Meandering of the mind on a misty day

I was 27.  I had been practicing Reiki only a year.  My life was in total transition.  I had divorced the year before and was finishing graduate school.  I was taking my first steps as a counselor at a community clinic.

I lived in a walk-up studio apartment on the 3^rd floor of an old house with my cat and parakeet.  It was the first time I had lived on my own, not in relationship with anyone.

When I wen t back East to NJ on my book tour this summer, I drove past that old house and neighborhood.  Many of the same stores were still there and the neighborhood was the same.

I thought of the times I would bike to school, spend time with my cat, getting my first Reiki table, participating in Reiki circles.  All of it was so new and at times overwhelming.

I was fellow students with a whole international community and at one point was even invited to go with a colleague to her home town of Isfahan in Persia, or Iran.

This was before 9/11, before the Middle East revolutions of the last year.  I often wonder what that trip would have been like had I taken it.

In those days, any chance I had to travel the world I jumped at, eventually going on a month sojourn through Britain and France.

I wrote daily in my journal, read Rumi and Joseph Campbell and wondered about my future career as a counselor.

Here I am 15 years later, living a much more established life, still travelling, still practicing Reiki and evolved in my profession.

When the skies in Seattle, like they are today, become overcast, I become reflective.  I’m thinking about that untaken trip to Persia.  Perhaps another opportunity will present itself in years to come.  Perhaps with social media (that didn’t exist a decade ago) I can find my Isfahan friend.  Meanderings of the mind on a misty day.