Mining Nuggets: Healing dimensions

Part I: The journey begins.

Twenty four years ago, I packed up a few bags, grabbed my son by his hand and fled to a distant land, leaving behind almost everything I materially possessed, family, and friends. I had known it was coming. The need to fly away had been building up for sometime - at least about two years prior, or so.

I was unaware that in a way I was trying to escape my past, and more specifically, my childhood. I was unaware that I was about to embark on a healing journey, and that in order to heal I would have to do the very thing I was running from: confront the emotional memories I had stored from the earliest years of my life. Indeed, I would have to re-experience the ancient pains and wounds that I had so skillfully learned to defend myself from. In fact, in order to heal, I would need to allow myself to validate the feelings I had worked so hard to deny.

The process of healing really began in October, 1987 when I visited America for a month to check out the feasibility of studying at the University at Buffalo. I was staying at the house of a professor who was recruiting me, and introducing me to the university as well as the area of Western New York. One morning I was sitting in his back yard holding a mug of coffee in my hand and swaddled in a new coat I had bought as soon after my plane had landed, because I had not anticipated the crisp, brisk cold of fall that greeted me when I arrived in Buffalo, New York! As I sat on a lawn chair staring out at a little grove of trees lining the edge of the yard, I marvelled at the silence and peace, interrupted only by the sound of birds here and there. All at once I felt a rush of emotion, and thought to myself, "I can make anything I want of myself in this country if I just put my mind to it. I can have a second chance." In point of fact, I am not sure that I was aware of what type of second chance I would have. Whether it was about acquiring a higher education, or making a change in my personal relationships. Perhaps it was a bit of both. I thought, too, of my teenage son. I could keep him out of the army, and give him more opportunity than I would ever be able to as a single parent back home.

Indeed, I had just entered the first dimension of healing by simply experiencing the feeling that I deserved a chance (second or first - it did not matter which number it was) at opportunity and fulfillment: I had a choice - I could make my life - our lives - better.

One year ago at Mining Nuggets: Fill 'er up ...

Seven years ago at Tamarika: And know the place for the first time; & Moise David Israel