over and over again

When we were kids there was a few things you absolutely knew about my dad after talking to him for 5 minutes (or growing up in his house for 12 years). He doesn't play games. He doesn't say things twice. He goes from 0 to 100 quick. He cares about everything he owns. And on top of that list of things he owns that he cares about is his car. I remember spending weekends watching him clean the little AC vents with a toothbrush because just wiping the doors and hood with river water was for average people.

And then this one Sunday they come to wake me up talking about I need to go wash the car. I'm still in a stupor coz I was up watching that midnight movie last night against intructions. And in my lucid dream I could feel the rain falling. Sounds like water to me, so I told the people to leave me alone - the rain has already cleaned the car. Fast forward 17 minutes, all of us are heading to church, and then my father starts with me.

"Colin, you are actually in this car?" I'm on some of course I am I have earned the right to be a member of this family by being obedient and giving up all my freedom and getting good grades at school and all the things people that don't have their own children think they're doing their parents a favor by doing. "You know I heard you being woken up to come and clean the car and I heard your response." Shucks! "Colin. I am very disappointed in you. Next time something like that happens, you will never step into this car."

He wasn't yelling, or hyperventilating or banging his fists against the wheel like he usually would be when he's livid. He was just cool, changing gears and indicating left and right between pronouncing curses on my life. Every rebellious bone in my body was screaming who does he think he is and let me out right now it's not like we've had a car all my life and I was living just fine. But in the real world, silence. I wasn't even waiting for the other shoe to drop, coz usually admonitions like that would quickly be followed by a couple of slaps. But I knew they weren't coming. Everything he wanted to say had already been said.

I was almost never beaten as a child. They spoke to me like that. And somewhere deep down inside they always struck a chord. I listened because I was scared to death of not having my parents around, and I felt like they might leave or send me away. As I got older obviously our relationship changed and we all started talking to each other instead of them speaking and me listening. But never on the same level with my dad. He was made differently - only one person can be in charge. And that person can't not be him. And everyone around must know. It used to kill me having to shut up and listen all the time.

Now it kills me not being able to listen at all. There's not a lot of times that I talked back, but there are. And I think of all those times and ask myself when I stopped being afraid my parents would go away. Because he finally did. It wasn't because I stopped listening, but it still broke my heart all the same. I always thought those days that the worst thing that would happen to us was we wouldn't be able to get food to eat when my dad left. I have food now, but it turns out that's not all I needed him for.

I needed him to take care of all the things that I couldn't. I needed him to be strong when I couldn't be. I needed him to be the bridge between today and tomorrow every time I thought the world was ending. I've spent two years not knowing where to turn, and I've learned to numb the pain. But every so often something happens and that night in October comes crashing back into my mind. 

Today, it was a song.

END

between raising hell and amazing grace

It's been exactly one year - to the day - since I was last here. The year has been ... eventful to say the least. Anyway.

The story of Job is a very interesting one. Here is a man whom God Himself holds up as a paragon of integrity. And the devil is like, but you've given him so much. Of course he worships you, what else would he do. "Ok, then. Let's see," says God to the devil. So the devil starts taking everything away from Job one by one, until he has nothing left. And Job reacts, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be His name." Obviously the devil is not happy, so he goes after Job's own health. Job gets condemned so publicly that even his three closest friends who were standing by him start to admonish him. They assume he must have done something really bad to deserve what was happening to him. "Is not your wickedness great? Are not your sins endless?" They ask him.

In his human nature, Job does not understand why all this is happening to someone who was faithful to God all his life. He cries out to the Lord and calls him to account. "If I have sinned, what have I done to you, oh watcher of men? Why have you made me your target?" he challenges God. But the Lord stays hidden from him. Job gives up. "My spirit is broken. My days are cut short," he laments.

And then God finally does come back to him. But not to answer his questions. He walks Job through a wilderness appreciation tour, highlighting all the majesties and splendour of nature. His point: until you know what it takes to run a physical universe, don't tell me how to run a moral one. However, in all their interactions, God never accuses Job of sinning against Him. He admonishes him for calling His fairness into account, but never for sinning. 

In the end, Job himself does come round to repenting, but again, not for railing against God. "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me to know." This is what he repents for.

There's a lot of stories you can take out of the book of Job. But two I find most compelling right now: 1) you will go through suffering and you won't know why until God reveals it to you; and 2) while you're suffering you can tell all that to God. Throw at him your anger, your disappointment, your grief and your doubt. God is bigger than we are - he can take it all.

So the last time I did this, I was reminded of a story my dad told me. He said, "I know that I went out of my way to serve the Lord, and it has been well with me."

Given his condition now, and the things that have been happening, I'm thinking, has it? Job had a lot of grace, and he sounds like he was a very strong person. He waited a lifetime for God to reveal Himself. I don't know if I'm built that way. I don't know how long I can hold out for.

They say God doesn't let you go through anything He hasn't already equipped you to handle. Ok, then, let's see.

END

deterioration of the fight or flight response

How do birds do it? Fly thousands of miles halfway across the world and still find their mark? And come back again in spring when it's nice and warm. Wildebeest? How do penguins do it? They live in the snowy mountains. Everything's white and looks like everything else. How do they figure out where home is? How can they tell they're going in the right direction? And how do they never get lost along the way? And the very first time, how do they know they've arrived, never having been where they're going before?

When you can't see the future, when you don't know what dreams may come, when you're not sure whether or not this was supposed to be The One for you - how do you know when it's time to stop fighting and let go? I don't want to be that guy ten years later looking back wondering if I threw away a lifetime of happiness over a stubborn disposition. But I also don't want to be that guy who turns the other cheek and says "Please, slap me again." I like to think when I have a stand to make, I'll be able to get the courage to make it. And for the rest of my life I'll be able to live with my choices. But it's just so damn hard without knowing.

Two things I know about myself that I didn't a year ago: I'm not chauvinistic, but I do like to be made to feel like I'm in charge. I hate it when people don't make sense. I hate it when something's so obvious to me but other people can't seem to see it. I hate everything that's not rooted in logic (so naturally I love my blog). And two, I'm a needy person. And I'm not as strong lonely as I thought I was. When I fall for someone, I fall hard. Hard. So in a sense, I'm just like everyone else. I'm really not the superman I thought I was.

So I'm at that point now. We got into a fight, repeatedly. The same fight. And if you ask me, what's at the root of it all is respect and compromise. I feel I keep bending over backwards, and she doesn't meet me halfway. She feels I'm rude and I don't respect her or treat her like a queen. We've been here before. And we got through it every time. But I think we got through it because I was always willing to extend an unconditional olive branch. I think I give and I give and I give, and I don't know if I can live like that for the rest of my life. It's supposed to be a cycle, is it not? Now you give, now you receive. If it just keeps being one-sided, I think one of the people will lose themselves. And maybe some people are fine with that-personalities differ, right? But not me. The third thing I know about myself, and have always suspected, is that I have to be allowed to BE me. I've won too many times at too many things in the past to doubt myself.

I saw an episode on one of my all-times (One Tree Hill) where Andy and Lucas' mum were breaking up. He was moving back to Australia coz Dan got him deported, and she wouldn't go with him even though she seemingly didn't have a reason not to. So as he walks out the final time she's like, "Andy, I love you, you know." And he goes, "I know, Karen. But somehow that just doesn't seem to be enough." And he walked away. Right now, I know where I wanna go with this girl. I just don't know how to get there. Or if it's worth it anymore to even try. I need help.

END

what comes after the blues?

Do you ever get the sense you've been down this road before? When you watch TV does that hot new show feel played out? Like you've seen everything there is to see? Been everywhere there is to go? Done every vacation that exists? Like nothing can take your breathe away anymore? Like no matter how astounding technology gets, the glass ceiling's already broken and it's never gonna be as great as it was that first time?

When I was eleven, we left our small-town roots for the first time and went to celebrate Christmas in the big city. Nairobi. I was in awe of everything I saw. I looked around and saw lights going round and round in endless circle. I saw the public Christmas tree in the middle of the city and I'd never seen such a big one before. I saw the skyscrapers and as my eyes followed them all the way up there to infinity I wondered who built them so tall, and how they stood up there, and how come the wind didn't blow them left and right like it did trees. Billboards. Malls. Housing estates with multiple phases. Supermarkets three floors big. Fast food joints. Clubs and cinemas. Traffic lights. More people on the streets than I'd ever seen in my life. I drank it all in with glee. And then later I moved there and all that became the fabric my life was made of. I didn't notice any of it anymore.

And then I turned 22 just as my team and I won a national competition that meant my team and me were gonna go to New York. The greatest city in the world. The one that never sleeps. The heart of the land of opportunity. And just like that I became 11 again. Times Square. Subways. McDonald's. Broadway. Brooklyn. Yellow cabs. One-way streets. $1 hotdogs from food carts on the streets. Pizza so large you eat it in slices. The Blade Runner, Remastered. Radio Shack (I actually bought my first mp3 player, a Sansa, there). Our hotel was actually in Manhattan. 891, Amsterdam Avenue. It's one of those things I'm just never gonna forget. It was like I'd died and gone to heaven.

And then four years later they told me I was moving to Johannesburg. I still remember my first experience landing here. Never mind that I wasn't a child anymore. I oohh-ed and aaahh-ed as we drove past the widest roads I'd seen yet, stacked neatly one on top of the other. Wide open spaces. Not a spec of dust in sight. Even the flower beds around compounds seemed not to contain any soil. They brought me to Sandton Central. And I got out and started walking around and admiring everything I saw. Swanky low-rise complexes. Large, pane-only windows. Trees interspersed so casually and so perfectly with the modern development the whole city looks from above like it's in a forest. Harley Davidson. Sports cars randomly driving past on the road like it ain't a thing. Hot water taps that actually had hot water flowing from them. Street lights that worked. And made the N1 look like a stairway to heaven as it receded into the horizon in the calm of night.

The first time at anything is always the greatest. Because your imagination gets stretched. Because you're seeing something completely new. Something much like a miracle. Something akin to poetry in its wonder and magic. Because you become like a child again. Every other time I've gone to new places (and there have been a few) I've seen it, how everything looks like I've been there before. I get excited for two minutes and then it's back to business as usual. It's a little scary, actually, thinking about how I'm gradually less and less impressed by new experiences. How it progressively takes more and more to get my attention. How I don't worship at the throne of Apple as much as I used to.

How fleeting life all is.

END

long road out of eden

I'm back.

This was how Michael Jordan, the greatest b-ball player the world had ever know, relaunched his career in basketball around 1995 after a 2-year leave of absence to pursue other interests. In 2010, LeBron James went and held a press conference just to tell people he was changing teams, and backed it up with a twitter page, aptly named KingJames. Michael Jordan did it in two words, on his way to the court, after a two-year absence, and LeBron James tried to hold the world hostage with live conferences and twitter pages and shizznit. Anyway, I digress.

The Hope Diamond was the single-most famous gemstone in the history of gemstones. Back in the mid-1900's it came under the possession of a diamond merchant called Harry Winston. He was later convinced by one of the Smithsonian's curators to donate it for a national gem collection. When he did, the most sought-after, famous diamond in the world, he posted it through regular US Mail. And it arrived. The point is, sometimes there's something to be said for hiding things in plain sight. This is why the blog's always had my name, and why it's referenced on my facebook, and every other site I'm listed on. However, the machine sorta broke down last year, and more people who know me than I'm comfortable with started reading it, so with time it became harder for me to be honest on here, so it's become that much harder to write, period. Which might be why I went underground. 

But like I said, hopefully, I'm back.

And I'm moving. To SA. It's always been part of the longterm plan that at some point I'd go live there, I just didn't expect it to happen so soon. I'd personally slated it for June/July later in the year, after I've had much more time to settle down. I can't say I don't relish a good challenge, who wouldn't? The news just came a little suddenly is all. So now I have two weeks to tone down 25 years worth of a living and wrap it all up in a suitcase and uproot myself to a whole new land. Where I know not one soul. Among people who're admittedly not the friendliest in the world.

So parts of me can't wait to go, I've always wanted to live in the first world, and this appears to be the closest I'll get for a while. And part of me can't believe how much I'm being asked to leave behind. You never realise how big a part of your life stuff is till you lose it. Now I gather I'm going to have to try much harder if I'm going to make it down there. We used to chant a line when I was in primary school that did not mean anything to me back then. I just thought of it now and it's a completely loaded line. "If it is to be, it's up to me."

Babe Ruth was a baseball player in the early 1900's. He's the guy Associated Press named the greatest athlete of the 20th Century. This was the thing about him: he didn't just hit the ball, like all other great baseball players. He'd actually tell you where he was gonna hit the home run beforehand, and he'd hit it there regardless how the pitcher tried to twist it. You don't see focus like that very often. I wish it was that easy in life. I've clearly got a long road ahead of me. If destiny's really not the life we're given to live, but rather the path we choose for ourselves, then all I'm asking for is wisdom to make the right choices, and strength to follow through.

END