Let the Colors Blend

I was given one of the greatest gifts.

There’s a gift in my head of places been and relationships had across oceans and among diverse cultures. Across languages and beliefs. Across ways of life and customs some foreign to me but all unique and beautiful in their own way. Exotic smells from foods I’ve tried and the beauty of nature with its colors and enchanting scents. I’ve walked hundreds of miles over that time in terrain that ranged from jungle to inner city to remote islands and ancient rock streets dating back thousands of years. I’ve sat in ancient coliseums in Turkey and been chased by monkeys in the jungle forests of Malaysia and Indonesia. My senses have been overpowered by the aromatic spices in the ancient city bazaar in Istanbul. My feet have walked in the waters of many seas and have set foot on islands so remote that most people will never venture there.

My ears have listened to the sounds of languages so beautiful and flowing and my own voice has learned to speak across those divides. A gift in itself. To communicate in a new way and bridge a gap.

But most of all the gift I was given was time. Time to sit and chat with those culturally not like me and to learn that we are not all that different. Time to smell another country. Time to get my feet dirty with the soil of another land. Time to touch the trees and breath in the air of another place. Something inside of me feels that those impressions will last with me forever. A part of me left there and a part of that place and its people left forever with me.

As I live my life now here in this moment, I can envision all those other lives I intersected from all over this world. I was with them long enough to know their routine and a little of their path. I walk mine here and I can mentally see them as they live theirs there. It somehow helps me break free of the ‘limitations’ of here. I know there is so much more out there and I have tasted it. I feel it makes me appreciate it all the more. In my mind’s eye I can walk the dusty and high grass Campuhan ridge in Bali anytime I like. I know what it smells like and what the wind feels like as I reach the top. I know the overpowering smell of the frangipani flowers along the path and the red bougainvillea that meets me at the stairs at the top of the ridge as it enters the small village. They are still there thriving and growing even while I pass my time here where I am now. I can pick the figs off the tree like I did in Ephesus when I was in Turkey. I can mentally sit in that coliseum surrounded by the cats that literally fill all of Turkey. I can eat the Nasi Lemak with my friends in Malaysia as they break the fast at Ramadan from the outdoor food tent that I envision is still right where it was 3 years ago.

I can sit for hours chatting with my friends from all over the world that I would gather with each week. It didn’t matter what country I was in, I always gathered a crowd. It seemed so much easier then. My world was bigger somehow. I believe that is what I miss the most. Indonesian, Malaysian, Turkish, Syrian, Russian, Azerbaijani, German, Spanish, American, Iraqi, Iranian, Yemenis all together. It was beautiful. It was a gift.

It is almost Christmas and I guess my mind is on the idea of gifts. I know I was given the sweetest of gifts I could ever receive. My life now is so very different but that gift lives on in me and it can’t be taken away. It still helps me see things differently to this day and I know always will. I have seen the beauty of diversity and different. I believe the only way we survive as a people is to learn to embrace that beauty and to learn to truly love our neighbor. I don’t care what religion you are. I don’t care what nationality you are. There is none better than another. There is only difference and difference can be a beautiful gift.

If you want to give yourself a gift this Christmas to start out a new year, let it be the ability to love your neighbor and by that I don’t mean those just like you. I mean all of them. Life is a kaleidoscope. It is so much more beautiful when you let the colors blend.