Care-free abundant impermanence

“Drifters, nomads, and even the state of impermanence: this week, share your photos of transient.”

The abstract challenge this week made me wonder and ponder and wonder again. But my impermanent ideas were continuously overruled by other impermanent ideas… Eventually I decided to focus on a passage in my children lives namely the pre-teen years. At this stage they have not yet acquired a fear for the lens. Maybe I should rephrase. In the teenage years they do not necessarily develop a fear for the lens  rather a fear of a parent’s lens (given all the mobile photos taken by them for Instagram). In pre-teen, natural photos with silly poses and expressions are acceptable almost preferred in the process of playing abundantly care-free, but in the teenage years due to the self-realization which comes with age, they must look “right”.

As a backdrop (and to limit the options) I chose the farm called “Pikkies Geduld”. See the end of post for translation and the reason why. All the photos were taken there. The farm is close to a small town Kakamas directly next to South Africa’s largest river, the Orange or Gariep river in an area known as the green Kalahari. If it was not for the river it would have been as arid as the Kalahari.

At the end of the rainbow is something more precious then gold – a lifeline for all of us

The children silhouetted at the river

The children’s grandfather (my wife’s father) was a small man. His brothers called him Pikkie (an Afrikaans word describing somebody small and can also mean  a little bit of) and Geduld means patience. Thus the farm of a small man with a small amount of patience (but giant buckets full of patience for the children). Pikkie is not with us anymore and the farm has been sold, showing that on this earth, life and possessions are impermanent. We are but nomads or pilgrims.

For we know that when this tent we live in now is taken down – when we die and leave these bodies – we will have wonderful new bodies in heaven, homes that will be ours forevermore, made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 Corinthians 5:1

You can read more about the impermanence ánd permanence of Pikkie and grandmother Petro in an Afrikaans post