Duffin - The eagle and the dragon: a story of strength and reinvention

As Ganya and I made our way toward the edge of the ridge, dusk began to fall. As we approached our destination, the landscape opened up into a meadow with a large rock standing at its edge.

The meadow contrasted beautifully with the oak trees. It was summertime in northern California and the hills were golden. The grass, feeling the effects of months without rain, was brown, but the leaves of the oak trees were a glorious green.

Ganya and I scrambled up the twenty - foot rock and settled ourselves at the top. Ahead of us, the rock dropped away thirty or forty feet, giving us a tremendous view across the valley. From this vantage point, we lay on the rock and waited for the sun to set.

As the sun dropped below the horizon and night fell, we saw lights from faraway towns begin to flicker in the valley. Up in the mountains where we were, there were no lights, so the moon and the stars shone brightly above us. We felt miles from civilization of any kind.

Ganya and I lay back and stared at the night sky, chatting about the things in front of us; the moon, the stars, and distant galaxies. We wondered how far away they were and what they were like. What was going on in those other galaxies?

As we lay on the peak, our thoughts turned to the people in the nearest town. What was life like for them? We could see the lights, but we had no idea how it felt to live in a city. To our young eyes, this small town of about ten thousand people seemed as strange and exotic as the distant celestial bodies. Our days were full of running around the mountains, digging holes and making forts, chasing small animals, and enjoying the little piece of the world we called home.

The lights sparkled before us, promises of a world neither of us understood. We didnt know that the town was small by urban standards. To us, it was a gigantic city, an entirely different world.

Darkness set in, and Ganya and I knew it was time to head back. We pulled out our shared flashlight, scrambled down from the rock, and made our way back to the homestead. There were no roads leading to the house, only backwoods trails and secret routes. We were only four or five, but we roamed freely around the mountains and knew them like the backs of our hands.

On our way home, we passed through another couple of meadows. One contained the rusted - out frame of an antique vehicle. Only the outer frame survived: the interior had rotted away years before. When it was light out, Ganya and I sometimes used it as a place to play. I never did find out how it came to lie abandoned in those fields.

Ganya and his parents had lived on the land in teepees for a couple of years, and they had begun to build a more permanent home. Over a basic framework, the outside of the house was sheeted with plywood. The inside was bare, nothing but wood and a few installations. It didnt have electricity or running water. The focal point was a large living room whose windows overlooked another large meadow, which sat below the house. My mother, my brother, Pat, my moms boyfriend, and I had recently moved in with them, sharing their half - built home in the northern Californian mountains.

As we approached the house, we saw both our families clustered around the main living room, illuminated by candlelight, talking late into the night.

We wandered in, worked our way upstairs, climbed into our sleeping bags, and listened from the edge of the stairwell as our parents discussed politics, religion, spirituality, and every other subject under the sun. We were an eager audience as they ranted, discoursed, and tried to figure out solutions to the worlds problems.

As we listened, we also talked. What was going on in those other galaxies? What was going on in those towns we could see from our rock?

Ganya, my best childhood friend, and I playing on the side of Sue and Toms Mountain outside Ukiah, California.

I felt like an outsider for much of my childhood. Growing up in the mountains, disconnected from the lives most people live, I felt a mixture of emotions.

Sometimes I was lonely, knowing that I was so isolated from much of the world. On the rare occasions my family and I visited towns or caught glimpses of a television, I felt a sense of awe mingled with jealousy as I imagined the lives others lived, the opportunities they enjoyed, the excitement they felt.

I wondered what it would be like to live in a town. Could I be comfortable living like the people I saw on my brief visits to urban environments? Would I be able to fit in, or was their experience so far removed from my own that I would feel like an outsider? Would city dwellers accept me, or would they feel that I wasnt one of them? Would I always feel different?

Im sure youve felt like an outsider. Whatever your history, we all know the feeling of being separate from others. We all know what its like to believe that we dont belong, that we are excluded. Ive yet to meet anyone who has never known the anxiety and uncertainty of feeling like an outsider.

Those emotions can have a major impact on our lives. They can strongly influence our performance and our success, which is why we need to develop skills to manage them, and to manage the thought patterns they can lead to.

Its all too easy to become so isolated that we begin to lose sight of our resources. Every obstacle we face looks overwhelmingly large, and we dont know where to turn for support. Without resources or people who we can lean on, we may feel that the troubles of the world are on our shoulders.