You could say it started with dream, a class, a calling, or a European man spotting land amongst shipwrecks. You could say it started in me, in the cosmos (or the heavens, whichever direction you point to.) You could say it started in any or all of these places and you would be right. But I have been learning lately that it is not about where you begin but where you end.
I have a tendency to want to write a story for myself. I fill my life with people who have the words or experience to inspire me to write down new words or new phrases and claim them as something I can relate to. I always begin, I’m great at beginnings, and I almost always have an idea of where it will end but it’s the middle ground that gets me stuck in sinking sand. I hate writing the middle – it’s too hard.
That is why I am going to Africa. It was a dream, yes, in eighth grade. It was a Christianity in Africa class I took in the fall of 2010. It was a calling I answered to the tuning of a guitar at a camp, in St. Louis, in the ninth grade. It was a man who wanted to feed his family so he sailed and landed on the shore of Africa. He took not their food but their hands and their feet and he saw he could feed not just his family but a country, a new world. It’s the selfish tendency in me to want to see the world so I can hold it in my hands and say, “I understand now.” It’s the duty I bear to lose myself so that I can find myself (how silly that must seem to anyone who doesn’t believe.)
Most of all, I’m going to Stellenbosch, South Africa because I know it will be hard. I know that all the things I use to build myself up will be brought down. I’m not so naïve as to think that things won’t be similar there. Trust me, I know the words to Weight of Lies (Avett Brothers) “The weight of lies will bring you down, and follow you to every town cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there. So when you run make sure you run to something and not away from cause lies don’t need an airplane to chase you down.”
I’ve already experienced the weight of lies, just in packing. The other night I found myself standing before a mirror, dressed in an outfit that I was sure would be my “first day of adventure” outfit. And I pictured what I know of study abroad pictures to be: girl standing on top of mountain, throwing hands in the air as if it to say “take that, Oxford! What did you do today? I climbed this mountain.” (I embrace the fact that not all described pictures mean such things, hopefully you see already the pride I struggle with.)
Part of going somewhere foreign is wanting to build yourself up, because you know so much of yourself will be brought down by the very fact that for probably the first time in your life you are the outsider. You are the foreigner.
And I’m reminded: I’m going to Africa to lose myself, so that I may find myself. Or rather, to find something much bigger than myself that to claim it as me would be ridiculous. And if you follow the promises, follow the early travelers on this journey you know exactly what I’m talking about. And if you don’t, I hope you are intrigued enough to want to know more. Trust me, that’s where I began.
Here’s to the middle ground and running to something, rather than from.
- A
