_so much of the curve of earth your hands pressed against her back_ When the rain comes, there is always a sense of relief, as if the world would pause from shining for a moment so the eyes and the whole of you can rest. And maybe it is in those pauses that there is a moment of clarity. You are searching and searching, always thinking that on the next walk, the next climb, the next journey, the answer would be revealed to you. But you realize at some point that maybe the answer is not out there. Not in figures cast in silhouette. Not in the texture of a place or in the chanting at the temple, not in the fortune teller's reading, not in the fragrance of that someone whose hands you held just before midnight. You understand the curve of the earth and that each step you take brings you closer only to where you started. (The Minute Man Statue by Daniel Chester French, 1874, on the banks of the Concord River by Old North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts)