Try to be like the camel

Several years ago my dad and I went to an art show in downtown Santa Fe of works by John Lennon. The piece I liked the best was a colored drawing of a camel walking past a pyramid in the desert. The handwritten caption below it read "The camel dances and having danced moves on." I cut out a black and white copy of it from the newspaper and it has hung on my bulletin board ever since, in several different places. Tonight I was hanging up a few pictures around my apartment and once again posted this in my room. Not only do I like the little camel, but I love the lesson that goes with it. He dances, lives life to its fullest, and then he's not afraid to move on. This is always hard for me. Each time I hang it on a wall I've just finished or left a great time in my life. When I hung it my senior year in Tacoma I had just come back from studying abroad in London, and that was an experience I didn't want to let go of. Then I hung it in Richmond when I had just moved away from my best friends in my beloved Tacoma and had no idea what joys or perils awaited me in Virginia. Now it is happening again. I had an amazing year in Richmond, where I spent a lot of time hanging out with my grandparents, made some great friends, and explored a fun new city. I danced in Richmond. But now it's time to move on, and discover a new dance in Raleigh.