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After spending hours on a dusty dry road, at an airport gate or stuck inside writing life seems boring. It seems like there's nothing interesting to do and see. But in reality, these are where those tantalizing stories begin. The ones where you spend hours thinking of the perfect word, trying to craft an image that translates into a painting in front of the reader's eyes. Really, this when you think of the people you met, the stories they told you and the worlds they let you into. Every person, every community and every custom stays with you in some way. Every guide and every monument and every view. But few really change you. Few encourage you to reach far down into your soul, take it out, give it a shake, listen to it, study it, polish it, and return it as the new jewel it is; fashioned by the journey you just took. Few communities see and understand the importance of a person's soul, how it shapes a person, their words and their actions. This is where Sophia comes into my painting. My friend from Sri Lanka. Actually, I think friend is the wrong word, she was a leader, a guide, a path into another life. It's always with hindsight that you realise the importance of someone or something, and with hindsight, I realise her importance. It wasn't what she showed me so much, but the importance of what she showed me. We met at the entrance of a forest. She seemed to know where she was going and what she was doing. I asked her where she was going, she told me she was here to pay respect and pray. The soft amber reflection from the trees above illuminated her face as she talked. I was intrigued. What religion and what respects? I took my chance, you have to or you'll never live. I asked her if I could come with and she agreed. We walked off the path, over broken tree stumps where new residents now lived, over the branches of said trees and past thousands of creatures of all shapes and sizes. To even get near the different colours I saw I'd have to repeat Joseph's song about his coat of many colours. But that's not what I learned, that's not why this journey is so special to me. Really, it was what we were walking to. After an hour or so of talking, Sophia explaining to me what and who was around us, we came to a clearing. The path became clear and the trees separated. And there, right in front of us two trees seemed to be perfectly fashioned into the shapes of a chair. The branches sulked away from the usual upright position and instead sulked back. They curved down and grew out, perfectly to fit a person. We both sat in silence, engulfed by what seemed infinite forest around us. Sat in harmony with all the other creatures, big and small, around us. That is when I began to realise I could go on all the wellness retreats I wanted to, drink as many kale smoothies as I wanted to. But nothing would be near the self-discovery and life reevaluation this was. Sitting in silence, surrounded by nature as a stranger I've just met prays. Thanking for the life they lost, and the one they've just found. We spent hours together after this moment, talking, laughing, exploring -mainly on my behalf, Sophia knew her way- but nothing came close to that intimacy we shared in the silence. That's when she told me, in her community they value silence. Where you get to know one another when you're respecting your thoughts. It gave me a sense of worth, that my thoughts and even my presence were valued. So now I find my solace in silence. I think of Sophia, her unspoken words and how that was and is far more meaningful than anything I can pay for. When I spend hours on my own, I'm no longer alone, I'm with myself and my thoughts.