Riding Home

From the gate of your mother’s house, you could swing up on a horse, clop down a few quiet streets, cross the river and then there was nothing but packed dirt roads good for a gallop, tiny temples perched on mountainsides, villagers gathering firewood and grasses, miles and miles of rice paddy. You would come around a hill and see the paddy rising in terraces from the valley floor, marching ponderously up the slopes, shrinking as they go.

These hills are as big as some mountain ranges. They are foothills only compared to the sweep of the snowpeaks that float behind them: The Himalaya. When you saw the mountains you would finally feel that the city was behind you. It’s not that you could relax: things here require your full attention.  But something in you eased, a little.

You would follow broad forest paths through the hills then take goat tracks that clung to the mountain and shed pebbles into steep drop offs as you rode by, going too fast on an unpredictable horse. You would pass through villages, and tiny old ladies would call to you from the fields. They would ask you to have chai and chapattis (flatbread) with them. You would sigh, because it meant dismounting, which meant remounting. The mare would stand steady and quiet while you held her, and walk like an angel when you took a village kid up in the saddle for a quick pony ride, but when it was time for you to mount up she basically tried to kill you. If she knocked you down, she would then trample you. You had to vault up quickly, hauling her head around to the right so she didn’t give you a bite on the ass to hurry you into the saddle. She was sinewy, tough, and quick as a snake.

You get to know the villagers. You help haul firewood, you carry packages and messages between the scattered settlements. You are given chai and admonitions. They joke and call you “Kalki didi,” after the last incarnation of Vishnu who will come to end the world, riding a pale horse. It is better than what they call you in the city.

You mount up (quickly), turn your body toward home and the horse beneath you follows and carries you at the same time. You ride her like a current. You go home in the dusk to the sound of temple bells and prayer call. Cows are coming home, plodding and lowing. 

Many years later you read a book by a woman returning to India after an absence and she describes this time of day and what haunts you is her line “the air was dust and jasmine.” Haunts, because you read her words and you feel warm dusty air and breathe in jasmine. You hear hoof beats. 

*  *  *  *  *

You have been gone for 10 years now, and these memories are even older than that. Now you come back, and there’s an airport with a glass elevator. There are luggage trolleys, a gift shop. You get in a Toyota and the driver takes a back way home because Rahul Gandhi is speaking at the Parade Ground and there are crowds. You remember when his grandmother was assassinated and there were riots and killings. You remember when his father was assassinated, too. You were in the States by then, and you remember thinking: that bloody country. You think about this as you take the back way home. You are excited to be here. You know it’s going to be different. You’re ok with that.

The roads you take are packed with vehicles: trucks, cars, putt-putts, scooters. Everything has an engine. Traffic is both lumbering and nimble. Car horns sound, not in complaint but orientation: a wolf howl, saying: I am here. I am here. You swerve and bully your way through. You parry and dodge.

The roadsides are packed with stalls and carts selling: pyramids and piles of oranges, apples, red winter carrots, potatoes, T-shirts, shoes, and everwhere everywhere plastic plastic plastic: buckets and bags and baskets and toys. There are no sidewalks and no parking lots, the traffic and the bicycle guys and the pedestrians come together with the inevitable and irresistible force of the sea meeting the land. Road verges foam like surf. Everyone is in motion but nobody gives ground. Pedestrians in jeans and dhotis, leather jackets and shawls, weave and thread through moving and parked vehicles and talk on their phones. A dog sits down and has a good scratch. Everyone goes around him, not even looking down. The dog trots off.

Behind the pedestrians and the carts are the shops. Steel shutters on cement block and plaster buildings, built to last. They are streaked and mottled with black monsoon stains. Above are apartments and homes, washing hung out to dry, kids hanging off crumbling railings. The buildings are solid, the doors and windows square and steady. Everything else: doors, curtain rods, shutters, is askew. The city is festooned with electric wires, a snarled canopy of current. A festival of lights.

Amid this are shanty tarps and tin roofs. You have no idea if the rickety shack you are looking at is a shop, a home, or both. These structures look fragile but seem to have stood for a thousand years. Here and there a massive tree survives, propping up the world.

You pass by a man squatting on the ground, his head tilted back. There is another man behind him, holding a straight razor to his throat. Only after they vanish in the dust of your wake do you figure it out: a barber, shaving a customer on the side of the road.

The road is curvier now, you take disorienting turns onto side streets with less activity and fewer crowds. It is still wall-to-wall buildings but the noise has lessened. Now and then you catch a glimpse of the hilltops: a familiar confluence of peaks catches your eye. You ask the driver what the massive cement building under construction on your left is, and he says they are building an IT park and call centers. You feel a sense of dread. The road curves left, right, left again. You look around, crane backwards, look up at the hills, look at the city surrounding you and think: no. No. It’s not. But the next curve is a sharp one to the right and you are descending towards the riverbed and then you have to acknowledge that you know where you are.

These are your dirt tracks, your goat paths. These are the fields where you helped gather grass for winter forage. There, where the IT center is rising: that was the maze of camelthorn bushes with their small, bright flowers and vicious thorns that left your calves bloody when the damn horse swerved into them. This rusty steel bridge, this is the shallow curve of the levee over the riverbed, hard packed dirt with a good sight line so it was safe to canter. 

Beyond the next curve, finally. This, here, is the straight open stretch where you could leave off the battle and let her run, full and true at a gallop, nothing between you, nothing holding you back, nothing before you but the hills. You had to remember to slow down before the next rise and look for rare but lethal trucks barreling over the hill: you could never hear them over the reverb of hoofbeats, the wind in your mount’s lungs and your own. The beating of your hearts drowned out the world. 

This is your refuge: built upon, populated, grimy. Strewn with trash. Crumbling as though it has been like this for a thousand years. As if there were never anything else here at all.

*  *  *  *  *

Some days later, you walk down to the Ganga during arti, the evening prayers to the sacred river. You have to stop at the market first, to buy offerings: little leaf-boats are piled with marigolds. A rose makes a scarlet ruffle amid the orange petals. There is a rough clay dish with a hunk of camphor to light, and two graceful incense sticks leaning out at an angle. The whole thing is about the size of a soup bowl. Although you are in a hurry, you raise the leaf-boat up to examine the construction. It is woven together by the fragile stems. Nothing more.

Priests are waving towering oil lamps at the river, and chants are broadcast on loudspeaker. There is a crowd milling around the priests and their dramatic accouterments but the verges are peaceful. Most people are carrying garlands of marigolds and roses, or little boats like yours. People spread out into clumps, then groups, then families. Some young guys strut around. The beach is rocky and the water is swift. It is not the color of any North American water you have ever seen. Not clear blue, this, but jade and opaque. You have journeyed to the source of this water, high in the Himalaya. There, it is white as milk.

You all huddle around and try to light the lumps of camphor in your flower boats. It takes some doing, what with the wind tearing down from the hills.

You take your shoes and socks off and wade in. It is cold. Offerings buck and scurry past. Rocks shift under your feet and the current urges you downriver. You stub your toe, plant your feet. You offer prayers for others, but when you light your own you don’t have anything to pray for. Everything seems ridiculous. Well, I carried it this far, you think, lowering the bright cup towards the water, so, here…just, take it. 

It is dark now. The flame of your offering mingles with the reflections of electric lights. The priests are wrapping up their ritual. For now, their voices cannot reach you. Take it away, you think again. The river rushes on, ignoring you. The river rushes on, unchanging. Because of this, you will never be the same.

 

Sunrise: 6:55am

Urban had an appointment on the 80th floor of the South Tower at 8am on September 11th, 2001.

I was going to tag along (to NYC & the Twin Towers) and take a tour of the building. On September 8th, the overseas colleague he was scheduled to meet got sick and said he was unable to make the trip. Everything was cancelled. No NYC, no tour, no visiting friends, nothing. I remember we were both quite irritated. Urban ran his own business and last-minute, out-of-state cancellations cost us money. It was nobody’s fault.

We had planned to be away, so we went to Wisconsin instead. We were at The House on the Rock when we heard the news. Now, if you’ve ever been to The House on the Rock, you can imagine what that must have been like. If you’ve never been there, I’m not even going to try and explain. Maybe another time.

Anyway, we made it back to our hotel and sat horrified in front of the TV with the rest of the nation. It was many hours before either of us remembered where we had originally planned to be that morning. I can still feel the look on my face.

9/11 tore a hole in the world. I don’t know why I’m here to peer through from this side. I can’t believe that “someone was looking out for me.” That implies that someone was not looking out for the thousands of people who died. The thousands of people that we watched die. I just don’t believe that The Great Whatever is a micromanager, or maybe any kind of manager at all. I also don’t (like to) believe that my entire existence is mere chance. Some guy in Japan got the flu. I got to live.

We all remember where we were. We don’t often get the opportunity to remember where we weren’t. Life is unfathomable. We never know where it will end (up).

One thing is sure...every 9/11 around 6am, having been awake all night remembering, wondering and praying in my own weird way, the sun will come up and the sight of that rising light, the re-brightening of our world, will make me burst into tears. 

I search for words I don't have…and feel the life that I do.

Dear Friend, The Majority of People Can Still Be Wrong

The thing I always wonder about Nazi Germany is this: how did it happen? Did all the Germans just go insane? How does an entire culture get to the point that they can turn away and ignore the torture and murder of MILLIONS of people: and not far away, hidden from view people, but people they pass by on the street, people they do business with, people that are their neighbors? How do people support a political party that treats people, based on their religion/culture, as a problem that must be solved? Well, I think it helps that Germans were scared of “them.” Really scared.

It’s hard to reason with fear.

From: Saumya Arya Haas
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 6:01 PM
To: xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Cold Chills

Hello Dear xxxxxxx,

It was truly wonderful to see you! and thank you for giving me the chance to respond to Wilders’ speech/ideas.

Regardless of what I say here… if you would like to know what Muslims think, you should get to know some Muslims and ask them, rather than basing your opinions on what someone else (including me) thinks that Muslims think.  However that’s not practical right away, so here is my response, based on my instincts, my experience with actual Muslims, living in India where Hindu-Muslim violence is not uncommon, being familiar with terrorist attacks (from many different groups: religious, political, secular, ethnic, etc.) in various parts of the world from a young age, and being an extremely patriotic American. It’s a long reply so bear with me.

Geert Wilders, the writer of this piece, is considered an extremist by many people. He is up on hate-speech charges in his native country, where no established political party will be associated with him. The UK tried to ban him from entering their country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders

There is so much wrong with the reasoning in this article that I do not know where to start. Here is only one, minor, example. He says (about “Muslim ghettos”) :

“The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find  any economic activity.” Well, which is it? Are there shops, where presumably, people are exchanging money for products… or is there no economic activity?

What would you think of an architect who said “The pipes leak water everywhere. There is no plumbing in the house.” You would think they were mistaken, lying, or insane. How much would you trust their other statements?

Where are the references for his claims on facts and figures? is there reputable, government supported information, or are these figures produced by partisan organizations with an particular agenda? And if they are correct, so what? People can say, think and believe whatever they like. It is actions that count, and even that is does not justify discrimination. I’ve heard it said that the majority of convicted criminals in the USA are young African-American men. Should we treat all young Black guys like potential criminals? Lock them up just to be safe?

When you read Wilders piece, is there any other group that you would be comfortable generalizing about in this way? If you take out the word “Muslim” and insert the word “Black,” “Gay,” “Women,””Jewish,” whatever, how does it make you feel?  People call Wilder’s views racist and extremist because they are. As far as quoting numbers of what percentage of people fear Islam, I wonder, what percentage of Americans supported the abolition of slavery, women’s right to vote, interracial marriage, Civil Rights, etc, etc.? Do you think that if 60% of Americans are afraid of young African-American men we should do something about it? I’ve read that when it became legal for whites and non-whites to marry, the majority of Americans were against it. (I bring this one up because I’m in an interracial marriage and I know you would find it as distasteful as I do that there was a time that Urban & I, both American citizens, could not legally marry in our own country.)

The majority of people can still be wrong.

Wilder’s arguments and solution (which is not stated, but I am familiar with) do not stand up to common sense, common decently, the American Constitution or international human rights guidelines. People become criminals, and can be treated as criminals, the minute they are found guilty of a crime. Each person deserves to be treated as an individual. What crime have millions of Muslims committed, that we are so comfortable talking about them as though they are guilty of something? If Muslims are 25% or whatever of the population of Europe, so what?  Europe is made up of many nations and cultures; Muslims have been a part of that since Islam has existed.

The questions about Israel is a separate, political issue about governmental policies, not what citizens think. I know a number of (white, Jewish) Americans who are critical of Israel for whatever reasons. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.

Wilder advocates against dialogue with Muslim leaders; I find that disturbing. His writing is full of absolute statements and hysteria.

I feel that Wilders’ speech and writings follow this formula and philosophy:

“It [does] not investigate the truth objectively and.. it present[s] only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. (...) [It is] confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans [are] persistently repeated (…) Every change.. must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula.”

This is very effective because:

“[People]are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.”

These quotes are from Hitler, Mein Kampf.

Have you ever read the anti-Jewish rhetoric from Germany in the 1930s? It sounds very much the same. It was just as passionate, just as popular, and just as based on “facts.”

This is my theory: Germans believed that they had to protect themselves against an enemy, and that their survival depended on destroying this enemy before the enemy destroyed them. Germans began to believe that people who had lived peacefully alongside them, contributed to their economy and enriched their culture,  were dangerous outsiders who did not belong in Germany. I’m sure there were some Jews that were unprincipled, dangerous criminals—people are human after all. So, one Jew committing a crime became “proof” of the evil nature of all Jews. Jewish “ghettos” were portrayed as cancerous, dangerous cells that would spread and wipe out European values. Does any of this sound familiar?

What is Wilders solution? The mass rounding up and “deportation” of millions of people? Does that sound familiar?

The other thing I wonder about Nazi Germany is this: When was the moment? When did the German people tip from the talk to the walk? How did it go from free speech to state-sponsored genocide? Why didn’t anyone say: enough is enough. We are terrified of Jews, but we don’t have the right to eradicate them. Did any one say: We must stop before we do something insane.  If we look back with the luxury of hindsight, I think it’s apparent that there was not one moment, but many. Many.

The only cold chills I get are imaging what will happen to millions of innocent people if politicians like Wilder come into power.

I would like to be open and be able to talk about these issues, and I would like you to be comfortable talking to me. You are my friend and I love and respect you. But emails like the one you forwarded are hate speech, nothing more. I support the right of free speech for all, but it is a challenge to know how to reasonably respond to such virulent hatred masquerading as fact.

It’s ok to be ignorant and it’s understandable to be scared of things and cultures that we don’t understand. But it is not okay when our ignorance and fear is justification to limit the rights of other people…actually, there is nothing that justifies limiting the rights of other people. I cannot stand by in silence while my fellow (Muslim/Gay/Jewish/Whatever) Americans and fellow humans are demonized and have their dignity & rights stripped from them. These people are innocent. Where is this thinking going to end up?

I hope that you understand, and that your intrinsic compassion, intelligence and sense of justice will advise your thoughts and feelings.

With best intentions and much love,
Saumya

I’ll help you pack, even.

Dear People-Who-Are-Afraid-of-Islam-And-Think-Your-Fear-Should-Affect-Other-People's-Freedoms,

You have a right to your feelings. But you do not have to right to expect your feelings to limit the rights of other Americans.

The 9/11 terrorists were angry, violent, screwed-up people, ok? Muslim, male, young, Middle-Eastern, dark-skinned, angry, violent, screwed-up. It's the angry, violent, screwed-up action that makes a terrorist. Nothing else.

Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, or, it has as much to do with terrorism as does ethnicity, national origin, age and gender...which is to say, nothing. We may as well associate maleness with terrorism...all the 9/11 terrorists were men. That's just as (ir)relevant as the fact that they were Muslim.

Most terrorists are men. Many cultures of "manhood" advocate violence, but I haven't noticed a backlash against male culture as terrorism. Imagine people making statements, writing tweets and articles or holding signs that say:

We will be overtaken by MEN, and their goal is to get people in Congress.

It’s provocative for these MEN to want a community center near Ground Zero.

Don’t Dishonor my Son’s Grave. No MEN Near Ground Zero.

It’s ridiculous, right? It’s ridiculous no matter what word is substituted for “MEN.”

There is a word for generalizing about people who practice a particular religion, look a particular way, or are a particular gender: it is called BIGOTRY and it is not protected by the Constitution of the United States, or any rational, moral or ethical argument.

So, get over the Islam thing. Or shut the hell up, let people worship as they choose and get some professional help for your anger, insecurity and paranoia. Or move out of the USA to a nation that does not give people the right of religious freedom. (Did Saudi Arabia come to mind? One of those nations run by…MEN?) If you can’t respect the basic beliefs of this country: Liberty and Justice for All—then it’s you who doesn’t belong here.

Best Wishes,
Saumya

P.S. If you’re wondering what triggered this rant, it was this article:
Festive Muslim Holiday falls around Sept. 11 this year; US Muslims leaders fear backlash

It pisses me off that people in our country have to be afraid of celebrating their holidays. If terrorism is using fear to intimidate and control people, or words to that effect, and the Muslim community is afraid of us, who is it that is advocating terrorism??

Crude Karma

Karma is a flexible word, yogic in its ability to twist into different meanings. People use it when something dramatic happens, to indicate luck, fate, destiny, justice, punishment or reward. None of those are quite right. Trying to understand karma through events is useful, but crude.

I don’t mean crude in a crass sense, but rather visceral, material, something in the visible world. Traditionally, karma refers to patterns of existence under the surface, the ebb and flow of the universe, a tide we affect as much as we are affected by it. It is as much what doesn’t happen, as what does. Crude, we can see. It floats on the surface of things; it can reveal some of what’s in the depths. Analyzing crude karma –what events mean-- can be illuminating, because it is based on things we can see. Events are the invisible process—the things we’re so used to we don’t see them anymore—made visible. Events can help us see, but we have to be careful to keep our vision clear and honest. The most significant lessons are the ones we don’t want to learn.

Every time there is a disaster, some Hindu somewhere says: It was their karma. This drives me crazy. Nobody needs to hear that after experiencing trauma. The way karma is commonly understood, this implies that suffering was deserved.  “Deserving” is another flexible word, implying either entitlement or punishment. Karma is morally neutral. It is not judgment and it is not license to judge others. No one is the authorized agent of karma: you can’t go around smacking people upside the head and then smugly proclaiming it must have been their karma. Bad manners and exploitation have no spiritual justification. The application of any ideal must stand up to common sense and common decency. We are each responsible for our actions.

Karma is the consequence of action. I could insert some poetic quotes from the Bhagavad-Gita, but I’ll spare you. The Gita is a wonderful, wise book, but we don’t need to look to the ancient world for battlefield examples; we are struggling through our own epics right now. We live in a time of dramatic, large-scale events. Now we have to make sense of them.

But understanding is a subtle, slippery thing. Trying to draw a direct correlation of one event to another is tricky. We want to ask: why is this happening? (or, why does this keep happening?) and come up with an answer. But understanding is not an event or intellectual exercise; it is a process. We live it.

Karma is not fatalistic; it is the opposite: the measure of how  our actions on the Universe affects us in return. However, it can appear fatalistic, because once set in motion, certain things must play out. If you drink water, you feel nice and hydrated, but at some point, you will have to pee. That’s an obvious (and crude) example, but a good one. When you’re a little kid, the need to pee is an event that just seems to happen, totally disconnected from anything going on at the time: one minute you’re building a tower, then suddenly….It can be pretty traumatic. I’m sure toddlers wonder: why is this happening to me? As you get older, you figure out that it’s not this mysterious thing. It’s not a punishment, reward, fate, justice, luck or destiny, but it didn’t just randomly occur either. To adults, it may be inconvenient or a relief (or both), but it’s not good or bad. You don’t feel guilty or proud of it. It’s just life in motion. You drink, you pee. You buy, you pay. That, crudely, is karma.

You can learn, and change, and next time the outcome can be different...to some extent. You will always have to pee, but it stops being an event. The drama that gives it an emotional or moral component is gone. You know it’s going to happen, and you learn to be competent. This might seem like a facetious example, but it’s not intended to be silly. It’s amazing, the things we struggle to come to terms with, then absorb, and then barely think of again. So much of what drives our lives has become invisible to us.

Life is driven by choice; according to Hindu belief, to be born (or not) is a choice: you return to life again and again not just because of “karma” to fulfill, but because life is fun; or, some say, we amass karma because we want to stay connected to life; as if life is someone you like but are too shy to ask out, so you leave your sunglasses at their house for an excuse to return. Karma does not have to be a burden. It’s frequently compared to payment, or debt: I think this is apt but misleading, because we have considerable emotional and cultural baggage about debt. No-one really likes the idea of being in debt: we’d all like to own our lives free and clear. But—debt is often what lets us have our cozy homes, our convenient cars, our work wardrobes, vacations, and so on. Incurring debt is often a lot of fun. The money you owe (or earn) does not express the joy and sorrow it helped you experience. Your home is far more to you than the value of your house. Debt can get out of hand, but it can be enriching, too. The process of living is a constant series of exchanges. 

In Hindu thought, Leela, the game board, is symbolic of the world we live in: a game with some rules, but we’re free to play, and it’s no fun to play alone! In Vodou, Ayizan is the spirit of both initiation and the marketplace. While these things seem unconnected, they are intertwined.  The marketplace is also Leela, the world. To initiate is to be in the world; to be in the world is to take part in the entertaining interactions and exchanges of life. You do this through your choices, which in turn become become part of the flow of energy. You may not be attentive to them, but your actions do not just disappear into nowhere when you’re done with them. There are other players on the board, and the marketplace effects everyone.

The idea of Karma unites us: what you do affects me, and vice versa. One person’s action ripples to effect many. There is no question of being deserving or undeserving. We’re all in this together. We all shop in the same market, we all swim in the same Waters. We all thirst. 

This sense of connection makes it appealing, and easy, to lay the blame for things that cause us pain on someone else’s doorstep, someone else’s actions. It’s tempting to blame our Mom, the Universe, God, the Government, Corporations, for letting us down, leading us astray, failing to protect us, or generally screwing us up (or over). But there is no “Government” or “Universe” that is above and beyond us, all powerful and all knowing. Our mom is a lady who did her best; our Government is elected and held accountable by us; our friends, relatives and neighbors work for Corporations from which we buy goods that we want to remain affordable, so we can do what we need to do, and enjoy life along the way.

There is no “them.” We are the Corporations and the Government. We are moms and dads. We are the Universe. This is our world, our joy, our mess.

Our actions are choices. I choose something, not necessarily something dramatic and moral, but an everyday thing, an inevitable thing: I’m thirsty. Everybody has to drink, right? So I’m thirsty. Right now. Excuse me.

Ah, that’s better. My lovely niece stopped by to do some yard work, and brought me an iced coffee from Caribou. Life is made up of such pleasant everyday moments, soon forgotten and usually unremarked upon. But, not noticing something does not mean it is unimportant. So much of what drives our lives is invisible. The most significant lessons are the hardest to learn.

Here are some consequences to my choice of drink: I’m not thirsty any more. I feel happy. I owe my niece four dollars. Later I will have to pee. I’m sensitive to caffeine so I’m going to fly through the day, get a huge amount of work done, and probably not sleep much tonight. If I’m up at 4am, that’s an obvious, a crude, consequence of my beverage. But the ripples spread further, wider: events rise out of process. I might not be the only one losing sleep because of my choices. Buying my coffee from Caribou in a plastic cup supports local jobs, as well as the larger coffee, transportation and petroleum industries.

Embedded in our everyday choices are a whole host of  consequences. Choices direct life. Karma is life in action. Now watch what happens. See the ripples spread.  When we’re all choosing the same thing, all acting the same way, those ripples coalesce into an a wave, a flood, an event that unbalances the world. The game board tips: we all go tumbling. Why does this keep happening?

This is crude karma. It is not done by “them” to “us.” It is not justice, or judgment. It is not luck, fate, destiny, reward or punishment. Although some people may bear the brunt of the suffering, they do not deserve it. We do not have to feel guilty or proud, but if we really want to understand, we have to live a process that can lead to a different outcome.

Our thirst leads us to all manner of tasty delights, but there is a consequence to reckon with, here in the material world. Actions continue far beyond our intent. Eventually the tide brings everything back to our own precious shores.