What does it mean when someone we love doesn't come back right away — and no one panics?

Julia Carmen shares a fable from her mother's village in the mountains of Mexico, where messages traveled in the bodies of people — usually children — because there were no phones. When a child came home late from an errand, no one scolded her. The family just smiled and said, "she went for the tamales."

Julia traces the phrase through three generations, grandmother to mother to daughter, and asks the question this episode turns on: what are your tamales? What absorbs you so fully that time disappears — and is that a problem, or is that the medicine?

Find your tamales. Not to escape the task, but to stay alive to what's actually here.

Learn more about The School Without Walls and the Dragonfly Guides:

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• Explore The School Without Walls

Production assistance from Podlad.com and Daypack Digital. Artwork by Olivia Dancel. Dragonfly art by Soul Creative Design.