When I emerge from the temple of Rohona wearing my new mask, my clan has already left.
Glidings come in seasons, and for the Ibexii it coincides with the grazing season; it is part function, part symbol: a wanderer's soul is nourished by travel, just as goats must wander from one scrubland to the next. By our nomadic nature we are all already wanderers, even before our Gliding.
Driss has been busy organizing that; though he's so scattered sometimes I half-expected to find my clan members still flitting about when I came back, hurrying to hide because they were running behind. Still, I suppose Driss pulls through when it counts--and despite my frustration, the fact that he spaced on my bike meant I got the privilege of building her myself.
They say it eases the pain of parting when no one is there to see you off. I suppose in a way that's true. A clean cut--just in case you never come back. It isn't like that for every clan, but the insular seclusion of the Ibexii (and our relatively smaller group size and nomadic lifestyle) prizes a certain resilience to separation a little more highly than do other clans, I think.
When I return from my Gliding, my family may only recognize me by my mask, fashioned from the skull of our clan's namesake.