Beginnings and Endings (Day 17)

I meet a young gentleman walking with a bag like mine, in the opposite direction.
He stops and we chat. He asks if I am walking the Thames path, I said
“Yes!”
"Oh! You have not so far to go then!"
“Not too far!” I chuckled.
I ask him likewise. Yes, he started from the source yesterday. For him, in the youth of his journey, those streams which dwindle for me, will be his energetic beginning. The brooks will gather strength alongside him, and flow, mighty to the sea. It makes me smile to think about what processes he will now go through. What he will see and what he will think along the way. In many cultures, life moves in spirals, in a great wheel that gives all and takes all in time. Life follows death follows life, and seasons wither and bloom. As this man and I walk our paths, the beginning and the end of the cycle, meet once again, greeting each other as they trade places.

pen and digital manipulation