The past is nothing to run from or fear. Wholeness, they say, and I think about it. Nothing back there to fly from in fright, nothing apart, nothing to meet with shame or trepidation or run from like a monster threat in knowing silent lurking hot pursuit down a long dark corridor around the corner of which you’ve just turned and you think you can hear him back there breathing, hear his sneaking footfalls, feels how he knows you, hoping there’s a room to duck into and a door to lock forever before he sees you. None of that. Be there, be here, be with all of it because it’s all with you. In the open, in the light, in the shadows, for that matter, and most of it doesn’t.

Somewhere back there you said hello and I told myself it was ok to dream.

In the past are things like this, too, I remind myself.