little pajama top was decorated with a little lion in his own pajamas. I felt certain at that moment, in the middle of the night, that it was some strange twist of fate — here is my lion, wild, and messy, and smiling at me with a knowing smirk, as if he knew all along we’d meet here, just like this.
Can I say I saw all of the Big Five in the wild on this trip now?
As I finished rinsing his murky mane, I pondered why it is exactly that these are the moments when I feel most like a mother. Some thirty-six hours before the Bear and I had our heads leaned out the window of Mr. Potato Head as his diesel engine grumbled us through the Kruger. We giggled as we tracked animals by looking at pawprints along the dirt road, and we felt certain that a particular type of poop we were consistently spotting was poop that belonged to a Gruffalo. It was a magical moment — a special memory.
But one a.m., at the gorgeous oversized basin of my sister-in-law’s guest bathroom, rinsing puke from blankets, a sheet, two t-shirts and my hair, why does this feel like motherhood?
I decided at that moment that Parenthood deserves its own system of special merit badges. The first badge that came to mind, of course, was the I Got Puked On in the Middle of the Night and Can’t Wash My Hair Until Morning Badge.
Screaming Child in the Grocery Store and Child Throwing Tantrum on the Floor in Public would have to be on the list. My Kid Figured Out How to Unlock the Bathroom Door and I Was Publicly Viewed While Sitting on the Toilet, My Kid Pulled Up My Skirt in Front of Strangers and My Kid Ran Off in Public and I Freaked Out Trying to Find Him have to make the cut.
And of course, there are many other Merit Badges we parents can aspire toward earning:
I Peed into a Diaper on a Long Road Trip Rather Than Stop the Car With Sleeping Kids
My Toddler Wailed Loudly From Take-off to Landing on a Three-Hour Flight (Extra merit: Longer Flight)
My Kid Used a Swear Word in Front of the Pastor (Extra merit: During His Sermon)
We Spent the Night In the Emergency Room Once a Week for Two Months Because of Minor Household Accidents
I’ve Made a Personal Apology to Every Woman in a Changing Room After Realising My Son Crawled Under Each and Every Door
My Daughter Pulled Up Her Dress and Flashed the Church During the Christmas Pageant
I’ve Pretended to Not Know Whose Kids My Kids Were to Avoid Public Embarrassment
My Son Punched a Public Figure in the Crotch in Front of a Large Crowd (Extra merit if it’s A Well-Known Celeb)
I Was Pooped On Just Before Boarding a Plane For an Eleven-Hour Flight (Extra merit: With No Change of Clothes)
I’ve decided a talented graphic designer should come up with the style and design of the badges, and like everything else these days, they’ll be printed as stickers and stuck to our cars. That way, friends and strangers alike can be impressed by what successful parents we are.
Don’t even try to steal this idea, I’m getting a trademark next week and stickers will be in print soon.
Got any badge requests?
xCC
Jul 28, 2011 | Scotland, Stories
Six years ago today I boarded a plane in Atlanta with my big brother. Since we’d booked our tickets separately, we weren’t seated together — he was in the row in front of me in a bulkhead seat. I decided to ask the interesting character of a lady beside me if she would be willing to switch seats with my brother so that we could sit together. With the extra leg room and a little bit more space, it seemed like a no-brainer.
She turned to me, and with such poise and calm I wouldn’t have been more surprised if her teeth had fallen out in my lap, she answered:
“Absolutely not.”
Besides the surprising answer, the manner in which she responded left me so aghast I just quietly turned to stare at the back of the seat in front of me. I sat still and quiet long enough that I think remorse got the better of her, and she eventually turned to me again and said,
“Well you can at least read the paper or something.”
Ten or fifteen extremely uncomfortable minutes later, the guy sitting in front of her (beside my brother) realised his TV was broken and ended up being bumped up to business class. I then had the pleasure of moving up a row, just in time to avoid the interesting lady’s evening routine, which included changing to sleeping attire in the restroom and carefully putting her waist-length hair in a humongous bun directly on top of her head.
That flight was bound for London, and a day later my brother and I were on a train to Edinburgh, where another surprise awaited us. After a warm morning and a good breakfast in London, we moseyed on over to King’s Cross train station, and I was dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and flip-flops.
We arrived in Edinburgh that afternoon, some friends of mine doing us a great favour by bringing the majority of the luggage up with them by car that evening. My landlord, David, a wonderful gent who’d soon become a great friend, met us at the train station.
{A view from the School of Divinity in Edinburgh}
As we waited and looked for David at the train station, I realised all my warm clothes were in those suitcases coming up from London, and though it was the 29th of July, I was convinced that the rain falling outside was freezing and would be turning to snow at any minute.
After settling in to the temporary digs in Gorgie where I’d be staying for my first month in Auld Reekie, we turned up the heating and went out to the pub across the street to enjoy some impressively poor renditions of Oasis’s Wonderwall while waiting for the flat to warm up.
We returned to a freezing cold flat, and figured out that the gas had run out. I knew nothing about topping up the gas. I knew nothing about the five pounds of emergency credit available if I’d pushed the right button. I just knew it was cold, I hadn’t bought bedding yet, and it was going to be a long night.
While I pulled on half the clothes in my suitcase, my friend Julie was sleeping in the other room, and decided to boil the kettle and then cuddle it on the couch to try to keep warm through the evening.
{Warning: Don’t try that at home.}
The next morning was the beginning of life in Edinburgh: trips to the big Tesco for the necessities, getting denied a bank account, getting caught in the rain without an umbrella, getting denied a phone contract, getting caught in the rain without an umbrella again, and catching the bus headed in the wrong direction.
It was also the beginning of discovering what I’ll forever hold in my heart as the most beautiful city in Europe, finding a little shop that served Chocolate Soup, exploring the fantastic finds waiting to be had in charity shops, and studying for a Master’s Degree (and half a PhD) at a university so exquisitely located, I never once left the Divinity School without savouring the incredible view — Edinburgh Castle to my left, Princes Street below, the Firth of Forth, broody in the distance, sun streaming onto the yellow rapeseed meadows of Fife on the other side.
Those days marked the beginnings of these six years of life, thousands of miles away from the place that never stopped feeling like home, though I tried hard to set up shop wherever I was. And though this season has been full of good surprises, and bad ones, it seems I could’ve taken note of what was to come in the foreshadows of those first few days.
Though that simple moment of surprise on the plane made me think the chances of enjoying my brother’s company on the nine-hour flight was no longer a possibility, beside the closed door was an open window, just a little further along. And though the heat-less night in Gorgie was a tough start, the memories my brother and I share from Robertson’s Pub and Julie hugging the kettle make the inconvenience worthwhile.
Indeed these six years have gone rather differently in many ways from how I expected when I boarded that first flight, but I’ve continuously seen glory in the triumphs and the failings, especially in the times where things happened differently from how I hoped or expected.
Among the many lessons tucked into my heart for the journey home, another I’m holding onto is the realization that it’s easy to get discouraged when things aren’t going according to plan, but we can hold onto faith that even disappointments and trials can work out for good, when we love our Creator and are willing to wait on Him.
So hold on to hope, whatever you’re facing today. No matter where you are on the journey of life, tomorrow is pregnant with possibility, and it’s an adventure that’s just beginning.
xCC
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