On the Road

I walk every day. Every day I can.

I circle the village. Out the filigree iron gate, to the left, past the school that sits on the crest of the hill.

I go east, then south, then north then west. The walk is never the same. Some days I can see the snow on the summits of the mountains. Often to the west is the glimmer of the black sea.

I see the same herd of goats most days, but they frolic differently each day.

Often I encounter my students who joyously bellow “Hello Teacher.” Some days I am given gifts by the grandmothers, perhaps a pumpkin, or a battered apple.

There are always cows, but never the same cows. They rove these pastures freely and can be waiting around any bend.

I once followed all the roses that were scattered on the lane thinking it was from a wedding only to end up at the cemetery where the gravediggers were tossing the red dirt to blanket a casket.

I pass stay dogs, fishmongers, and farmers harvesting fields. It is all a circle.

I have walked since I got here, every chance I could.

After my twenty-two hour flight from Detroit I arrived in the wee hours of dawn. A group was spirited away to The Ballazi Palace Hotel, a gilded lily gone dank, and dowager. It smelled of

Vodka and cigarettes. Strains of haunting music from the grand piano would waft through the lobby giving the place an aura of Steven King’s The Shining.

Our room had a high window with bars where once in the night I could hear the sound of someone urinating just under it.

The training was intense, cult like. We spent ten hours in a fluorescent-lit room with no air conditioning. It provoked such anxiety that the volunteer with Asperger’s would become like a parrot and prattle ceaselessly about her worldview. (This is baffling as when asked where she was from meaning which state or country she chipperly replied each and every time “Earth”.

So I was in this lock down with no promise of finding redemptions and no chance of coffee.

I did not know the lay of the land, did not see daylight, and felt caged.

And thus began the walks. I set my alarm early, dressed in the grey of the filtered dawn, went into this unknown and unknowable land, and walked.

The first day out down an alley road I discovered a cow pasture. The next day out I found the shop across the way where I could get Turkish Coffee. There was sludgy river nearby that looked as lovely as the Seine to hungry eyes.

I encountered strangers who saw me wear my citizenship by the sporting shoes on my feet.

My roommate joined dreads, her dark skin and me so foreign in this land she stirred a commotion. It was as if a Nubian Goddess had arrived in their land.

And I walked.

And the day I was delivered to my host family I put on my shoes and began the village walk about.

It is my prayer life now. I compose emails in my head, say hello to cows, and kiss the old toothless woman. Up hill, down the incline over the crest I walk. I see the moon take its mark in the sky, and constellations that do not navigate me.

I know little here. There is less noise now. I do not really talk to God. I do not particularly listen to God. Well I do listen but even this God voice in my head seems to have a different language. Though I live in great silence, I am not exactly a contemplative. Things are not mystical, but always enchanting some how.

Putting one foot in front of another is home.

Back across the oceans, under the same moon, I walked there as well. And so I walk still, at home in the walk.

And so I walk still, at home in the walk.