I walk at my own
Pace and don’t try to keep up
With you anymore.




The foundational myth of my lifetime has always been The Pied Piper.

I was the child who could not keep up and was left behind. The loss felt excruciating. I never wanted to feel it again, so I strove to ‘keep up’ but believed in my heart of hearts that I couldn’t. And even at a very young age, I was also aware of a powerful irony embedded in the tale. It was the lame child, the one who couldn’t keep up, that survived to tell the tale. All the other children ‘disappeared’ along with the Piper.

And as I read the various versions of the myth today, it actually sounds like there may have been three children who could not keep up for one reason or another. One was lame, one was deaf (and could not hear the flute), and one was blind (so could not see where to go). They could not follow the charismatic, magical piper, and were saved.

I like that version and am coming to embrace it fully as my foundational myth — a tale of shared survival and triumph!