Time. a friend and a foe. a hero and an antagonist.

within him, i am cocooned. dangling, suspended, enclosed.

within him i am transformed. i lose, i gain, i become.

he does not come when i need him. desperate. aching for his existence. for his wingspan to separate me from what is and what once was.

he sends tiny glimmers of himself, ever so often. secretly, he creeps in and i am bewildered wondering from where he came.

Time.

time is painful. but it is powerful. having to wait, to endure, seems worse than death. but in the process of time, complete and unexpected revolution occurs within the soul.

i’m thinking about time today because i’m thinking about senegal. i can’t help it. i think about senegal all the time. and how can i not?

i poured the entire mold of myself into it. as an international studies major, it was the climax of my college education. it was what i longed and waited and prepared for incessantly. but more than that, i lived there. i breathed there. i let my entire self run free, holding nothing back.

i think about it every day as the summer approaches and every day as i wonder where i’m going to end up. knowing that on this day last year, i only cared about getting there. to senegal. then all the answers would come. then i would know, then i would have direction.

i experienced a lot of pain, confusion, and hardship, during my stay and upon my return.

which brings me to Time. Time swooped in, coming and going tirelessly, separating me each passing day from my three months abroad. and as he has worked his wonders, i have begun to forget the hardship and the pain. and instead, a new pain surfaces: the fear of never returning to a place that won my heart, confused my dreams, and most of all, opened its arms to invite me into refinement.

today i wore a necklace that i bought in senegal. a brilliant blue and beautifully crafted senegalese
(tourist)-style necklace. and i thought of the moment i bought that necklace. where i was. what i had done the four hours prior to the purchasing of the necklace. and it occurred to me that this necklace, and a few other trinkets are all that remains. three months- an entire ocean of emotions, thoughts, and memories- in one little necklace.

and it seemed silly. silly to believe that all i have is a few material things. for i also have my memories. memories that will fade with time. memories that i wish would live on forever, encapsulated in my fragile, mortal mind. and so i seek to record them. for now, they still come willingly and unwillingly. sometimes in living, sometimes in dreaming.

this tree was meeting point along rue mere. i sat on that stump of a root. the colors are every emotion that this tree evokes. and the lyrics, well the lyrics are true. and they fit.

senegal and my family will always be a part of who i am. i cannot change that. but i don’t know if i will ever go back. for now, all i have are my memories, prayer, a blog, and a journal. i only ask to be afforded these things.

(photo of me, isau, and f-mata courtesy of fesh diallo)