It’s almost a year since we had arrived to our first session together, on a Friday night.  We would spend together eight hours of most weekends over the next 5 months, but on that night, we were still strangers.

On that night, a year ago, I got there early.  The first people I met were Janet and Ashley.  They were likewise early.  The studio was closed, so we went around the block for a cup of tea.  The tea had spices in it.

On the first night, we introduced ourselves and each other.  In our answers to the loaded question “where are you from?” we found a little bit about what brought us, 30 some strangers, together in that room, on that night.  Not super deep, whatever one would share with a group of 30 strangers, yet monumental enough, because 30 paths wound across the globe, across the time, and converged at the beginning of the same new passage, at the same time.

Five months later, on the other side, no longer strangers, we revealed the meaning of the paths: love, struggle, strength.  Whatever one wouldn’t share with a stranger.  Whatever one wouldn’t share with a friend unless one fell apart next to them, and maybe they did too, and it was OK.

Then we went our own ways, from wherever we were from to wherever was next.

Joe went back home to Connecticut.  Mary went home to New Zealand.  Janet to Buffalo (next: France).  Ashley to Ohio.  Monica to Wisconsin.  Ally to San Diego.  Rubens to LA.  Tiffany will be off next.  I will be looking for my way home here for now.