Purpose Asia

         I sit in my car on a quiet street in a neighborhood near my house. The grey road laps around the brown feet of the trees, their long arms reaching skyward with sleeves of green, gold and fiery red. The pale blue of the sky washes over all as a breeze rustles the tawny heads of the trees. Leaves drop to my car and inside like rain falling through open windows. My heart squeezes in my chest. Mama and I would have sat on this street and admired the colors, savored the chill in the air and the Autumn scents.  But here I am alone, missing her so much I can hardly breathe. I think that's what's making Fall harder this year, and harder to enjoy. I feel like my eyes see the colors but my spirit isn't registering them like I usually do. I can describe them, even beautifully, but I feel like they come with a pinch rather than a warmth. Probably because I too feel that my spirit is in its own kind of Autumn and the winds are stripping my soul of...

Orb Weaver web outside my house in Papua New Guinea after a storm Silver threads spanned the distance like a frail bridge. Diamonds gleamed along their lengths and shimmered in the pale light coming through the mist. What had been an invisible abode was now a colossal cathedral of glittering architecture that defied the genius of the greatest architects. I stood in awe as I gazed at the spiders’ webs outside my front door. They looked so fragile and delicate in the morning light and tiny drops of dew covered each slender thread as the owner of each abode hung silently from the center. But I knew better. The day before I had been sitting in my house when a fierce storm had swept down over my roof and buffeted these webs with the force of a gale. It clawed at the webs mercilessly with wind and beat down on them with pounding rain. But the webs were unmoved. They bent, twisted and swayed with the wind but they were not destroyed. Even more astounding, the spiders at t...