Love’s Labyrinth Lost

The re-entry that left me in the wilderness

The author (second from left) with some fellow Peace Corps trainees in Pokhara, shortly before the evacuation

“We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero path”

-Joseph Campbell

“Have you been to China? Do you feel sick?”

Two mask-less police officers in Boston International were asking a line of returnees those questions as a blended queue of people waited their turn to hear them. It was March 22nd, 2020, the height of covid confusion, and my 27th birthday. The world I was re-entering was unrecognizable, and most of me hadn’t returned.

“Here’s my passport. I haven’t been to China. No, I don’t feel sick.”

“Welcome home.”

When Daedalus the inventor was looking for a way to contain the Minotaur, he drew inspiration from watching princess Ariadne perform the dance of cranes. In the sand beneath her, he saw a pattern of spirals that would solve his problem. Daedalus built the Labyrinth that caused so much Athenian suffering from the outline Ariadne’s dance had left behind.

When the time came for prince Theseus to enter the Labyrinth and kill the Minotaur, ending the cycle of suffering for his people, Ariadne gave him a ball of golden thread…