South Africa: Final Chapter

Skirt: Anthro Field

Shirt: J.Crew

Fedora: Charlotte Russe

Watch: AE

Shoes: Converse

Late in the evening, husbie and I climb the slope of a grass-covered mountain to witness the sun kiss the earth. Here on the edge of the world high on the rock, my journal lies open beside me and I inventory the journey. Full sunlight glows soft here on the mountain at the bottom of the world.

A gust of wind sings through the grass and stirs up dust on dirt roads below.  I wonder how I will be changed now that I've seen the sunflowers fill all the field, the black silhouette of the mountain against a sky of delicate blue...the child's laughter swirling in chocolate eyes. How will I live now that I have heard the lion's roar and the rain over the tin roof?

Orange sunlight bathes. 

I am stunned into silence by life's holy potential. I want to see God work with out boundaries everywhere, in everything...and I want always to remember how desperately I want to see God's power without barriers and His favor on my life.

The sun falls, falls down the curve of the horizon...then, faster. 

Focus and click.

Focus and click.

None of the frames are close enough and I want to chase the earth to where the sun lays it's color down.  I want to end each day feeling the way I feel now.  Ablaze with this hunger for beauty.

I whisper my sunset requests to God.

  I am no longer my own, but Yours.

  Put me to doing.

  Put me to suffering.

  Pervade my thoughts

  Inspire my ideas.

  Suggest my decisions.

  Let me have everything.

  Let me have nothing.

I look with far-sight beyond the here and now--all the memories, experiences, people and places that have made me who I am...and there in that swirling mass, I find the core of it.

I only want to spend this, my one life, well.

The trip ends as it began--

with the wind beneath the wings and the flight above the clouds.

            Away, away...but that is all that remains the same.

I will always remember the songs I listened to here on grass-covered fields...the smell of the lotion I wore...the dark, chubby fingers of the child curled in my hand...the cooling of the air as that last bit of sun disappears behind the mountain to shine radiant on new horizons.

The rhythms of this place are a part of us now, like an indelible mark engraved in our skin.

We will return home. 

We will not return home the same.