How Many Words is a Picture Worth?

Because humans are mostly visual, I agree that it’s easier to show something in a picture than to describe it with words. But is a picture really worth a thousand words? I suppose it depends on the picture.

Hence my current challenge. My readers know that I love a challenge. So I decided to go on an endless scroll through Unsplash.com until I saw a picture that “spoke to me” and tell the story I see in it.

So this was it. This is where she ended up. After being torn from the north and forced to live in the tropics from her teens until her sixties. Four decades of yearning to live in the North. To experience the seasons again. To feel how she felt when she was thirteen and winter was approaching.

In a million years it would never have occurred to her that it would be in Asia. In truth, she never specified where she wanted to go, as long as it was a safe place to live, of course, the seasons.

She always believed the coming of the seasons brought about a prevalent energy that highly influenced her life. She could literally smell it in the air. These energies invited her to grow and expand to a higher potential throughout the year. It was as if the earth were supporting her in her growth and evolution.

It wasn’t long before she realized that life in the tropics did not provide the splendor of the changing seasons. It was like a hamster wheel of this year’s summer and last year’s summer.

But she had met her husband there and they enjoyed 30+ years of marriage until his death did them part. Still many times yearning for the seasons. Many times, much like the song, she handled the seasons of her life like sailing the changing ocean tides.

Without him by her side, she felt somehow disengaged and free to choose the remainder of her existence on this earth.She was older now and hardships with a long-lasting impact had made her bolder. She overcame the struggles in her life and transformed them into strengths.

After so many years, she remained somehow tethered to the tropics, she wandered from place to place — all the while longing to be somewhere else. Could people see the distance in her eyes?

The hiking trip to Taiwan had changed the game for her. Her stay in the American sector of Heping District, Taichung, Taiwan had been memorable if not unforgettable. The hiking was safe and the scenery was spectacular. So much so that she couldn’t get it out of her mind for months thereafter. She had not realized how many English speaking expats resided in the area.

The struggles of life had not impeded her spirit — in fact, they taught her resilience. It seems the child within her heart really did rise above and, for many months, she could not get that place out of her mind and longed to go back.

She learned that happiness could be achieved on her own and she looked to herself, not others, for love. She learned that loneliness teaches you self-sufficiency and embraced the power of gratitude, a concept in which she had always strongly believed.

So much so that when her “shot in the dark” online inquiry about part-time work at one of the inns in the English speaking area there resulted in an offer, she packed up her life and left.

So this is where she ended up after four decades of yearning — experiencing the seasons again. Feeling like she felt when she was thirteen and winter was approaching. To most people, just a nondescript woman crossing the street.