There’s a place where the earth rumbles, where faces are drawn in lines the color of the sea.
The clouds hang low.
You can reach up and touch them, if you remembered how to do that sort of thing.
They cast reflections in the water, images dancing between whales spewing air.
I watched from the beach. Stayed on that beach ‘til the sun dipped into the water and turned it to gold. Watched still as the moon rose up over the island and gently hovered.
This was my new home, and yet, I was forever searching for a fragment of the land I’d left behind.
We are bound to our land, and I too was bound to mine.
I went past the sulphuric lakes to where a volcanic mountain waited beneath a crisp, cool lake.
In this place some say you can see the past churning through the water in the early morning mist.
Some say you can dip your fingers in and feel the tug of something gone.
I did dip my fingers. Toes too.
I submerged myself in the cool cleanness of the lake and let it tug me where it would. The tall pines on either side of the water shimmied in the wind, watching.
The mountain with its cut off top, watched too.
Something else did too.
They say the water carries the past. They say it will come find you if you let it.
On the horizon a canoe slid free from the hot pools steam. A feathered man stood at its helm. Regal. Tall. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him.
We stayed staring at each other for some time. We both had come a long way.
We had places yet to return.
And in this place, the water, sky and earth came together to remind me.
I would always be home.
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This reflection was of Linda’s time spent living in New Zealand, a land that evokes a spiritual sense of belonging. A place of magic. Her other stories were about her time on Lake Erie and a terrible drought when she first moved to Australia. Learn more about Linda at her blog or by following her on twitter (@writerescape).
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