I am standing at the end of a small wooden pier, next to a pitifully small beach. It is a typical Northwest day: gray, clouded over, drizzling. I am cold, and tired from biking, and waiting for my dad, who, unlike me, DOES have a key, to get into the house. As I look off at Lake Sammamish my thoughts slowly leave the present and travel back, back in time. I have been on this pier before, I think. When I was a kid. And now, I am here again. Time is dissolving, as memory and reality swirl together. My body may be here but my thoughts may often be elsewhere, perhaps distant. It is a funny habit of our mind's, this traveling. And yet I am glad for it, for memory lets the past live again, and again, and more, until it hurts too much and we must return to the present. Ah, idleness. A blessing and a curse.
Lately when I have too much time to think do these temporal distortions occur. Usually, not so far back in time (a few months) but far in place. Namely, to a small, poor, little-known West-African nation that took my friends and I in for 6 months and showed us another place and another life and gave us a chance to wonder. What would I be doing right now were I in my village, I ask myself. Did that all really happen? And then the images of friends appear in my mind, friends whom I may never see again. And yet, their memory lives on. I carry them with me. That is not enough but it is all, so I must be thankful. I am trying.
We flow in and out of time's stream, backwards and forwards, defying "rational" linear limits, in our search for emotional truths. Past happiness beckons to us and we float back, leisurely. If not careful, we may lose ourselves. For a time, perhaps, And really, how bad is it to be lost? I spent most of the last 6 months in Niger "lost" and it was one of the best things that I've gotten to experience. But, to all things a season. Onward, onward. To new horizons! New jungle underbrush to confuse me and test me and drag screaming to the surface the best that I have in me. I am thankful for all that I may experience, and how I will grow from it. And am grateful to be able to recognize this.
One path finished, but many others will be open. Just need to know where to look. And, from my time living and working in Niger, I think I am better able to do just that.
Lately when I have too much time to think do these temporal distortions occur. Usually, not so far back in time (a few months) but far in place. Namely, to a small, poor, little-known West-African nation that took my friends and I in for 6 months and showed us another place and another life and gave us a chance to wonder. What would I be doing right now were I in my village, I ask myself. Did that all really happen? And then the images of friends appear in my mind, friends whom I may never see again. And yet, their memory lives on. I carry them with me. That is not enough but it is all, so I must be thankful. I am trying.
We flow in and out of time's stream, backwards and forwards, defying "rational" linear limits, in our search for emotional truths. Past happiness beckons to us and we float back, leisurely. If not careful, we may lose ourselves. For a time, perhaps, And really, how bad is it to be lost? I spent most of the last 6 months in Niger "lost" and it was one of the best things that I've gotten to experience. But, to all things a season. Onward, onward. To new horizons! New jungle underbrush to confuse me and test me and drag screaming to the surface the best that I have in me. I am thankful for all that I may experience, and how I will grow from it. And am grateful to be able to recognize this.
One path finished, but many others will be open. Just need to know where to look. And, from my time living and working in Niger, I think I am better able to do just that.
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