Sunday, March 18, 2018

"In Your Arms, Where All my Journeys End" - Living Between Cape Town & San Francisco

Living Between Cape Town, South Africa and San Francisco, USA


This is the 3rd time that I am in San Francisco and its becoming easier to wrap my head around living across continents. Now that my wife and kids are settled here in the Bay, I see the idea of a global village more clearly and how complicated it is versus the ease of knowing where one is based. 
It took my Cancerian self a while to be at ease that the whole world is my home and not only the Cape Flats, Cape Town, South Africa. I have travelled before and been to many places, but it has always been to perform and I knew that I was heading home. The irony of that is that often South Africans don't even see being so-called coloured as being South African, but what do they know at times ne. 
Anyway, I must say that being here in the USA during what seems like trying times politically has made me think about the global illusion of democracy and how "we the people" seem to be at the mercy of capitalisms deciding money that paid for election campaigns. In South Africa we had Jacob Zuma and his connection to the Gupta family and here in the USA we have Donald Trumps connection to the NRA and every other business interest versus that of the peoples will. It's kinda sad for the global family to be sold an illusion of division and borders as a way to secure economics, when in truth money has no borders and the same people keeping us apart, are really making sure that they keep us away from realising that we have collective power and if we do see our similarity, we will become more of a threat to their economic strange-hold over humanity.
So as I travel between my family in South Africa and my family in the USA, I am constantly seeing the movement of people between worlds and the global family seems to become so much smaller. The enforced stereotypes that I have been forced to have of various communities are broken by speaking to them at airports and gatherings in far away places and in the comfort of a seat on a plane for a very very long time. They open up more than they would if they were to be in their designated box back home. Here on this plane or waiting to board, we are just travelling souls heading for the fulfilment of our hearts across time and space. So we speak easier and we see the humanity of each other much easier ... until we get to the border control and are suddenly not as welcomed as we were on the journey between. The passport control and check if you are allowed in and standing in that long ass lines, often make me sad about what we have become for the benefit of economics. The illusion of difference and the divide of the global human family. But, it is what it is for now and we do what we have to do to see our loved ones. 
The joy awaiting on the other side of that passport control is impossible to calculate and what we would not do to ensure that those loving arms and smiles enfold us and plant long deep kisses of joy and completion onto us ... We have come home ... And HOME IS IN THE ARMS OF OUR LOVED ONES. 
When I heard and fell in LOVE with the song "THE PROMISE" by Tracy Chapman, I had no idea that it would mean so much more to me as time went on and that the line ...
"Together again It would feel so good to be In your arms Where all my journeys end ..." 
would have such profound meaning in my life.
Thank You Tracey Chapman ...