time, the arrow.

Jeanne once wrote: "If time is an arrow, we dance along a razor-thin line of uncertainty."

Mellow conversation over medium-rare filet mignon and Shiraz Cabernet. It's a frigid night in Sydney. We spent an afternoon wandering along the cliffs and beaches of Clovelley, Coogee and Maroubra, the eastern beaches of Sydney. By the shoreline, we found a narrow pathway between a tidal pool and a concrete wall, and Jeanne urges me to run alongside with her before another onslaught of waves comes to drench us. "Come on, it won't get us here!" she shouts at me cheerfully, as if the ocean is a writhing, seething monster that we can cleverly outthink and escape from.

Standing upon cliffs overlooking the ocean often makes me feel awestruck and peaceful, but now with the wind whipping around my heels, I feel unstable and unsteady. I do not trust the edge, and feel as though the wind would topple me over the edge without a thought.

And time is the same. Often, I marvel and wonder at its passing, but tonight I am wary to look out over the edge.

And now we are sitting at our dining room table, feeling melancholy and reflective.

"I was thinking about this lately. But. It seems that life is just a series of moments that disappear as soon as they're experienced. We waste so much time looking to the past or looking toward the future. We so rarely actually live in the present." Jeanne looks at me. "I want to enjoy being in Sydney NOW."

I look around and try to remember this moment. The table we sit at, the chill in the air from the screen door that was previously slid open. The last embers of warmth from the gas grill on the porch have dispersed, swallowed up by the wintry air. The mood of contemplation that seems to settle around us like a blanket while we recover from the biting cold. The inevitably of moments slipping away, the present becoming the past, the moment its existence is acknowledged and understood.

The other night, Jeanne said something about Walter being here feeling like three lifetimes ago.

I know what she means.

Here, in Australia, the phases and times keep shifting. First, Walter was here, then he wasn't. With us, the three of us were driving from city to city, checking into the next hostel, splitting meals, seeing the next sight--and then he was gone, and we found ourselves back in the same city where we had started. We lived under cold and rain near Maroubra Beach. I learned how to light a gas stove, and a baby would wake us every morning with her tiny cries and tiny hugs, and we could always count on Russia for a visit. The scenery changed again, and we live in a bright, sundrenched room and plan meals and drink wine. We don our boots and coats, and we sit on trains and wander through familiar streets.. The Russian doesn't come around as much, giving way to a friendly Egyptian and Italian.

Four months ago, this church was merely an event. Now, it is a living, breathing mass of a memory of warmth and friendly introductions, shared meals and conversation, time spent and help freely given, pounding drums and piercing electric guitars elevate the room, while truth is sung and declared by a crowd of worshippers. Yes, the lights are brightly colored, but the words resonate and lift my soul, for they ring true when I see kindness and sacrifice manifested in people's actions and hearts. I see the shift occurring, a shift that now seems to pivotal and clear.

But even this feeling and its vibrancy shall pass.

A few days from now, we'll be in Fiji and Australia will have seemed like a dream. And a week from then, we'll be back in Orlando. And once the dust settles from our triumphant return, we'll settle back into a routine and the thrill of being back home will pass and there will just be nothing to tether me to the past.

And who knows what will unfold upon our return.

"With so much uncertainty, life becomes that much more frightening, and that much more interesting."

"What do you mean exactly?"

"I just mean that every time we've been in this place of uncertainty, not knowing where we were going to live, even up to a month ago, not knowing we'd be back in Orlando so soon, there's always been this unknown. It's scary, but it makes life that much more interesting or exciting."

I look around the room, I look at Jeanne. I will myself to memorize how fragile this moment is. I hold it within the palm of my hand, tuck it away for later.