Book excerpt: One Life’s Journey by Leanne Harshbarger The poetry in One Life’s Journey was penned based on the life and worldly travels of the author. As a young college graduate, she decided to travel to France for a year expanding her education while experiencing European culture at the young age of twenty-three. Upon her return, and envisioning such differences between European and United States cultures, these adventures struck a spark in her to begin writing about her experiences. Within a couple of years though, a major change in her career forced her to reconsider her path in life. A period of time developed in her early 30s in which she went through many troubling times from a career perspective as well as broken relationships. During this period, her visions about dreams, love, relationships, and life in general troubled her greatly. Her writings became more advanced and touched on the reality of what the author was experiencing along with other people struggling with the same issues. The author wrote the poems in One Life’s Journey because they applied to her personally during portions of her life. The poems are based on what happens as we go through life; real love, sometimes lost, real relationships, sometimes broken, how we dream what could be, and a family most people hope they have. The author created a special section called ‘What beholds Us.’ She believed we, as inhabitants of this great planet called Earth, don’t take into consideration the beauty that surrounds us, what keeps us, what holds us. Our daily lives cause us to not stop, take a moment and ‘smell the roses.’ Her poems in this section ask her readers to just stop a second, and look at the beauty that surrounds us all.