A five-year-old boy,
suitcase in hand,
standing at the edge of leaving.
Behind him,
a family lifts a camera—
the moment framed,
the boy already moving.
“You were running away.
Something must have happened.”
For a long time,
I believed the story.
But I was not running.
No—
I was learning how to go.
Departing.
The first pull of the road.
Searching.
Listening.
Discovering what calls
before it explains itself.
Eighteen years old.
A young man
leaving a protected house
for a place where voices
collided before they met.
I looked past skin,
past raised voices.
For a moment
eyes meeting
something quieter appeared.
The spirit within.
New Jersey beaches,
salt and wind.
New York streets,
trash pressed into corners,
people moving fast,
faces already braced.
Again—
briefly—
the same presence.
Departing.
A farther shore.
Asia.
Warm water folding the land.
Languages crossing.
Japanese. Chinese. Filipino.
Black. White. Hispanic.
Now a young man,
watching children’s faces.
Listening longer.
So many people.
So many stories.
And underneath—
the same voice.
I dove into the ocean,
hoping it lived in the depths.
I found Buddhism instead—
and another leaving.
Returning home:
books stacked,
philosophers arguing,
teachers pointing toward questions.
Mountains.
Thin air.
The body reminded
how small certainty is.
Campaigns. Conferences.
Festivals filled with hope
and exhaustion.
Cities pulsing—
San Diego.
Philadelphia.
Washington, D.C.
New York.
Chicago.
Hawaii.
Back to Japan—
fifty nations in one space,
voices layered,
translation always incomplete.
Everywhere I went,
the same quiet current
moving through people.
Thirty years old.
A departure no one applauds.
This time inward.
No map.
Only descent.
Someone warned me:
“Don’t go there.
You might not return.”
But the one who listens
knows when a door
must be opened.
It was dark—
darker than night.
Darker than slogans.
Darker than certainty.
And then:
not the absence of fear,
but a light
cutting through it.
I hadn’t found it.
It had been waiting.
Thirty-nine years old.
Another leaving—
this time, not alone.
An explorer still,
but now turned toward sharing.
Sharing breath.
Sharing ground.
Community—
not as agreement,
but as a vast, imperfect pool
we must enter together.
Seeking laughter
in a time that mistrusts joy.
Seeking reverence
without superiority.
Seeking the light of God
not above us,
but between us—
appearing only
when we risk listening.
Not a conclusion.
Each moment
a fragile crossing.
Each crossing—
a departure.