The necessary (written in Latvia)

Some things in life are not necessary, but there are certain things in life that you just cannot survive without. Latvia is one of those things that without it, I am not really living. There was a time in my life, a majority of it actually, that I didn't know Latvia, but my world was so small--barely even there. Now my heart has been opened, wide open, to the Baltics--and I see life in a diffrent light: it is more massive, too much...there is too much that can be done.
Lithuania taught me nothing, that nothing can be everything...and all that makes any difference and has any meaning. Living in the Post-soviet world has been of two most difficult challenges in my life. but it is the type of difficult that you realize only in hindsight. Suvrival mode kicked in and my mind kept telling me, "you can make it through this." But now when I gaze back I see that at some point there was a change in my thinking. I didn't realize it consciencely, I don't know if I even have now (or if I can).
But something, or some one, in me caused a feeling of home, or comfort--or better yet understanding. Maybe just a flash second of understanding--but it was long enough to plant a seed of love.
With even just a small ration of water, despite the lack of nurture, the plant grew all the more stronger--it grew in the same way that determination grew in the people of this country...and now after it is all over, rather than death, this tree of love has blossomed fully. It speaks softly to me, through its beauty--whipsering loudly that, "no, this is not the end. this, my dear, is only the first blossom--as the summer comes, and goes, so must the flower fade away and yet the tree lives on." Through the winter, especially the harsh winters (like that of Lithuania) the tree learns endurance and perseverance--it learns to wait patiently through the cold and wet times, and then with greater beauty, as nothing ever before of its kind, it reveals a more glorius spring, one that cannot fade.
and so no I will wait for this spring: months, years perhaps even til Heaven and yet I do not wait in vain--for I know it will come.

Yet in Latvia I have discovered something of a different nature. Peole that are cautious to share with strangers, but when they open to you, it is with arms wide open. Here there is hope, there is life, a new energy--one that is borne from oppression, but grows and is not bitter about the past, but looks to the prsent and upward toward the future. People are alive in Latvia and there is home. In Latvia, I have found something necessary to my life. People--friends--and a kindred spirit.
"But if the sky can crack,
there must be someway back to loving all we love." U2 (electrical storm)