This jet lag still has me completely wiped! I’ve heard estimates of it taking one day to recover for every hour time zone difference. I hope that’s not the case since I’m seven hours ahead. I’ve decided rather than lie in bed and toss and turn, to break it into 30-minute increments – try to sleep for 30 minutes, then – if unsuccessful – get out of bed and do something else for 30 minutes. We’ll see how it works (first 30-minute increment out of bed, at 3:00 am).
I’m surprised how many different aspects it’s affecting. I got up in the middle of the night last night to put some lavender oil on my feet (bug bites – presumably unrelated to jet lag) and I started rocking back and forth as I stood there, and almost passed out. I’ve never passed out before, so it was quite a strange sensation.
Other than that, last night I slept reasonably normal hours. Service at Mariannhill was cancelled (long story), so I just went downstairs for the Westville exhort and memorial service (which starts later, and unfortunately gave me the option of sleeping in a little).
The feeling of being back here on a Sunday was the same feeling I had being back in Richmond my first Sunday – like coming back home. I liked these excerpts from a magazine I skimmed on one of my flights:
“For more and more of us, home has less to do with a piece of soil than with a piece of soul” and “In any new place, you have to learn a new dance and sing from a different hymnbook in order to survive [she must have been thinking of Christadelphians when she wrote this]. ‘Home’ takes on a different meaning altogether. Home isn’t just the place where you were born. It’s the place where you become yourself.”
The mark of a good Sunday for me is one (like today) that makes me completely re-think every thought I’ve had in my head throughout the week. It’s amazing how much clarity can come from lines like this, from a hymn we sang today (from one of those strange new hymnbooks):
“When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
It was a good day.
I gave in and took a two-hour nap around 4 pm, which probably has something to do with why I’m blogging at 3 am. Tomorrow is our day off, besides the rescheduled COPT meeting from Friday, in the late afternoon. I’m really hoping to go for a run – I’ll settle for ten minutes if I have to. I actually want to go running at this very moment. Wouldn’t be the smartest idea.
I never sleep too soundly around here. Matt somehow makes a knock on the window that sounds like he’s breaking the sound barrier, jarring me out of whatever pleasant activity I’m currently participating in (such as sleep), and then yelling something obnoxious. This happens routinely, especially when I am deemed to have been too antisocial for too many hours.
This evening, that knock came, and I tried to pretend I hadn’t been sleeping by yelling, “I’m awake!” I don’t think I fooled anyone. He announced that they were planning to do something about dinner shortly. I hadn’t eaten all day (save for a cracker with hummus on it at tea [what we in the States would call “the break between Sunday school and exhortation”]), and really wasn’t planning to because the effort involved just seemed too great. I had considered walking to Spar earlier, but, for me, sleep always – always – trumps eating.
However, I was getting a little hungry. It was nearing 6 pm, and the few bites of chocolate I’d had around 10 the night before were wearing off. Matt called through the curtain that he was going to walk over to buy some sausages and they were going to braai. I thought he was going to make me go with him if I wanted anything, in which case I probably would have just passed. But he offered to get something and only made slight fun of my reminder that I don’t eat pork.
So the four of us had a lovely dinner, and after cleaning up a little, I announced I was going to retire. “Yeah, you’ve been out of your room a whole half hour,” said Tim, the British dude, who has already proclaimed his intent to see how much harassment I can take [from an old bald guy with a glass eye – I ain’t skeered] before bursting into tears.
So, all in all, not a lot happened today. I’ve finally got the name of a chiropractor and I’m hoping my back can get sorted out soon. When I wake up each morning and start moving, after about ten minutes it feels completely out of whack and quite painful. I’ve figured out some stretches that I try to do every hour or so and that seems to keep it working smoothly, but once I start running my projects that’s going to be difficult.
I’m gonna try this bed thing again. I may or may not be back in 30 minutes.
Next Comes Africa 