The journey

It has been an interesting journey. Beautiful sites. Lovely people. Interesting insights. Shifting perspectives. Time alone. Time spent experiencing the moment. The past. The present. The gifts of every moment.

And in it, the realization -- it isn't about 'finding my father', my father has always been there. Present as only he could be.

It is about me being present in the moment. Being in the moment of the journey. Being present to what is around me. Who is there. As they are. Not as I want to see them.

The mysteries still abound and in some ways are even thicker, more dense because of my searching.


My father's school records, at least from one year, still exist. They show an 11 year old boy who entered the school and in the first semester did abysmally. Last in his class on marks. The next semester, he's climbed to fifth in his class. A remarkable feat for one so young, the teacher who gave me a copy of the record told me. Most unusual.


Mazonod

And on the sheet, a note of the presence of his father. Residence, Mazonod. A small, now derelict, town ten kilometres from Gravelbourg. My father never mentioned his father was close by. He always said he was there alone. Is it possible his memories were fickle. Faulty.

Memory is like that. Fleeting. Fuzzy. Fickle. Faulty. Of the moment, memory loses clarity in moments past, moments passing, by, onward, forward, away from a time where experience clouds our perception of what is really happening.

For my father, a young boy torn from foreign soils, it must have been terrifying to stand on prairie lands after the gritty streets of London. To stand beneath soaring skies where during the day the sun shines fiercely bright and where at night, the stars glitter in sparkling splendour. The skies would have been different in London. Cloudy. Foggy. Softer. The night less resplendent of stars.


The shift, from city life hemmed in by bricks and mortar to farmlands stretching for miles all the way into tomorrow.

From bustling city streets going places you can name with the familiarity of childhood nursery rhymes to dusty country roads leading from nowhere you've ever heard of to places you've never imagined.

The change, from a mother's home to a place far away with a man who'd 'run away' when the marriage had broken down.

Were there fights? Arguments. Bitter words spoken in the breakdown of his familial home?

Was there animosity? Anger? Pain?

Most likely.

It is possible we will never know what really happened, but in the happening of searching, I found myself, again, in that place where I am at one with the One. At peace with the moment. At rest with the happenings.

I 'know' no more of my father than I did, but I 'know' so much more of who I am, of where I came from, of who he was than I ever imagined.

All is well with my world. Past and present. The future is yet to be lived.

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As suggested by Maureen at Writing without Paper who posted a beautiful poem today. A Higher Moral Ground and subbmited it to Tuesdays Blog Carnival, I too have shared at Tuesday's Blog Carnival over at Peter Pollock's place.

The word for today is: Road.

I didn't know that until after I'd written my post -- but it is appropriate that I wrote of being on the road, of life, of searching, of travelling, of finding, of being...

To read other fabulous writings on ROAD (and some great photos too) visit Blog Carnival -- HERE.