It’s like you could say i’ve been married to Transition.

tbV and i are heading towards our seven years of marriage celebration and in that time we have had four major moves, a couple of smaller ones in between and are facing another one as we search for a more permanent spot to stay.

Let me add that i’m not a fan.

We started off in Stellenbosch where i was working when we got married and then moved to Cape Town temporarily on the way to The Simple Way community in Philadelphia where we lived for 18 months. After that it was on to Oakland near San Francisco on the other side of Americaland for 18 months before heading back to South Africa. Temporary stays with my mate Duncan and his family and Val’s sister Ro and family led to us finally finding a place of our own in Southfield, Cape Town [next to Plumstead – as no-one seems to know where Southfield is, but the majority of people can place Plumstead].

Then our landlord wanted to move back in – or didn’t and we were just blatantly lied to on all sides – and so we moved into a different place with Ro and her family again [who in the interim had lived in Malawi for a good six months and are on the way to Morocco soon] as we search again for a [hopefully more permanent] place to stay.

Nancy Levin

Not quite the “Transition sucks” quote i was looking for. If anyone knows Nancy Levin, kindly punch her on the nose. Or at least make like you’re going to so she at least flinches a little.

Although, maybe that is a great challenge to be given today, because i am finding this transition pretty hard.

i do have a lot of work to do – i have just been commissioned to pretty much write a book for Scripture Union and so there is that plus the weekly articles i am writing for 1Africa.tv and the blog to get back to after it was largely down for a week and then i was largely down for a week. So this is the start of that.

And there is hockey and church and games evenings and getting to spend time with our nieces and their family and too many people to see, events to attend and so SO MUCH STUFF IS HAPPENING. But.

For some reasons this state of notyetness makes everything seem a little harder. The absence of more permanent rhythms. Of not having to work around other peoples’ lives. Of not having to house search/house visit/house mourn. Repeat.

So how do i “Honour the space between no longer and not yet”? Well firstly, by giving the word ‘Honour’ its ‘u’ back. And thereafter by continuing to hold on to the tension of the two spaces. The now and the not yet. Embracing life to the full as i try to in the space that i am in, while peering into the future and doing everything necessary to hopefully find the new spot we can call and start making home.