In a recent phone conversation, which started out expectedly like so many others, there was a moment of clarity.  A split second.  The person thousands of miles away pinpointed a proverb that seems fitting to particularize my history and life in the now.  In an undoubtful tone, came the words “it’s bashert.”  There it was, the word dissolving into my body.  Simultaneously both people knowing a proper cord had been stroked.  There was a gentle breath of restoration.  While I can not remember the rest of the dialog of the call, it was all that need to be said.

The word bashert in yiddish means destiny.  And can also be used to express fate, or a shift in ones life cycle.  While I am not a going to launch into a drippy diatribe of how when one door closes another door opens, I will say my life has been a series of auspicious happenings that could only be described by this divine word.

An early morning American Airlines flight, from the north east region of Brazil, changed forever my path.  The journey started from one woman’s arms; living in the periphery community of a large city dominated by the cattle industry, to another woman’s arms; in a richly conservative upstate New York town influenced by home grown multi-national companies.  This transition and in some ways combination sprouted the shrewd taste and point of view I have today.

To be continued . . .