A Journey to Find What Was Always Waiting for Us.
The Garden Where Time Stands Still
On a sunny afternoon, she lay on the grass.
The sky seemed larger than usual. Clouds drifted slowly, as though they had nowhere they needed to be.
Ever since childhood, she had loved coming there. It was a place where imagination knew no limits and every path still seemed possible.
Now, after so many years, the garden still awakened something she could never quite explain. It was as if one part of her had remained there, while the rest had wandered off in another direction.
Then she heard a distant train whistle.
She looked up and saw a white train gliding across the hill.
For a few fleeting moments, she rediscovered something she had carried within her as a child.
She recognized that train.
It had always passed that way.
For decades.
While she played, dreamed, and imagined all the adventures she believed one day would be hers.
How many times had she watched it, longing to leave?
How many times had she imagined the unknown waiting just beyond its windows?
Back then, she believed life was an endless landscape of possibilities, and that sooner or later she would set out toward something new.
But whenever she tried to board, something always held her back.
Time passed.
And the train kept passing.
She glanced at her watch.
It was measuring nothing more than the hours, while within her remained all the years that had slipped away unnoticed—and everything she had yet to live.
The whistle echoed once more.
The white train swept across the hill with a speed that seemed to defy time itself.
It never waited.
It never had.
Her eyes followed the fading trail of smoke until it dissolved into the horizon.
Perhaps it was just another train.
Or perhaps it was the very same train that had crossed her path all her life.
And in that moment she understood:
life never slows down while it waits for us.
The Ticket Office of Possibilities
A little while later, she found herself standing before a ticket office.
A suitcase in hand.
Eager for her first journey.
Her heart beat faster.
Without thinking about the consequences.
Destination?
She hadn’t chosen one yet.
Her eyes wandered across an endless array of possibilities.
So many places.
So many paths.
So many stories waiting to be lived.
Each destination seemed to carry the quiet promise of discovery.
Then her gaze came to rest on a destination unlike any other.
Wonderland.
She smiled.
Perhaps because what seemed absurd was precisely what she had been searching for all along.
She bought her ticket.
And left.
The Train That Didn’t Obey the Clock
She never noticed she was the train’s only passenger.
It was a train traveling on a day that appeared on no calendar, at an hour no clock could ever record.
The old locomotive, guided by an unseen hand, moved forward along tracks laid across nothingness.
From the window, she watched the familiar world slowly disappear.
Reality began to dissolve.
Certainties fell away.
What once had shape gradually lost its contours.
Then, without warning, the train plunged into a tunnel.
She wasn’t afraid.
She was curious.
She wanted to discover what lay beyond the emptiness.
A whistle echoed through the darkness, and the train began to slow.
Outside, there was only darkness.
A chill ran through her as she faced something that could not be named.
But before her restless mind could weave an explanation, something unexpected happened.
A rush of adrenaline swept through her.
It wasn’t fear.
It was the thrill of standing before the unknown.
Her mind kept chattering, searching for ready-made answers, old memories, and familiar certainties.
She realized her mind was far too noisy to hear what the moment was trying to reveal.
Then she fixed her eyes on an invisible point in a space that had not yet taken shape.
The place that had simply been waiting for her.
And in that instant, everything became illuminated.
The impossible began to unfold within her.
For the first time, she allowed silence to answer before thought.
The Cheshire Cat and the Invisible Suitcases
Who am I?
A hole opened beneath her.
She fell.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a place where logic seemed to have forgotten it ever existed.
The trees whispered to one another in a language she could not understand. The flowers seemed to watch her every step, while the wind carried scattered fragments of thoughts she wasn’t even sure were her own.
She looked around, searching for something familiar.
Nothing.
Yet, for the first time, nothing did not feel empty.
It felt full of possibilities.
As if it were everything.
That was when she realized she was not alone.
Perched on the branch of a tree that seemed to grow between worlds sat a cat.
Or perhaps it was only a smile that had chosen to wear the shape of a cat.
“You’ve arrived,” he said.
She glanced around.
“Are you talking to me?”
The smile widened.
“Interesting question. Most people ask who I am first. Very few stop to wonder whether they’re the ones being called.”
She studied the mysterious face.
“And who are you?”
“That depends on who’s looking.”
She frowned.
“That doesn’t sound like an answer.”
“My dear traveler, answers are dangerous here in Wonderland. They have a habit of ending what still longs to be discovered.”
She fell silent.
The Cat continued.
“You crossed a great emptiness to get here. But you’re still carrying far too many suitcases.”
She looked down at her hand.
The suitcase was still there.
“I only brought one.”
The Cat laughed.
“I’m not talking about that one.”
She understood.
Some suitcases have no weight at all, yet they occupy every corner of our inner world.
Old fears.
Other people’s expectations.
Borrowed certainties.
Versions of ourselves we were taught we should become.
“And how do I leave them behind?” she asked.
The Cat tilted his head.
“Perhaps you don’t need to leave them behind. Perhaps you only need to discover why you’re still carrying them.”
“You’re rather strange.”
“Aren’t freedom and strangeness close friends?”
Before she could answer, he began to disappear.
First his body.
Then his eyes.
And finally, that impossible smile.
“Wait!” she called. “Where should I go now?”
His voice came from somewhere she could not place.
“To the place you’ve always avoided looking.”
Only then did she realize that, just like her, the Cat moved freely between worlds.
The Mad Hatter and the Time That Stood Still
Am I what I have built… or what I have forgotten?
She followed the path that wasn’t marked.
After a while, she came upon an enormous table.
A tea table.
But there were no ordinary guests.
Teacups wandered from place to place on their own, clocks seemed weary of measuring time, and a man wearing an outrageously large hat sat waiting for her.
“You’re late,” he said the moment he saw her.
“But I didn’t even know I was coming.”
The Mad Hatter smiled.
“That’s precisely the problem with all of you. You spend your lives trying to reach places you never truly chose.”
She sat down.
“Do you always say things that don’t seem to make sense?”
He looked genuinely offended.
“Certainly not.”
He paused.
“Sometimes I say things that make far too much sense.”
She smiled.
The Hatter poured the tea.
She raised the cup to her lips.
She frowned, breathing in its aroma.
“I can’t tell what kind of tea this is.”
“It tastes like whatever you brought to the table.”
Then he leaned forward.
“Tell me… who are you?”
She opened her mouth to answer.
But the question seemed far greater than any name.
Who was she?
A name?
A profession?
The choices she had made?
The expectations she carried?
Or merely a number on a document?
“I’m still trying to find out,” she replied.
The Hatter clapped his hands with delight.
“At last… an intelligent answer.”
She looked puzzled.
“But I didn’t answer anything.”
“Exactly.”
He leaned closer.
“People are always in such a hurry to define themselves that they end up imprisoned by their own definitions.”
A gust of wind swept across the table, scattering leaves over the ground.
Written on them were countless familiar phrases:
“You should…”
“You need to…”
“You have to…”
“You can’t.”
“You’ll never manage.”
“What will people think?”
“You’re a woman.”
“You’re too young.”
“You’re too old.”
She stared at the words.
They felt strangely familiar.
“Where did they come from?”
For the first time, the Hatter grew serious.
“From the place where so many people keep their prisons.”
Without understanding how, she realized she had been understood.
The Caterpillar and The Shape Waiting to Be Born
I am not a finished version of myself. I am always becoming
She continued walking.
Before long, she came upon a small pond where a blue caterpillar rested quietly on a leaf.
She was calm.
Observant.
Unlike anyone else she had met in that extraordinary world.
“Who are you?” the Caterpillar asked.
The question felt strangely familiar.
She smiled.
“It seems everyone here wants to know that.”
“Perhaps because you want to know as well.”
The Caterpillar remained silent for a few moments.
Then she asked,
“Tell me… who were you before you tried to become what everyone expected you to be?”
The question touched something deep within her.
Some questions never reach the ears.
They go straight to the soul.
“I don’t know.”
The Caterpillar smiled.
“Good.”
She looked surprised.
“Good?”
“Yes. The moment you believe you already know who you are, you leave no room for transformation.”
The Caterpillar looked toward the wings still hidden within her.
“Every transformation feels like a loss before it reveals a new form.”
She smiled.
“And every transformation is simply the rediscovery of who has always been there.”
They laughed together.
Then, lifting their faces to the wind, they shouted in unison,
“We want to fly!”
Perhaps growing wasn’t about becoming a finished version of herself.
Perhaps it meant accepting that she would always be becoming.
Perhaps growing wings always seems like madness to those who have never dared to fly.
The Queen of Hearts and the Part That Needed to Be Integrated
What frightens us doesn’t need to be destroyed. It needs to be understood
Further along the path, she heard voices.
Soon she found herself standing before the Queen of Hearts.
The Queen sat upon her throne, surrounded by playing cards that obeyed her every command.
“Who gave you permission to enter?” the Queen demanded.
“No one,” she replied.
The Queen looked startled.
“No one?”
“I simply walked through.”
The Queen rose from her throne.
“Nothing happens here without permission.”
“Only for those who have not yet awakened,” she replied.
The Queen held her gaze.
For a brief moment, it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
It was as though she were looking into a mirror that reflected far more than her own face.
What stood before her was not power.
It was fear disguised as control.
The fear of losing.
The fear of making mistakes.
The fear of not being accepted.
She took a step closer.
“Why do you need to control everything?”
The Queen fell silent.
No one had ever asked her that.
No one had ever dared.
Behind the crown, she no longer looked like a queen.
She looked like someone trying to protect a wound that had never truly healed.
Then she understood.
The Queen had never been standing in her way.
She had been trying to protect her all along.
It was she who had been withholding permission.
She understood then that healing did not require defeating her.
It required integrating her.
The Queen did not need to lose her head.
She needed to find it.
Awakening
She opened her eyes.
The sky was still blue.
The clouds were still drifting lazily across the sky.
She was still lying on the grass.
She smiled.
Perhaps it had all been nothing more than a dream.
Or perhaps some dreams are simply doors we discover when we are finally ready to walk through them.
She rose slowly.
Lewis Carroll’s book still lay upon the grass.
A gentle breeze swept through the garden.
Its pages began to turn.
One after another.
Until the wind carried the book away.
She didn’t look back.
She simply walked on.
Then she heard it.
The whistle of the white train.
But this time, she didn’t run.
She no longer needed to board it.
Because she finally understood:
the true departure had never begun at the station.
It had begun within her.
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