this, that, and the other thing.

an ode to friendship and the human experience

a note, before we begin to the poem ↓

Where I come from, a story is not finished until the teller turns to the listeners and accounts for himself. So let me account.

I wrote this in the days after a retreat on Kauai, before the feeling could fade. I arrived as a man who had spent years learning how to build and how to strive, but had quietly forgotten how to rest, and how to be held by people who wanted nothing from me but my company. The island, and the people I met on it, reminded me. This poem is what I carried home.

To the facilitators who held us with such care, thank you. You did not merely organize a retreat. You midwifed something none of us will forget.

To my friends, my now family from all over this good earth, this one is for you. You know who you are.

And a prayer, in the tradition of my mother's house. May we continue to be blessed, protected, and led. May we experience this life in the most beautiful way it can be experienced, with open hearts and laughter that finds us even in hard seasons. May love keep finding us, again and again, until we meet once more.

With love and gratitude,
Tachi

the poem

we did not come because it was easy(we came with more questionsthan luggage, each of uscarrying our separate weathers,our little locked rooms of doubt) what will this be?who will i be here?nervous and hoping in the same breath, but faith is a doorthat only opensfrom the inside and so we jumped(all of us,strangers from everywhere,hearts held out like open hands) the mountain did not ask our namesit only said, climb.the ocean did not ask our storiesit only said, come. and we climbed what scared us,paddled into what humbled us,said the true and trembling things out loud,and somewhere in all thatbeautiful difficulty,bridges hand found hand across the streamand laughter found laughterand the difficult becamethe beautiful becamethe shared o me! o life! we might have asked,what good, all this striving,all these separate livesrushing past each other? and the answer came(not in wordsbut in a hand reaching back,in a circle of breath and song,in strangers becoming familyon a beach at the edge of the world) the answer, that we are here.that under every different facethere beats the same unreasonableastonishingheart that this stranger and that strangerand the other thing we cannot name(call it love, call itthe sea remembering itselfin every separate wave) are one and though we scatter nowto our separate corners of the earth, we shall meet again,in every story told,in every dream that wanders backto this green island,every rememberinga reunion for love keeps no distanceand love keeps no time so go(you who climbed,you who jumped, you who opened)go louder than your doubt,go wider than your fear,carry this,this joy, that laughter, the other thing,carry it like a torchinto every room you enter we are bound now.friends for life. the powerful play goes onand we, together,have written our verse now,what will yours be? — tachi

next in the long tellings If I get jollof and you get fried rice,