Joan

by Katherine J. Chen

This must be what happens when you leave your home, travel, and see the world. Little by little, you begin to change, even if you are not aware of it. What was once alien becomes familiar: foreign tongues, the music of strange instruments, the vagaries of the sea. Slowly you alter until the very stars that spin in the heavens are as familiar to you as the lines of your own hand. But first you must step out your front door. You must leave behind what you know and possibly what you love. You must be willing to lose every inch of yourself, for the next time you look into a stream or a mirror, which may be weeks, years, or half a lifetime from now, you will not recognize your reflection. You must risk this much in order to gain what the world is ready to offer.

You must make your own map of the world.

You cannot simply follow in another’s footsteps, as though life were a complicated dance, every turn and twist memorized and prepared for ahead of time. There are many things in the world one can inherit: money, land, power, a crown. But an adventure is not one of them; you must make your own journey.

It is his last lesson to Joan: how you should approach life when its fists are pummeling you. Head up. Shoulders back. Your heart may be breaking, but you don’t let it show, not on your face or in your eyes. You walk with a spring in your step toward a destination yet unknown. And your next warm meal may be hours or days away, your next bed in an inn or in a wet ditch, but in your mouth is the taste of cinnamon. The past is the past, and the dead, buried in their shrouds, must always be left behind.