Writing Today's Tiny Story

I came abroad in order to follow my dream and pursue the purpose that I had for my life.  But once I got here, all those dreams and purposes were not what I really wanted.  All of a sudden I was at a total loose end, I did not know why I had come here and fell into a deep despondency that at times still grips me.

I felt like I was wasting a year of my life doing something that I did not really enjoy and that was not going to get me anywhere in my career.  I was beating myself up for making this happen when I clearly was meant to stay at home.

But fortunately for me, God ordains everything.  Even the bugger ups we make He turns into His perfect will.  There is such comfort in that!  Because when we hold onto that, there is always hope.

I came here on a mission to do a whole lot of stuff; study Swedish, do short courses -- all so that I could maybe study here further and possibly stay for a longer period of time.  Now that I think of that I feel really dumb for being so naive. I cannot wait to go home.

So after six months of feeling really despondent and homesick - which at times I still am - I am able to catch a glimpse of what God has given me in this year.  He has blessed me with a whole new way of life, a new family, time and space to relax and just simply be.  The problem is that for so long I have been feeling down for not achieving what I planned when really something much more wonderful has simply been given to me as a gift.

I have really learned a lot more about what life is about.  I have always been very focused and purposeful.  Everything I do has to be seen as worthwhile in reaching a specific goal for me to put effort in to it. 

I love to-do lists and planning and ticking off tasks completed.  Those who know me will all know of my daily planner obsession with all its little boxes waiting to be ticked off.  Many people always admired my organisation and I took pride in being someone who accomplished a lot of things.

But this year, I got so tired of it all - the constant pressure to always be doing something, to always be achieving something – was wearing me out.  This was partly because I got here and was at a loose end as to what exactly the point of this whole experience was.  I have been suffering from a bad case of anxiety and this quote kind of helped me figure out why.

I am so grateful for this time which although tough, has taught me to be still and know and to live in the present. At moments ‘the present’ has seemed like a never ending plain of the Free State stretching out before me.  And its weight has pressed down on me like the Natal humidity making it hard to breathe at times. 

Life is not about getting anywhere or accomplishing anything really.  It is, well, it is about living.  I feel like I have lived in a daydream for most of my life thinking that everything would be perfect once I had achieved a specific goal – once I had finished school or got my degree, if I could live abroad, get the perfect job, travel, see the world – but with the achievement of each goal, another one quickly emerged and yet again I was living for the future of ‘when’.

This year I am learning that life is really nothing big.  It is not some big calling or mission.  As Christians we often feel like we need this huge purpose.  But our purpose is just to live and to live fully.  We are called.  Called to be one of God’s children.  And that happens in the everyday and ordinary that you find yourself in. I constantly find myself getting anxious about what I am supposed to be doing and where my life is heading.  It is times at these that I have to remember to TRUST. Because wherever I go or whatever I do, it is ordained by the Author of life and so even if it seems pointless, I can know it will turn out into a great story.

Learning to enjoy my 'Holland'

http://www.our-kids.org/Archives/Holland.html

Characters make the story

The greatest lesson I am learning this year (and one that I think I will continue to learn for the rest of my life) is that life is ALL about people and the relationships you have with the people in your life.  I almost feel like it is what makes life.  That without other people I as a person mean nothing.  I guess I had to come to Europe to discover what Ubuntu really means.

My previous post laid bare the disappointment that travelling was.  But that was not the full story.  The truth is that I did have magic moments on my travels – moments that I will treasure forever. 

It just was that those moments were not seeing the Coliseum totally by surprise one day when I turned a street in Rome nor was it seeing the Eiffel Tower glitter in the Paris skyline.  Those were special moments.  But they did not have the ‘magic’ factor.

The most magical moments I had were with people. The moments were magic because we were doing something kiff together like going up into the Austrian Alps or walking along the East Side Gallery. But honestly we could have been anywhere and it would still have been a magic moment.

People drive you crazy.  We misunderstand one another.  We say stupid things and we get grumpy and irritable.  We are selfish and like things our way.  We often have different ways of dealing with situations that piss people off but are totally normal to our way of thinking.  People are damn annoying.  Those closest to you hurt you the most.  But life is empty without people. All the beautiful places, all the good food, all the crazy experiences mean nothing without other people to share them with.  Doesn’t matter if you’re doing cool stuff or doing mundane stuff, you need people there for you.  God himself has his homies.  He did not create us to be alone. 

I have always been a loner and a bit of a control freak.  I want people on my terms and I want them to stay in the boxes that I put them in.  I don’t want them to hurt me or take up to much of my space.  But that is not what relationship is about.  You need the hurt to experience the love because we are human and if there is no hurt then the love cannot be real. 

So these are some of the magic moments I had with some freaking awesome people.

First off, these two crazy cats arrived: Stephie and Bru

I love this couple more than you can imagine. Awaiting their arrival was the most excitement I have ever experienced in my grown up life.  They literally made me come alive again after months of loneliness and isolation.  For the first time in months I laughed loudly and had someone who ‘got’ me and thought that men in dinner jackets with coiffed hair really are the most ridiculous sight ever. 

We barbecued illegally on this nifty little ‘braai’

stared at owls at Skansen, made fun of American tourists, went to Ikea for cheap food 

sad pandas at Ikea

and spent hours in the national park smelling flowers and throwing stones on the lake.

I made new friends along the way.  These crazy hippies almost convinced me to smoke weed and gave me a taste of the alternative life.  Cycling the streets of Copenhagen and swinging over the lake in Christiana were magic moments because of them.

My dear friend Magda, the perfect German host (she being the perfect German), left us nutella and good German bread for breakfast, gave us very exact directions and a list of German phrases so that we would not get lost and heaven forbid be late!!  We saw and did so much in Berlin yet the magic moment was a real ‘braai’ that she especially organized for us in her parents’ garden.

Alice, my chilled, easygoing Austrian friend who bought us lots of wine, tried to teach us to pop gum loudly and made us feel so at rest in her beautiful bungalow.  Walking through the alps and going up in the cable car were incredible.  However the magic moment was watching a stupid series with her one night and eating Mozart kugel on her red couch.

Steph and Bru left me (crying like a baby) to go home on a horrific 40 hour long trip and I continued on to Vienna. Lisa, a girl I met on a trip to Russia last year had offered to have me to stay.  We had only ever spoken for half an hour in person yet she invited me into her home and into her family. She even bought me a famous Sacher cake which we ate in a park with plastic white forks. She took me to the Blue Danube and as we lay on a jetty she played the Blue Danube Waltz off her phone.  

the fancy sacher cake and plastic forks 

In Munich, Manuela hosted me in her tiny little Olympic village flat.  She kindly did not take offence when I asked for something other than German bread to eat – she introduced me to pretzels - and got me to drink a litre of beer – before church!  We spent the evenings chatting on her balcony till late and wondering where we would be in ten years time. 

eating salted pickles at the market

From this point on in my travels I was alone and it was not the same.  Nothing means as much without people.  Bad hostel rooms, getting lost, expensive food and language barriers are not as easy to bear without someone to laugh (or cry) about it with. 

Faye, my fellow traveler and sister in this experience of living abroad, came like an angel out a Michelangelo fresco to see me in Rome.  The heat, the tourists, the sleazy Italian men all became a story and an adventure with her by my side.  The gelato tasted sweeter and the ancient beauty of Rome came alive just for having a dear friend to share it with.  We lay in a park and hated on Europe and let our longing for home totally romanticize everything in SA – even the car guards and petrol price. (check out her cool blog: http://findingbrightplaces.blogspot.it/)

When I arrived in Paris, after a delayed flight from Nice, my heavy suitcase bumping other pedestrians, my hair frizzing and my back wet with sweat under my backpack, I was seriously about to crack.  But God knew.  And He blessed me with a clean, decent hostel (I’d left a room in Nice which I had shared with four men who slept only in their jocks because of the lack of airconditioning) but more importantly, He blessed me with a new friend.  And not just anybody.  A South African friend.  Alison turned what would have been just another city full of tourists and famous sights into an adventure.  We only had one day together but got to walk up the Champs Elysees, shop for a ten euro item at a Gap store, have lunch at a sidewalk cafe, see the Eiffel Tower and of course take photos (I finally have photos with myself in them).  This chick is seriously cool - you should check out her travel blogs and food websites. (http://alisonwestwood.com/)

All stories need people in them to make them magical.  Because what is any story without its characters?

A Board Called Wanderlust and Where to Pin Your Hopes

I have a Pinterest board called Wanderlust  (lame, I know). And when I created that board I literally had a lust for travel.  I wanted to see the world and all the wonders it had to offer.  The sights, places and spaces that I had only ever read of or seen in movies – I had to see them and experience their wonder and I was prepared to do whatever it took to do so. 

So last week I was looking through that Pinterest board after a month of travelling through Europe.  And I was shocked that many of the things which I pinned in absolute ignorance, I have now seen and done.  Even random things like the Abbey Bookshop in Paris – I pinned it because I love any cute bookshops but then one day, totally by accident, I stumbled upon it down a side alley in Paris.

There is something else that I pinned on my Wanderlust board.  A quote by St. Augustine (though one can never be sure about these quotes and who they belong to).  It goes like this:

I read that, and I was determined to read all the pages.  I felt like my life would not be complete or fulfilled, that I could never be content, that my life would not mean anything unless I had travelled the world and seen all that it had to offer.

And so, despite being a rather nervous, high-strung person who does not like change and who is useless at directions and map reading, I set out on a month long trip through Europe.  I am not brave person but I am rather stupid.

I have seen the Berlin Wall, the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, had lunch in the shade of the Arc de Triomphe, gone up into the Austrian Alps, cycled through Copenhagen, eaten white sausage and drunk beer for breakfast in Germany, sat at little cafes in Florence, suntanned in Nice, heard the Pope giving his Sunday message from the Vatican, eaten the famous Sacher cake out its beautiful box in Vienna and gone shopping along the Champs Elysees.

A dream come true.  Or so it should have been.  This was my dream.  To travel, to see the world, to visit these magical places.  And I am grateful that I have done it.  I am glad that it is done because now I know what I did not know before.  Travelling is overrated and it certainly does not make your life 'fulfilled'.

  

I saw great things, I did great things.  I had fun.  But the more I saw, the less it meant.  I got good at looking but stopped actually seeing.  I wandered through the Vatican museums, one scorching hot day in Rome and realized that if I had never seen a fresco of Mary and the baby Jesus or hundreds of white statues of Roman nobles, my life would have been okay - it might in fact have been fuller.  It was as if all this ‘seeing’ and ‘doing’ was actually emptying me out of any beauty and joy.

I am a small person.  I grew up in small towns and cities in South Africa.  And there I find myself with the rich and famous, suntanning on the rocky beaches of Nice.  I certainly got to read the pages of the book of the world.  However, I do not think these are the best pages. I do not think they are the most interesting or exciting.  I do not think that they are the pages I will treasure forever and go back and read and reread. Because the more I saw and the further I travelled, the more I longed for home.  For the norm, for the average and every day.  I longed for the real world, my world, not the gaudy, tourist attractions that although beautiful and awe-inspiring, meant nothing to me.

I would have traded this month of sightseeing and gallivanting for a holiday at my gran’s house in Durban where we watch stupid BBC comedies with my grandpa and get yelled at by my grandma for sitting in her chair.  I would trade the hundreds of famous art works by Michelangelo and Da Vinci for a visit to the Ann Bryant Art Gallery with its old buildings and artwork by local artists.  I would exchange all the Roman archaeology and statues for that stupid Coeleocanth at the East London museum.  And you know why?  Because all that is real.  It is my world. 

And maybe I am ungrateful.  I know I am.  Maybe I am just ill-suited to travel – the tourists, the queues, the foreign food and strange places, sleeping in filthy hostels and getting lost on the metro – I know now that I am.  But I also know that I have learned a huge lesson in wisdom. 

That famous places and objects and buildings and people and spaces - they are not what the world is about.  And if you do not get to see them, you have certainly not read only one page.  Our stories of the world are written wherever and however we live.  And you read every page no matter where or how you live.  You can make the world, your world, full of grace and beauty whether or not you see the Vienna Opera House or visit the Shakespeare and Co. Bookshop. 

So travel or don’t travel.   It actually makes no difference.  Contentment and happiness is found in the situation you’re in.  Not in a street in Paris or a museum in Rome.  Don’t ‘pin’ your hopes on that Pinterest board. Don’t pin your hopes on anything on this earth. Because as I discovered, it is all meaningless. Pin your hopes on the Author of the book of the world.  Because He can fill all your pages with glorious dramas and simple tales of life and love.

a tiny story with a Great Author

This blog was supposed to be about my writing.  It was going to be tiny stories that I wanted to write.  And I suppose it will be.  But I don’t care about writing any more.  Or being a good writer.  I just have a need to share my story.  My tiny story that may or may not be interesting to anyone else.  All I know is that it is a story and I hope that it can encourage someone else.

It is rather ironic that I named this blog Tiny Stories when in reality I was waiting for a big, exciting story to take place.  This year I set out on an adventure.  I left my home and country so that I might travel and experience different places and different cultures.  I felt fearless and excited setting out, ready to take on the world and write a grand life story.

However instead of a grand story, I found everyday life.  This is honestly turning out to be the toughest year of my life. To be far from your family and in a very cold and exclusive culture and to know that there is no going back, you have to face your time – it can honestly break your heart.  I know it has broken mine.

However, I know that I was called to such a time as this.  Although I feel as if I made the biggest mistake of my life in coming here, I know that I will look back and see that this year has been for something glorious.  God never lets anything go to waste.  Even if it was my determination that got me here, He in fact brought me here and is doing something much more wonderful than I could ever imagine.

Many a day I sit and cry. I no longer have shame who sees me, I cry on the subway and in the library and in the park and as I boil pasta for the children’s dinner.  At first I did not understand all these tears.  It is not as if anything terrible has happened or that my situation is awful.  Telling myself that did not help though, it just made me cry more for feeling guilty about crying.

A wise man once said that hope deferred makes the heart sick.  And I can honestly say that my heart is sick. I had pinned my hopes on a dream.  I believed that I could do anything if I put my mind to it. I believed that I could choose my life and decide how it should play out.  My hope was in me and my abilities.  And I have discovered the difficult truth that you don’t get to make up most of your story - you get to make peace with it (Ann Voskamp, aholyexperience.com). 

God is so faithful.  He will not let us go.  He will not let us settle for less than Him and the goodness of Him.  He will do whatever it takes to bring us closer to Him.  And although my heart has experienced more loneliness and anguish than I sometimes think that I can bear, I am grateful for it.  This experience has caused me to make Him my only hope, my only boast. 

I can no longer boast in my cleverness or my standing in society or my willpower to go for what I want in life.  I have come to the end of myself.  I have been broken.  And that is what I want.  I want my life to be eternal. I have seen much of the world now and done many things that I always dreamed of and yet have found it all to be meaningless. The one thing I know to be true, to be worth investing your hope and beliefs in, is Christ.

So this is my tiny story.  It may be depressing, but it is in fact filled with hope because of the marvelous Author who is writing it. He knows the end, and with Him, the end is always a good one where everything works out.  He likes clichés like that.

Spring's Arrival

I wring my hands self-consciously.

“Keep your back straight” I tell myself.  I have a tendency to hunch my shoulders when feeling awkward.  I absolutely hate these situations.  I now seem to live in them permanently. “Where should I stand?”  “What should I be doing?”  “Should I even be here or would it be better for everyone if I left?”

I smile and nod at the other guests, trying not to look pathetic. The last thing I want is to be pitied by them.

 I look around for something to do; if I am useful then I might feel as though I belong.  The children are ordinarily my chief duty, and they are playing noisily in the room adjacent. The parents have to raise their voices to be heard over the clatter of toys and the shrieks of excitement. I walk unseen past the chatting guests to go see if I can help the children in some way.  I admire the girls’ drawings and help the boys get the toy cars down from the cupboard.  They aren’t interested in me however, and I don’t want to make the parents feel like I am the hired help.  Tonight I have been invited to the dinner party as a guest.

Rejoining the adults, I am offered champagne and hors de oeuvres.  I certainly am being cultivated in the finer things in life.

I try to make small talk with the guests; the language barrier an added strain. I manage to converse haltingly on the topics of weather and occupations.  This is what basic language courses prepare you for.  It is the more in-depth conversations of politics and the humorous anecdotes where I lose my way and find myself like Alice at the tea party: bewildered yet trying desperately to make sense of it all.

Dinner was served: oxfile with red wine reduction, Italian salad leaves and pureed cauliflower.  Eating now kept me preoccupied and out of forced conversations about the weather and life in South Africa.

Usually, my initial instinct is to avoid these situations at all costs.  It certainly was the easier route to take.  I had half thought of making up an excuse for tonight - that I had an engagement and would be out - when really I would be wandering around the city, feeling lonely and pitiful. 

Now, as I sit around the table with the hum of conversation surrounding me, I look out the window and see the last traces of winter disappearing and small bright buds appearing on the walnut tree.  I am proud of myself for choosing to come.  The drab, brown grass will soon be a brilliant green after the snow melts.  Spring always made the winter worth it.

I sip my wine and cut into the tenderest of ox fillets, I feel a glint of contentment. This small town farm girl is far from her expected life.  I had faced some heartache, leaving my home and all that was familiar, and for weeks now I had felt like it had been a mistake. But, I was exactly where I wanted to be.  I had taken a giant leap out of my comfort zone and that is why I had come: to experience life in a different way, to be challenged, to grow, to be cultivated, to meet new people, to see myself more clearly and learn to be adaptable. It dawned on me that I had had to make it through the winter in order to experience my own spring.

 I listen to the conversation around the table with half an ear; the language is slowly but surely becoming familiar. I feel a flicker of kinship with my host family who catch my eye and smile at me from across the table.  My own Spring is budding. My seemingly dead branches of loneliness are blossoming into confidence and although painful at first, the beauty is worth the risk.

South African Ghetto

behance.net

There were not many people in the small gallery. 

“We can make a quick getaway if this is not fun,” I said under my breath to my friend Lara, a born South African but bred Swede, who I had dragged along with me for moral support.

We stood in a corner, feeling awkward with our heavy coats and handbags, nervous lest we bump and break some of the art or craft work.  A Ugandan artist’s work was on display.  The bright colours and irregular shapes of people and city skylines was so comforting in a country in love with modernism and Ikea prints.

ikapa.co.za

“Welcome ladies,” said a soft spoken coloured man, handing us each a business card for ‘The South Africa Society in Sweden’, the organizers of this event.  He welcomed us to join the group and take part in upcoming events such as potjiekos competitions and Youth Day braais. 

“Oh for a proper braai with proper meat.  There will definitely be no falukorv and hotdogs there!” I exclaimed to Lara.

Grapetizer, was being offered around by a young woman with a strong Coloured accent and a friendly, open manner.  Her green African print headband was just as bright as her personality. She joked and laughed at herself, making me feel comfortable and welcome, almost like we knew each other from a previous occasion. 

africanfabriclady.com

Slowly but surely people began arriving.

 

“Howzit!”

“Yslike, this wind is cold man!”

My heart was filled with joy and I smiled involuntarily as I recognized the jargon, accents and dialects of my fellow countrymen. 

A tall Zimbabwean-born, South African-bred man introduced himself to us.  He freely asked personal questions and openly shared his feelings. 

A gay CapeTonian with his cardigan and high-pitched voice still seemed manly in comparison to the average metro-sexual Scandinavian man.

Two women with strong Cape-Coloured accents laughed loudly as they sat on the gallery stairs, observing the musicians setting up. 

The stereotypical South African men in jeans and T-shirts were such a comfort to eyes exhausted by style and high fashion. 

These were people who I could understand.

There was barely room for us all in the gallery’s small back room and we rubbed shoulders and squeezed together to fit in.  This was as it should be at a gathering of South Africans, a society accustomed to overpopulation and overcrowding. 

behance.net

The proceedings began with the singing of Du Gamla, Du Fria and Nkosi Sikelela Afrika. I observed one South African with their hand over their heart.  Such a gesture was the utmost sign of respect and my eyes filled with emotion. In Sweden and much of Europe, such a gesture would be interpreted as dangerous and nationalistic whereas for us it represented unity and love. My tears soon turned to laughter as Vanessa and I caught one another’s eye, we both knew the language of the Swedish national anthem as much as we knew our own – very poorly!

Presently the Swedish hip hop musicians began sharing about their collaboration with South African musicians and all that they had experienced. 

Suddenly, the proceedings were interrupted as, in true South African style, the Ambassador arrived late.  She wore traditional African dress with a head dress and beads. The polite, young Swedes stepped aside to give her room. No doubt they had experienced this sort of thing on their travels in South Africa.

johandelange.co.za

“Good afternoon ladies and gentleman. I am so proud to see so many South Africans united in celebration of the freedom of our country.  It is you who are, the true ambassadors of South Africa.  Don’t lose your friendliness, your Ubuntu, here in this cold, unfriendly country....”

I was attacked with a case of the giggles. I knew her.  She was my university lecturer; she was the minister of some obscure government cabinet; she was the clerk at home affairs; she was a stereotype who frustrated me back home but who I missed in the dignified and ordered proceedings of Sweden. I felt as though she would surely give me a hug and call me ‘her baby’ should I greet her.  Her lack of diplomacy and disregard for Swedish social norms made me proud and happy.  She truly was proudly South African and had not been shamed into changing her culture to fit in - as I was guilty of doing.  I thought her admirable and brave.

After the presentation I joined the motley crew for drinks in a nearby restaurant. A tall, skinny, coloured man with crazy curls flopping round his face like a small puppy’s large ears entertained me with stories of life in Europe. 

Some had come for work, others for love.  Most had stayed for their careers.

“Don’t believe in the fairy tale of a Swedish prince my girl,” a divorced woman advised.  “If you want a pretty face then you got to be happy with the personality of a f***ing doorknob,” she said dryly  elbowing a poor Swedish man beside her who simply laughed and nodded in agreement.

The South Africans’ relationship with the country and people had been similar to my current feelings initially. 

“I hated it.  Hay-ted it.  Hated the f***ing weather.  Hated the f***ing food.  Hated the people too.”

“And now?” I asked, desperately hoping that things would improve.

“Ag now I like it.  This is the best time now.  The summer is magic.  Magic ek se.  Everyone out in the streets.  Braaing and drinking.  A lot of parties you know.  You gonna love it.  Now the city comes alive.”

The chairman of the South Africans in Sweden Society ordered chicken wings and chips for the table to share.

It was wonderful to share food with these simple people.  There was no propriety and rituals to eating.  No sitting primly and refusing on the grounds of vegan-ism or vegetarianism, no stick-thin beauties disciplined and self-flagellating. Men and women tucked in, licking their fingers with no regard for the opinion of others.  They sat comfortably on their stools, reaching across one another and interrupting with their own anecdotes and experiences.

We were a politically incorrect bunch.  Stereotypes regarding race and gender were freely stated although a more diverse group you would not find in the entire restaurant.  Quotas for black, white, coloured, old, young, male and female were all filled. We were foreigners yes, but our group also included a few Swedes who clearly enjoyed the company of South Africans.    

I felt for the first time since leaving home like I was truly understood and accepted.  I did not have to explain myself or put away my slang and humour.  I did not have to impress or present myself in an acceptable manner.  I was South African and a part of the family of South Africans.  I now understood why foreigners are so reluctant to assimilate and so eagerly sought their own people and formed ghettos.  Among your own people, you were protected and found a place in a very large, rather unforgiving city.