The hour before sunset on Saturday, I stood outside the Synagogue de Dijon. The lights were on in an auxiliary building, but the temple itself was dark, its stone walls silent. No one entered, no one left. Either the entrance is hidden, or there are no Jews left in Burgundy—neither would surprise me. I’d wanted to attend services, impious as I am. It was boredom, maybe, or isolation, or that need for a feeling of purpose that knocks, lightly, on these March days when the rain never stops.
This week last year, in Portugal, the first of a strange series of events would occur—events that would take me halfway around the world, that would forever change how I live, what I do, who I am. This week last year, I stood in awe of the terraced vines of the Douro, and I met people who would change my life forever—and for the better, though it would take betrayals, regrets, and a hundred sunsets before I figured that out.
Regret. It leads me to wonder, in these odd duplicitous moments, what might have been were I a more courageous man, a better man, a luckier man. For the chance to plant one kiss, pull one punch, run one last morning with my grandfather, what would I not give? And yet, I am living in Burgundy, I am writing today, because of the move I did not make, the punch I did not pull, because my Papa is no longer running beside me.
Regret is powerful, but regret is at odds with destiny. Therefore, like the leaf in the brook in the meditation, regret must be acknowledged, then allowed to float downstream, out of focus, into the past.
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