Leaving the city, I’m a gray cloud made of workday dust and the worry of being late. I crawl into the bus, because I missed the train, in the careless trample of a hundred feet trying to get away.
‘But, why?’ 
“Don’t ask why. Just keep moving,” the road tells me. I submit.
The city fades. Lines of windows flashing television screens get slowly replaced by dancing shadows of trees. Glimpses of paddies emerge earthly green, cast into temporary pools of yellow by the lamps dotting the streets. With that, I find that I’m healed—from the Monday-to-Friday, from the apathy of the herd. I’m reconciled with the world.
On the road, I’m reborn. I’m a bird taking off from the street wire to spread my wings over the holy mountain. The air is a song. 
I’m home, long before home.
.
.
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✺  2008, Rebirth Road, framed mixed media art, Dhammika Perera. Sri Lanka.
✺  Artist Dhammika Perera’s hometown is by the tranquil inland hills and rivers of Sri Lanka with a view of the sacred Sripāda mount. From here, he had to take a long daily commute to Colombo for his day job as a teacher at the University of Visual Arts. Talking about those years spent in commute, Dhammika says he remembers the healing in the journey. The experience of growing past the city’s exhaustion and finding himself changed in the familiar route home, being reborn through the journey, stayed with Dhammika long after he stopped teaching. It was this experience that he captured through this beautiful piece of art which tells a story of the transformative magic of journeying.