There is no courage without fear
Of all the phrases in all the languages the one that reminds me of the reason I travel and conjures the deepest emotions in my heart is:
I found myself
So many times I found myself, even when I had lost my way.
I found myself in sadness and despair.
I found myself and it gave me hope to go on.
One evening I was gathered with new friends in a land far away. They teased me about my home country. About the winter and the cold. That I had called it a place of drudgery and a place I often felt trapped in.
The sky was beginning to change to a deep lavender and the evening Etesian winds had begun to blow in from the sea causing the umbrellas to ruffle with a cold that gave me shivers… perhaps home had come to remind me that I had been too harsh and forgotten all that home has given and does give me even when I am completely lost I can never really be. Home found me in that moment. I began to speak in a foreign language. The words flowed as though spoken by a native in a fluency that rarely occurred to me. I told them…
I know my home is cold… and there are so many things there I wish were different and that I could change…. When I think that I might never see it again… the great blue mountains and endless forest and seas it fills my heart with such a profound sadness I cannot describe .
My voice broke as I said all this and the listeners could not help be shocked into silence by the sincerity of my pain. My eyes filled with tears and a few of the people teared at the breaking of my voice. One of my friends said: you must miss it very much. You will come back here next year perhaps?
In that moment lost and found again. I was reminded again that there is no place like home.
I found myself
So many times I found myself, even when I had lost my way.
I found myself in sadness and despair.
I found myself and it gave me hope to go on.
One evening I was gathered with new friends in a land far away. They teased me about my home country. About the winter and the cold. That I had called it a place of drudgery and a place I often felt trapped in.
The sky was beginning to change to a deep lavender and the evening Etesian winds had begun to blow in from the sea causing the umbrellas to ruffle with a cold that gave me shivers… perhaps home had come to remind me that I had been too harsh and forgotten all that home has given and does give me even when I am completely lost I can never really be. Home found me in that moment. I began to speak in a foreign language. The words flowed as though spoken by a native in a fluency that rarely occurred to me. I told them…
I know my home is cold… and there are so many things there I wish were different and that I could change…. When I think that I might never see it again… the great blue mountains and endless forest and seas it fills my heart with such a profound sadness I cannot describe .
My voice broke as I said all this and the listeners could not help be shocked into silence by the sincerity of my pain. My eyes filled with tears and a few of the people teared at the breaking of my voice. One of my friends said: you must miss it very much. You will come back here next year perhaps?
In that moment lost and found again. I was reminded again that there is no place like home.
46-50, M
