Hoarding.

Hoarding. 

I would call myself a mild hoarder. I try to save everything and attempt to find a use for it. But eventually, I get tired with all the mess and just start throwing stuff away. Often times I regret my decisions. Usually a week or so later, I will decide that I truly needed--------- (insert object here). 

But then there are those times that I'm so glad I hoard things. Like last night. I was going through all my old college papers/notes. Yes, I still have most everything. In my defense a lot of it is various writings and things that I would hopefully deem useful if I went to grad school. Sometimes I dwell on the idea that I used to write. Here is one of those findings. 

It's that time again. Wednesday. Three O' Clock. Screenwriting 2009. There is a classroom and a handful of students sitting in the second row, closest to the aisle-- Sam sits. Medium height girl with grey eyes and constant out of control wavy hair. She stares into space. Maybe another world, maybe another universe.  

          "Sam," said the Professor.  

No sound, no response.  

          "Sam, are you present?"  

Still nothing.  

Sam blinks. She is sitting in Zimbabwe. The sky is pitch black and all she can see are the stars above her. Sam is a meidum height girl with grey eyes and her hair is even more out of control because she hasn't showered or touched her hair in five days. She gazes at the stars and ponders.  

         "Sam," said Jayde.  

Nothing, no response. 

        "See any shooting stars yet?" 

Sam blinks.  

        "Ever wish you were somewhere else," she murmurs. 

Just to give you a little back story. This was written months after I met this boy. This was written almost 2 years before I started dating him. I think I've been rather smitten for more than a little while. 

I use to stalk my boyfriend.

is that creepy?

I am here.

Nowhere else but here. 

 Although this picture doesn't look like much, it actually holds a lot of significance. Driving to Harare, Zimbabwe the other day we passed this cemetery and I thought, "I would really like a photo of this." Assuming I would get it on my way back from Harare, I still managed to miss the shot. 

The next morning Terri and I packed up our stuff and left Marondera at an early 5am with the morning fog and everything. It was beautiful. I also was going to finally capture this cemetery. An image I was most excited about especially with the morning fog. As we drive, I have my camera on and I'm holding it in anticipation. I keep thinking we are almost there but my excitement left my timing about where the cemetery was a little foggy, no pun intended.

After holding my camera in position for a while, I grew lazy. I set my camera down and not even two minutes later I hear, "And there's the cemetery." I grabbed my camera as quickly as I could but nothing was set up. I missed my chance. I had this beautiful vision in mind of what I would have been shooting and I missed it. I spend all the time waiting and gave up right before the moment happened.

"Are you kidding me?" I yell in the car. Then Terri kind of smirks compares this situation to life. We spend all this time waiting on God and being prepared for something to happen. Then the minute we stop waiting in the place we need to be. The something happens and we miss what we had spent all the time waiting and preparing for. 

Story of my life. Life lesson to be learned through a simple metaphor of a photo. 

And we drive some more. 

road after road, police stop after police stop, and cloud after cloud. Clouds, I focus mainly on the clouds.Watching them change after hours, finding shapes and making animals. Wishing I was in laying in the field I was driving passed just to study the clouds more and just bask in beauty. Zimbabwe skies are some of the bluest I've seen to date. 

As all of this is happening, I think of why I'm here whilst trying not to have an existential crisis. Playing in movie form everything I've been thinking. I try to put into logic what I'm doing in Africa of all places. About a month ago, I was talking to someone and when we were parting ways when his last words to me were, "good luck finding yourself."  And as I have previously stated before in writing.

"I'm not finding myself, I know where I am," I say.

I know where my feet are grounded. I know who I am.  I've never needed to find myself. Maybe a reminder of whose I am. I'm in a constant pursuit of being who I'm called to be. But I know where my foundation comes from and who my hope is in.

I'm in pursuit of God and seeing Him through others people's eyes. So I can better know who He is. I'm in pursuit of discovery. 

As thinking about this conversation and watching the trees pass by and thinking about where I've been the last month. Clearly, my though is. 

I just want to see. 

 

C.S Lewis- you wrote great words. 
"...Nothing that you have not given away will really be yours.  Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in! "