I sat on bedrock of sandstone, and I lay resting, with my thoughts to myself, staring at a ever burning fire. I spent hours, just gazing at the intricate dances, and patterns flashing across the air. I was hypnotized. Slowly, I strained my eyes, and I glared past the fire, and through the flames, I saw the dim outline of four people sitting against a wall, silent as the dawn. They sat there like sentinels of the desert, gazing down into the fire very calmly, not moving a muscle. The fire illuminated their eyes, giving them a sinister glow. I spent hours, staring curiously at those peop0le, and they did nothing, but return the look. We sat there, glaring at each other for hours. Not once did I shift my gaze, and not once did those glowing eyes change position. The embers dimmed, and I thought silently to myself. They were very different. They were unlike me, and they had a complete different culture of their own. They were unique, and as much as I felt separated from these people lying across from me in the fire, I felt like I had a strange bond with them. I didn’t know them, I didn’t feel them, and I didn’t act in any way like them. I knew I was as different to them, as they were to me. I strained my eyes, and I looked into their faces. Old, dark skinned, dressed in flowing white robes, and white turbans on their heads. They were sitting, quiet as dawn, legs propped up by a small stone. They stood there silently, like sentinels, on another side of a fire, with their eyes, fixed on me. For hours, our eyes met, and we looked into each other, and I tried to understand them. I tried to think like them, and I tried to be them. For a small amount of time, I wanted to leave myself, leave my life and my past, and live as another person, live another culture. I wanted to feel, as another person. I wanted to feel, and experience, cultures that I belived didn’t exist, that didn’t think were out there. I wanted to know, how it felt, to live a life, in a different aspect, of living it. I wanted to learn, how to live life in the moment, not to think about what comes next, not to have life planned. I wanted to see, what it was like, to live with life focused on fire, life focused solely on walking for the sake of walking. I wanted to experience the life of a Bedouin, because I knew it was so different form mine. Because I knew the perspective on life would be so different.

A couple days passed, and I began to think like a different person. I forgot about what my life was back In America, and I lived as a person, who wandered the desert. Instead of thinking, about how different we were, my small bond grew, and grew, until I no longer felt, that there was a large difference, between me and the strange people around me. They were no longer strange. I adapted to their customs, and I became one of them. I began to open my mind, to think like a Bedouin, and I soon felt, one with a culture, so bizarre to me. For a small period of time, my life changed, as I lived in a world of culture, in a world of unknowing. I bonded so strongly, with these people, that I felt that I became a part of that desert. I was one with the Culture. One with a different Life. One with the Bedouins. In this small time, I realized, so much about true culture. I learned that such a difference in life existed in the life I believed as my own. In little time, I had forgotten about my life across seas, and I began living a life that was completely different. I was one. I learned what it was like to be like them. Those people once so strange, lying across that fire. I gained, a completely different view, which I had never fathomed to think of. I learned a new aspect of life, and now I could look upon two. I had my own, my life that I lived back home, and a new life, which I learned existed. A life of living, for the sake of just living. A life of not knowing a second of the future, and not caring about the past. Just a life of the present, and the beauty of being there.

I stared into the flames of a hypnotizing fire, and I sat down, with my back against a wall of stone. I glared at the magnificent dances, and flares, that the fire brought up, the wondrous playful pictures, and hues of red yellow, and orange. I stared into that fire, and next to me, four people, stared warmly into that same fire. Four people I used to deem so strange. Old, dark skinned, dressed in flowing white robes, and white turbans on their heads. Four people, I never knew existed. Four people, which I sat across from, in the last fire I had been resting by. Now, I sat among them. One turned his eyes, and gazed away from the fire onto me, with large brown irises. He stared at me, with those eyes of deep wisdom, love and compassion, and he simply smiled. All his joy, put into that smile, a smile meant for me. I returned him the same smile, with all the meaning I could put behind it. No words. Our languages were worlds apart. No sounds. Nothing. We simply communicated with a gesture that meant so much for me, and for him. I was bonded with them. With these graceful, and amazing people, that I lived alongside, for not much time. I could not thank them enough, silently for making this bond. For letting me see the cultures out there in this world. We reverted our stares to the burning passionate fire. All of us, sat there for hours, until the last embers flickered out. I closed my eyes, and for some time, my soul was at rest, with knowing my mind enjoyed such a different culture. I was One. One with the people I deemed so strange. One with a single of the many cultures of the world. One with the Bedouins. One with myself.