Going The Distance
“It seems I’ve come a great distance but yet have still not arrived.” Rebecca said this in as they were looking down the valley at Cherry Creek (what would become Denver, Colorado) in Book 3 of Threads West An American Saga: Uncompahgre: Where Water Turns Rock Red by Reid Lance Rosenthal. Considering she had started in England; taken a ship to New York; a train to St. Louis; and the a wagon train to Cherry Creek, she really had traveled a great distance, but there was still so much to explore, do, and experience. Sound familiar?
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.” ~ from Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot
The quote above from T.S. Eliot says a lot. I believe all the characters in the great Threads West novel series that headed west knew themselves and where they came from better, the further they explored. Only after extensive exploration and experiences, in other words, living, do we fully understand the beauty or all that we gained from where we grew up and the people that have been part of our lives. We cannot see who we are and where we are until we go through the process. The process of searching for something outside of ourselves reveals the truth within ourselves. All the characters in this book, like us, are searching for something, and in the process all are finding themselves. What we should all aspire to do is to continually question, to seek, to “not cease from exploration,” and ultimately, the result of our quest will be to see our original experiences and encounters in new and enlightened ways, to see now what we could not see then (whether due to lack of maturity, contemplation or experience) and to have a full understanding of our experience’s meaning.
Byron's Babbles 
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