“…Go for yourself from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Breishit, 12:1)
Comfort can come in the most surprising ways: a song on the radio that reminds you of a long ago summer, a familiar scent that transports you home or running into your past, as I did last week. Let me explain. No, let me first digress. I used to take the public bus every morning in high school. Running out the door ‘just in time’ I’d arrive at the stop and wait for my bus to come. Over the years there were other regulars at that stop, people I came to know though we never spoke. One such regular was a woman with a seeing eye dog. Throughout my high school years I took that bus with her, never exchanging as much as a “hello” yet feeling like I knew her. I would shuffle to the back of the bus and she’d remain up front chatting to her dog and the driver. It’s been decades since my rushed public transit routine. My fellow bus travellers are likely scattered about the city and world. They are no longer part of my daily consciousness.
So last week, walking down the street, it felt like a piece of my past dropped right in my path.
I was turning the corner when I noted a bus pulling to a stop. And who do you think was getting out of it? Yes, my seeing eye dog friend. Now, if I tell you her blonde locks were unchanged you might think I was exaggerating. But no, really, she looked pretty much the same. My morning hurry and hours riding that bus came rushing back, transporting me to another era and self.
That sighting would have been enough to get my attention, but it didn’t stop there. Later that same day as I was walking into my apartment building a woman in front of me was struggling with a stack of parcels, bags and a suitcase. With her back to me I gently inquired “can I help you?” The woman turned around and we both did a double take – we knew each other. While we’d lost touch, we’d been close throughout our junior high and high school years. Many angsty evenings and long school days were spent together. Suddenly, decades melted away. We stood in the lobby hugging and catching up. Her mother lives in the building. She has two kids and a PhD. I shared my updates. It was as if no time had passed. But it had. Both my younger and present self came tumbling together. It was delightful. It was comforting. In connecting past and present there was a promise for the future: you will find your way. While I may have left behind much of that era, I wasn’t adrift.
In the ongoing journey of life, the path ahead can sometimes (all the time?!) feel uncertain. We think we are headed in one direction and (surprise!) there is a major life detour. These experiences run from losing your keys when you’re heading out the door to illness and loss. Whatever our struggle we can find ourselves questioning our course and feeling unsure of next steps. What my run-in with my past reminded me is that we are in a constant evolving journey of the self. G-d doesn’t always show us the destination but His promise is that we will indeed find ourselves – over and over again – if we stay the course. Living. Growing. Learning His ways.
When we glimpse, if even for a moment, the continuity in our life story, the sense that our past and present are connected in a meaningful narrative, we are comforted. At least, I am. Because I know that one day my future self will look back on the steps I am taking today and know, they were exactly what my soul needed for her journey.
With love,
ilana
Last modified: December 15, 2019
