The Shadows

I could tell winter was coming as I sat on my beach towel on the Durban sand, listening to the Indian Ocean crash against the rocks that were jutting out along the shoreline. It was the sun gave it away. It was different, not the devastating sun we been used to all summer long. Instead, felt as if it was already 3pm instead of noon. My Northern Hemisphere body was not used to this. I generally find it's easier to handle heat in December, but I find it completely confusing by the autumn weather that is quickly approaching now when it "should be" spring.

But there we were, nevertheless, books in hand, toes digging into the sand – being beach bums in autumn.

I was feeling fairly sentimental that day as I sat on my towel facing the water. The wind was too cold to stay sitting up for long. So I'd eventually lie back down and with sunglasses shielded eyes, stare at the brilliant blue sky – the kind that, when it's warm enough, makes me miss Palestine. But Palestine wasn't on the frontlines of my mind as I found myself wondering if this was the last time that I'd be at the Indian Ocean. If this was it.

Time is slipping past us and so I am not too sure when we'll be able to make it back to the beach before 12 July. I would like to believe that more of my world travels will eventually bring me back to the Indian Ocean but who honestly knows if that will happen. It was here that I had this thought. I'd like to believe that heaven is a lot like the kind C.S. Lewis wrote about in the final chapter of the Narnia series When Lucy, Edmund and Peter stepped through the door into heaven they found it to be all that they loved about Narnia x a million. That's awesome. And I like Plato's idea that what we see in this life is only a shadow of the real one. So that when I sit on the shore of the Indian ocean or climb Cape Point, that those things are just shadows of the real Indian Ocean and Cape Point. Whenever I am surrounded by the beauty of South Africa, it's hard to imagine that there is anything out there that is more breathtaking. But there is.

And yeah, maybe I'll never make it back to the Indian Ocean in these last few months – and maybe not even ever. But it's kind of exciting to think that I might get to see the real one someday. And then we'll be able to talk about beauty.