An Ode to San Miguel de Allende, a small colonial mountain town in Mexico that was my home for ten months.

I am reminded that all things arise, and all things fall away; all things come, and all things go. I stand now at the exit, a door that was just before an entrance into a world foreign. No longer separated by language. I have traveled that I might arrive at sameness, that which transcends countries and cultures. I take with me in my going all that arose upon entering, all that birthed with time and authentic connection. It is hard saying goodbye. If I think but a second longer the tears will fall, flowing my face floorward. Instead, I pause and wait. I allow my breath to save me. I hold tightly salvation that it might suffice. We cannot be saved from life. It happens like breath until breathed no more. These are the feelings to be felt, that which comes and goes, and I am back there again at the start of the beginning where that which once connected must be let go into a release of birth. It is the only way, and I am learning always to give into the Way. So, I sit here listening to the sound of the voice flowing from a woman, words my ears capture yet do not fully understand. It is a metaphor for life. I am here fully immersed and yet know not all things. It is the unknown that leads me in the direction of forward. It is the way of the Way. It is the door through which I enter as I am leaving behind moments that make the memories I take with me there, wherever there is to go.