22.14. The signs along the path

All these years, I have seen signs.

Novels, poetry, music, and people describing sad love.

Love looking for itself.

When I now look back along the track, I see a twelve-year-old who realised there is something more.

I see a sixteen-year-old who saw himself from the outside for the first time and understood that it was a path choice of the utmost seriousness and took it seriously.

But before I reach that far back, I encounter an obstacle. It's a river.

There is no bridge.

I have to swim.

You descend on one side and come cleansed, freshly washed, shrunk and expanded like a new being up on the other.

Like Alice in Wonderland.

I crossed that river in 1986 and went on.

I have gone full circle.

I must go back and step into the running water again.

That time, I was taken by the current and led into a quiet puddle.

A lot was gathered in that pool and had been there for a long time.

You had been there longer than me.

It was deep, dark and calm. The pool is waiting.

I now see the river bank.

I see the water.

The river is the same, but it is not the same.

I step into the river, and it is another river I step into, but it is the same river.

I'm led by the current towards the culvert.

Did you leave it?

Are you still there? Have you been there all these years?

Do you recognise me when I return?

Can you see it's me?

Will you receive me?