Love.

I had an experience with a person here recently that threw me for an emotional ride, and not the fun kind. I was hurt, angered and bewildered by what happened, and I spent a lot of emotional energy trying to figure out what was going on while getting very little in return.

Then, the other night, the drop of wisdom on my nightly yogi ginger tea bag said:

“Your greatest strength is love.”

And then it hit me, like it has at various times throughout this journey: The thing that I can always do, that will keep me alive and happy and well, is to keep an open heart. 

It’s easy to love the people who love us back, the ones who we feel affirmed, appreciated and respected by. It’s infinitely harder, and therefore worth it, to send love to those who hurt us or challenge us in some way. It doesn’t hurt anyone else for me to stay angry and allow those walls that we all put up sometimes to remain. It actually hurts me.

I want to be the happiest, most dynamic and alive human that I can be, and for me that means challenging those small and big moments that make me want to close up.

The only thing I can do is send love.

To my completely inadequate principal whose presence alone has the capacity to aggravate me.

To the always inquisitive children who I pass on my daily wanderings that ask the same five questions of me that every other person in Lesotho has already asked.

And yes, even to the boy who ghosted me.

The smartest thing I can do is let go. The most powerful thing I can do is send love.

And the funny thing, maybe even the best thing, about actively working on keeping an open heart, is that I’m also more aware of and in awe of the little gems that each day offers:

A shooting star in the early morning sky as I trod my way down the mountain for a morning run.

The boys on bikes, one red and one blue, who often pass me on the return leg of my runs, sitting erect and cool as cucumbers in their forest green school uniforms as the early morning breezes rush by them.

A package or letter sent by a loved one. They fill me up with home and always make my day.

One of my favorite grade 7 boys wearing a necklace of pink plastic beads in which the centerpiece is a small potato. “Is that a potato Rammako?” “Yes madam. It can be beautiful!” (I wish I’d gotten a photo).

The view(s). They never get old. 

hangin with this guy

Sending love. To everyone.  

Except Donald Trump.

Khotso.