They never told me just what to write, only to "keep track". I often wonder if to some that meant keeping only dates of births and deaths, of landmarks, successes and failures along the road, like the cover of a Bible on a shelf. To others, I imagine it meant to record the minutes as if in a corporate meeting, so that all moments be not lost, all conversations searchable later, and nothing forgotten.

I myself "keep track" simply by this, committing my inner thoughts and observations to paper, for so long as such parchment survives in this world.

I write with no expectation that my words should last "forever", though I believe some I travel with assume falsely that they will. Has this lesson in our smallness, our insignificance, gone unlearned to many even still? That nothing we as "humans" do will ever remain for eternity, except perhaps our own inner evolutions, as that is probably the only thing we can truly pass down through our generations of procreation, an evolution of creation.

Perhaps we now move on so slowly, so consistently, so sorrowfully yet hopefully onward, to a new creation. Perhaps these words really could survive at least long enough to remind us, once in our new home somewhere, how far we have come, what we have fought and defeated, and how even just a few of us remaining continues our whole species to continue to survive. Perhaps our evolution could not continue in the situation we had put ourselves in for so very long. Has history not taught that one must die to be reborn? And that this 'death' is not always the impending fearful end of our lives that we may think it is?

We have all died now. In one way or another. The death of 'normalcy'. The death of all we knew to be true for so very long. The death of our way of life, until recently. The death of loved ones, of routine, of government, of security, of stability. The death of what were our homes, up there in the now snow-covered north. Even the death of the weather and nature's patterns we thought we could so easily predict with our 'science'. Probably the same 'science' that messed it all up.

Now we walk and walk and walk. Like corpses suffering through the trials of the underworld, we walk. Onward, to our rebirths.

They asked me to be the one to keep a record, once the reality of "home' no longer being behind us, but somewhere ahead still, finally sank in.

I think they asked me to write it, as the only true baggage I carried out of our pasts were journals & newspapers that could one day remind us where we started, or where we ended, or both in one. No one ever asked me to read a word from my luggage, as if remembering so soon would still cut too deeply. But someday they will.

And we all seemed to agree that a record of our present journey ought be kept, though our reasons for such opinions surely did not.

in the beginning, there were but pieces...

The problem was water, so rare to find any safe enough to drink. So we kept moving, kept hoping the next place would be the spot. A place we could find all we need, to settle, safely. Hoping just maybe this time.

Walking for long periods of time can often lead to reflection. So for vast portions of time we walked in silence. Pairs and singles, carts and creatures, dogs, horses, even an alpaca.

There were children with us, of course, who, for the most part, kept together during the days, as children do.

The nights held singing; and now and then, should new love or new life be born, even dancing.

No matter how hard things seemed, or how tempting the idea of giving up became, suddenly the river of children would mob by in laughter, or rainbows after raging storms might fill the sky, and somehow tired bones lightened, heavy hearts lifted, just that little bit more to keep sore feet walking. Ever on. To water. To a new home.