Over a decade ago, when these extraordinary and inexplicable troubles began, I imagined that it was an interlude or caesura in the narrative in which a bit of heroism would be required, and I did try to rise to the event in the manner of an intrepid hero. At least to my own mind, I pulled it off rather well -- despite sometimes going 4-5 days without sleep, ill-fitting shoes, thin nutrition, etc.
Now, after all of these years, it's clear that the event is not an interlude or a caesura. I've kept to the heroism -- no vices, no mendicancy, firm physical, spiritual, and mental discipline. But it's clear that the original narrative, the one in which I grew up and received my education, and made a solid go at three professions, is no longer the story.
It must be a new story, then, or nothing at all. I've set the task of getting back to southern Europe, and I will make that happen, despite the fact that circumstances seem to be conspiring to keep me just shy of the resources required to do it responsibly. The event becomes the story, and the narrative was a simply a dream of childhood. Onward.