The Life Left

There are benefits of belonging to two cultures. When a lot seems incomprehensible or stolen from your years spent in one setting, there is another set of life tucked in somewhere to be retrieved later. The life before, the life that got away. The life that gets away is typically also the space from where a person begins when nothing had been done and everything seemed possible and impossible simultaneously. It is this space that I celebrate these days while remembering all the paths I’ve been on in the past twenty years. I remember the paths fondly -- paths adorned with friendly or unfriendly snow, with colorful leaves or scant patches of grass, other times with red soil or pebbles. Because the land you walk on usually remains free of fear or misinformation. Land, anywhere, has a way of returning you to your true spiritual space to start all over again.