And Love

Once upon a time there was a young man who left everything behind and went on a journey. And one of the first things he learned. Was that he didn’t leave everything behind. Rather he brought lots of it with him. You couldn’t see it in his suitcases. But you could feel it in his energy.

An energy that needed things to be the way that he’d grown used to. For instance he was used to nice places to sleep. So when he went on his journey he found nice places to sleep. And he was used to certain foods. So when he went on his journey, he found those foods.

And he was used to certain types of exercises. So when he went on his journey he did those types of exercises. And even. He was used to falling in love with women who looked in a certain way. So when he went on his journey he found a woman who looked in that way.

When the young man realized that the journey he had taken to abandon everything and find a new way had really been a journey in which he’d reacquired so much he’d abandoned, his first thought was to drop it all. But then he got scared. Because he’d dropped so much already.

He needed something. To hold onto.

So in the same way he had slowly dropped other things to prepare him for the journey. Including attachments that didn’t work, a woman that didn’t work, a job that didn’t work, and – even – a belief in impossible-to-climb mountains that didn’t work. He began to work on himself.

And one by one he looked at everything he had carried with him. First he dropped the crazy exercising. Then the crazy coffee drinking. Then the girl dropped him – which was helpful. Then he had no more money left. So he had to drop the nice place too. And he traveled to Barcelona.

Where in a rented room with a pink bed and nothing at all that reminded him of his old life, the young man looked all around him. And realized that he was scared. Because he had nothing familiar to hold onto. It was all. Gone. But as his eyes adjusted, he saw something beautiful.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

It was a picture of him. In a little room. Looking around at nothing familiar. Yet everything that mattered still seemed to be there. In that room. He was there. His mother was there. His father. The woman he loved. His brothers and sisters and friends. The earth. The sky. And love.