Here There Be Giants

“Our vulnerabilities, our sense of slight woundedness around not belonging, is actually one of our core competencies. Though the crow is just itself and the stone is just itself and the mountain is just itself and the cloud, and the sky is just itself, we are the one part of creation that knows what it’s like to live in exile. The ability to turn your face towards home is one of the great human endeavors and the great human stories.”
– David Whyte
 

“My town had grown and changed and my friend along with it.
Now returning, as changed to my friend as my town was to me,
I distorted his picture, muddied his memory. When I went away
I had died, and so became fixed and unchangeable. My return
caused only confusion and uneasiness. Although they could not say it,
my old friends wanted me gone so that I could take my proper place in
the pattern of remembrance – and I wanted to go for the same reason.”
– John Steinbeck,
   Travels With Charley