by LJ Frank

my life began in the middle of a paragraph. I write about it in my currently unpublished literary memoir titled Writer in Exile.

The metaphoric event occurred in the back seat of a well-worn 1936 Ford. My mother confided in me. She was in a conversation with her older sister. I was born in the middle of that conversation. I figure I have a legitimate excuse for the nature of my conversations. Learning is situational. Circumstance has prevailed in my life. Perhaps it’s Karma.

Decades later, after voyaging around the world I decided the voyage of the mind can transcend the physical trekking of experience. Though both can be perilous, exhausting, yet uplifting, and an awakening. If there was a plot or reason for my existence it was never revealed to me. Does anyone actually know other than poets?

I have visited many parts of the world both in body and mind and missed a few things during my treks, experiences, and hints of fleeting pleasures amid the creative, colorful, and not so colorful excursions. I made some questionable turns. Detours. And yet there were showers of insight from the clouds and the sunshine.

Along the way, I found that romance is more a state of mind than a dependable reality. In some cases, I was living another’s perception of reality and not my own.  Situation always inserts itself regardless of wish.

No matter what soil I set foot upon I witnessed the human face and heart. There were others who were birthed in some timeless, distant conversation. And yet, I found humor in remote ports, along with the struggles, tears, smiles, love, charity, pain, and yes, hope; and a trust that almost had a parasitic value etched in the lines and crevices of those human faces.

And now? My Intent is to be resilient, and stay intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally curious until I am no longer able.