Swinging by Kate Wolf

Swinging: Should I stay or should I go?

I never thought I’d be here in forever. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I’d be here as long as I’ve been. My arrival was a conflict of acute appreciation of calm with tremendous trepidation about the depth of the quiet. Now, the wonderment of newness has been left far behind as I examine the space around me.

In moment of unadulterated blue sky, I can’t imagine being anywhere else. The distance stretches out forever in front of me and I want to soak in the equatorial sun, dreaming away anything that doesn’t exist directly before my eyes. There are hours and days when the lake looks sea-greener than the Caribbean and the fish eagles are overhead and the peace settles into my bones. The trance becomes complete and I reverberate in the here and now, refusing to vibrate farther than where I sit.

The complete same and exact opposite occurs in other moments, the ones where results are had and all is right with the world. Moments when development is on track to succeed, the farthest reaches of the bush are reached and the smallest child cared for. Moments of spark and sparkle and shine.

But the shine never lasts and when I’m sitting in traffic, swearing at the leisurely driver in front of me, begrudging the exhaust hovering before my face, the futility sets in. The achievements never last and there is always something left undone. Staff untrained, stuff gone missing, strife among partners. It’s hard to believe we ever get anywhere when each meeting is an exercise in extreme déjà vu and all the wheels spin constantly without ever touching the ground.

Would it really be any different anywhere else? Shiny Zambia with shopping malls and movies, cool Mozambique with endless beaches and bottomless prawns, efficient Rwanda with a Ministry that gets up and goes. But would a quick look under the hood deprive me of daydreams? Would my clear crisp sky come with?

I sit swinging, scouring, strategizing, speculating. Wondering, wishing, waiting, vacillating. I gaze up at that blue blue sky and wish upon the weather. I wish the clarity of the endless sky were reflected in my thoughts and that the hazy definition of the horizon didn’t seem so far away. I wish it weren’t too much to ask to have all things beloved in one location. I wish bringing in the new weren’t always a condemnation of the old.

I sit swinging.