for stacy and brian

Imagine a forest as morning sunlight falls in strands through the trees. Birds call to one another in heartfelt songs and sweet echoes. A stream trickles in the distance.

A woman appears, slowly walking through the forest—she ducks under a branch, climbs over a rock, vaults over a fallen tree. Behind her is a tiny thread that stretches off into the distance, marking the journey from her birth to this very moment.

As she continues onward, the string catches on tree trunks, snags on thorns, unspools on fallen leaves. It fades into the distance in circles and irregular zigs, and zags.

On the journey through the wilderness, our wanderer has met others. Sometimes friendly faces and people passing by, sometimes enemies, sometimes old friends. With each meeting, her thread crossed with theirs, forever marking a connection.

She finds a meadow of grass and wildflowers, with a tall oak tree in the center. The warm midday sun drives the wanderer to the shade of the tree.

And another traveler is there, sitting on a tree branch, smiling—his own thread leading into another part of the forest.

The two travelers circle each other, and talk, and dance, and laugh. They have found each other, finally, in this clearing, and their threads are intertwined forever.

We are connected in an elaborate network, like a spider’s web. Each crossed filament, and each pinpoint intersection, is a moment marked by family, loved ones, and those gone from us.

But we can also choose our connections—we can bind threads as we dance, tie knots with our love, and weave braids as we travel onward together. We can conquer vast terrains, or climb and rappel steep mountain cliffs, knowing that we are bound, that we have each other to boost us up, or brace our fall.

As the sun falls down a bright blue sky, the two travelers hold hands and walk quietly out of the clearing. When they are gone, all that remains are their threads, stretching together over the horizon.

-gj