An unsettling Ache

About 2 weeks ago, I walked around a used book store.  I was looking for a few paperbacks to take with me on the plane.  I am traveling to Ghana, West Africa in 2 weeks.  I am completely terrified of making this trip.  Yet, I go.
I realized that the books I was looking at were murder mysteries and other dark books.  I very much so have a tendency to look into dark places.  It finally hit me that this trip meant something different for me.  I needed an uplifting book and the first name that came to me was Maya Angelou.  The owner went and found a book I had never heard of.  I've never actually read any of Dr. Angelou's books.  I've had her poems pasted on my wall before, but never read an entire book.  The book is titled  All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes.  The price on the cover was $20 because it is a first edition.  I don't have extra money and didn't want to pay that much, until I looked at the inside cover.
          'In this continuation, Angelou relates how she joins a "colony" of Black American expatriates in                      Ghana-only to discover "you can't go home again."'

I looked at the man and told him that I will be leaving for Ghana soon and I guess I need to buy the book.  "I guess you were meant to have this book, I just got it in on Friday."  He hadn't seen one of her books for years.  Now I had it.

The title of the book spoke to this ache I've had for many years.  It is an ache to explore the unknown, to tap into a larger family in the world.  This trip seems to be a manifestation of that ache.  Over the past few weeks, I've met some very real and personal anxieties.  I had to get a shot, I had to mail off things, I had to spend money on myself.  I've had to buy clothes, plan things.  I avoid all of these things, yet I cannot escape. This process is changing me.  What does that mean?

Maya Angelou died yesterday.  I've been looking at facebook posts about her all morning and sobbing.  A great mother has left this earth.  We mourn together.

Now, it is our turn to take her words and go about the business of loving each other and lifting each other up.   I guess I'm going to put on my traveling shoes.