A Tale of Two Cities

My heart is in two cities - Grahamstown, South Africa and Edinburgh, Scotland. God, send me!

07 March 2006

The Saga of the Skylight

If I haven't told you by now that I live in a room with no windows and only a skylight, I live in a room with no windows and only a skylight. I have written a ballad (in my head) about this sad situation, but it really is too sad to record here and you might not take me seriously. The heroine is very beautiful and tragically in love with... whoa, I can't go on. I will tell you what the Lord said to me one day as I was bemoaning my lack of view. The Lord is my confidence - again and again I am reminded of how I cannot put my hope in anything but Him, especially living in a new country and really not having much of a clue about how things work.

You see, you have nowhere to look but up.

I am enjoying my flat, besides all that. The bathroom taps sing like real birds!! You should hear them! Roni and Marie and I have some good laughs. Roni is a walking quotation dictionary, and one of her favourites is this: "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards" (Oscar Wilde). I typed that off by heart! Try this one: "True love is not seeing someone as they are, but rather as God intended them to be" (Fyodor Dostoevsky). One that I have been thinking about recently is "Friendship is a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity" (Kahil Gibran). I found that in the friendship book from my dearest digsies.

My job is pottering along. When I began I survived by imagining all sorts of dramatic things about why I was there, which were mostly set in the 2nd World War, and the womanly work force rose up and did their bit while their sweethearts went to the front. But now, I just do my thing and chat to the peeps around me. Been training myself to sit still for loooonng periods of time.

I do love this nation and the nations within (during our outreach meetings, our flat has been host to New Zealand, Australia, China, Germany, France, Russia, India, Fiji, USA, England, Czech Republic and others I have forgotten) but sometimes I could really do with a good dose of South African humour. In fact, a specific Beaufort St sense of humour - the kind that involves things which look like sheep, things which sound like broccoli, and everyday life performed in opera and other loud noises. Imagine the trials of a Beaufortian loose on her own - the blank stares and polite murmurs.

03 March 2006

3rd March 2006

CANDACE LYN SUTTON,
I LOVE YOU
AND I WILL SEE YOU AGAIN
(said in southern accent like Ewan McGregor in Big Fish)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!