“Keepers of the Light”

Try as you may, you can never predict history. You can live it, help write it, learn it, and try as hard as you can to not repeat it. Or maybe some history does beg repeating …

22 years ago last month, on January 19, 1998, I flew to America in search of a new home. I was looking for a better life, opportunities, respect for who I am and for freedom. Nowadays, I sometimes find myself asking if it was all worth it. For the most part, I got most of it. But some things are starting to look like they might turn into the bad, haunting history I left behind … But I can’t despair. I am keeping the light burning in the belief that one day America will again be that beautiful place that was once promised … bountiful, but mostly respectful for all.

Regardless of how kind or not America has been to me in the past 22 years, I always celebrate this anniversary. I celebrate that wild spirit, that courage of a single young woman to want to build a life as she wished she should live it. I usually take a trip which is my favorite present to myself for any occasion. This year the trip was to The Outer Banks of North Carolina and to Manteo. 

It was cold. It was so cold, in fact, that one day it snowed. But it was beautiful! Mountains will forever be my soul’s heaven, but the tranquility of the water is magical too. The richness it hides, the pulsating life … The sunsets are as glorious here as they are in the mountains, for very different reasons …

Mountains make me speechless. Water makes me think.

Although we drove and walked in many a cities during this trip, we found good food and great parks, my favorite spots were The Elizabethan Gardens in Manteo, and the drive all the way down to Cape Hatteras. That’s one of those journeys to “the end of the world.” For us, there was a sun dipping in the water on that end, and we felt like the world was over right then and there and for good. A sort of breathtaking desperation you feel in the pit of your chest when the sun just melts in the water. Will it ever know how to float?!  

Enjoy the picture journey of this trip by clicking the shot below. And in case you’re wondering: I would do it in a heartbeat, again, even knowing what I know now … In the end, it was mostly worth it than not …