It's Raining in the Desert

Is there anything more ironic than rain in the desert? I'm not sure, but it definitely gives this place a new energy (reference to all those movie scenes where the rain magically appears after a drought or actually in the desert: see clip below). It's surprising to see cactus and palm trees covered in this phenomenon. But at the same time, this place feels more like home.

I do not own any part of this movie, all credit goes to Disney, Louis Sachar, whoever.

I'm not from here. I like to think that I'm not from anywhere- except my mother, "my mother was my first country, the first place I ever lived" (Nayyirah Waheed) one of my favorite quotes. Ever since my first plane ride (a 15hr ride from NY to South Africa the Summer of 2015), I have had a longing to see and feel places that I might know and recognize, almost like when you smell a familiar fragrance at an unexpected place or see something and know it from a memory. It's a deja vu, a sort of homecoming and welcoming feeling. Which leads me into another favorite quote, "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time" (T.S. Eliot). 

I'm not sure where my explorations will lead me, from MD to South Africa, to Baltimore to Missouri to China to Thailand to India to L.A., to a small desert town in California. This is where I am right now, and I am just figuring out what lessons are to be learned here and what experiences I will look back on years from now, that will make me smile, that will make me stronger, that will make me, me.

I am a traveler here. Just passing through.