August 7th 2014- The Beginning and Goodbyes
Presented is a letter to someone who taught me about how to love, this letter was sent a day prior to my departure to Africa for two years....
"I want to thank you. Again for being the strong one through this. I remember leaving for Israel and the terrible pain I felt leaving you and the heart ache and fear I endured. I thought I needed your support prior to leaving for Africa- and help to have the strength to do this but all alone on my own I found the strength in myself. The past 6 months have been the most life changing self searching amazing adventure I've had yet, through Europe, Europe a second time and then road tripping across the United States to LA! I for the first time feel entirely free and untied to anything. You've taught me so much about life and love and how to love. I have never been so happy in my life. And I wouldn't have gotten to this point without our ups and downs and ultimate end, which I knew you chose for the both of us because it was for the best- and I see now why. I've never been a "whole picture" kind of girl, I live in the moment, and I now see that you saw the whole picture. Thank you so much. You are an amazing human and you are doing what you love and I admire that. Different strokes for different folks. Good luck! Thank you for a great first love."
Shortly after coming home from Israel>India I went straight to Burning Man, immediately to burning man. Somehow, miraculously out of 80 thousand people I camped directly next to a group of beautiful israeli men. Two brothers who were born in South Africa (raised in Israel) and their friends . On Shabbot they cooked an entire israeli meal for our whole camp. They even did the prayers, candles and bread in the middle of the desert and it was amazing! I was obviously still high off living in Israel just one month before, and all of this was overwhelming for my senses in the best of ways.
By the end of Burning Man, these Israelis became very close with our camp from michigan, known as the michigan burners. Anyhow.... I never really truly thought I would run into them again, not in a pessimistic way! But merely because I knew at the time that I was leaving for the Peace Corps, and that they only came for Burning Man and a minor road trip in the US, there was no way.
A few months ago today, one of them, the most gorgeous one, contacts me about how I am, questions of the Peace Corps and then he tells me he applied for grad school at U of M and is moving there a few days before I depart for Africa and will live in michigan the same amount of time I will be in Africa, Botswana- his home neighboring country. Emery Allen had asked, "Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together?" And answered with, "Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences."
But truth be told I've always been a hopeless romantic, and that is my first confession to you. I wear my heart on my sleeve like it's the only place it belongs, and is an admitted tragically hopeless romantic that needs to remain in a constant state of departure while always arriving. I have rescued moments by using my camera, and in this form, I have found a way to stop time. These our my confessions of a traveling girl, and this is the beginning and ending at the very same time, and I am still figuring out how that can be.
