My future father-in-law (yes, I am quite presumptuous indeed) spoke with the Lady Talis recently in regards to our pilgrimage. He said it may me best not to talk about it and instead let it sink in. When she told me this I grew very still and quiet and did not, in fact, speak of it again. In that moment I realized a chilling truth in my own life. Everything is connected. Be it by the gossamer threads of chance to which our flickering consciousness provides meaning, or more to a path that we as travelers of the timeline are beholden, there are connections. There are roads and there are markers along the way. What he said to her was said to me in exactly the same way and phrasing Thirty three years ago by a young high school friend who eventually became a Yogi. He walks the same path to which so many of the people in my life are at least adjacent to. When I looked back to that moment I saw all of those markers along the way.
I am a chronicler. I tell stories that come from elsewhere.
I tell stories that are reflections of what was, is, and could be. Those stories weaken in force and potential when I am at my loudest and most unwilling to listen and observe. I have done that more and more in my adult life, and the results are disheartening. One can be a very good writer and still not tell relevant stories. I fear this is the path I set myself upon by not doing what those most important and impactful in my life repeatedly say I must do. I must be still. I must absorb. I must listen.