"Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risks."

So much of my existence is consumed in being an American. When I travel, I don't feel so much as an American but more of a human. A human who shares things with other humans, no matter where they reside on the earth, even if it's only breathing, eating and sleeping. We are all the same species and we are all here to do basically one thing: to live. To survive in our surroundings.
As an American, I am blessed because surviving can be summed up in the avoidance of 5:00 traffic. Think about the people who cannot leave their homes, who have no homes for that matter. Surviving and living are two very different things in those circumstances. And this is 2/3 of the world. 2/3 of the world is not as lucky as me or my many American neighbors. 2/3 of the world lives in extreme poverty without food, shelter, peace. 2/3 of the world has no concept of the life I lead, or that a life like mine is even real.
The Internet and television has changed this in countries with communism. We have learned this from the iron curtain, from history in general. People living on one side see how others live on the other side and want that same life, or at least the chance at it.

In a way, we really are just animals. Animal Farm style. Survive anyway you can. No matter what it takes.

Evolution

When we finally die, and if there really is a heaven, I hope before you pass through the pearly gates a "passing on packet/manual" is handed-out to all newcomers with an explanation of how the universe was really created.

And no one could argue. Because it would be signed with God's signature, or lightening bolt, or moon rock from a moon orbiting Jupitor or whatever.

I'm curious. Real curious. Maybe more so than anything else in my life.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

"Two tall skinny men from Illinois have made a difference in American history: Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama." 

Barack H. Obama- President Elect. 

Barack H. Obama- the 44th President of the United States of America.

This is our victory. The people of America's victory. 

the west

When I was in New Mexico, I watched the earth change everyday. It was the first time in my entire life when I had consecutive days to enjoy the season of Fall. Fall is an incredible time of year, because nothing stays the same from wind storm to wind storm. What leaves were stuck like glue to branches are forgotten about as winds carelessly rip them apart.

      In the West, temperatures are never consistent. What was blooming one day will die the next day in an overnight freeze. Branches blow and leaves retreat. Green, soft and flowing grasses become yellow strands of straw. And everyday, while in New Mexico, I was lucky enough to notice this change. To notice enough the change that happened from day-to-day. 

    I wrote to Tate and told him how I didn't understand why and how people can be so afraid of change when it happens so regularly and beautifully in nature. But then I remembered how this was the first time in my life I was lucky enough to enjoy Fall everyday, to see the small changes that mostly go unnoticed.  People don't take the time to see the small changes, they just seem to care when it goes from Summer to Fall to Winter to Spring, and nothing in between. It's like we expect the big changes and are annoyed by them, but the small day-to-day changes- we will never have time for.

      I thought to myself, in an idealistic way, how we should all take two weeks of our lives to come to New Mexico in September/October to watch the leaves change colors. How a valley can be the same valley no matter the season, unless you let it be more. The same valley can change everyday.

      When I was in New Mexico, I watched the earth change everyday. Every single day, the earth changed.

friends are friends until they're gone.

The way it works is sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. I wish they're was a way to see into the future, to understand why things happen or don't happen the way they do.

Pat Flynn. It's been over a month since he's taken his own life. I wonder what he's doing. If his spirit is roaming the earth watching over his loved ones he left behind. Or maybe he's somebody else now, his spirit traveled somewhere else and is brand new again in the form of a newborn.  it makes me wonder if that is true, if his new self will kill his new self 24 years down the road.

Is that how it works? Some people just aren't meant to live for very long. Some of us go early, not by choice, and others of us go to our own regret- every single time they're on the earth.

When somebody kills themselves with a gun it seems so much more serious to me. Like they themselves wanted it to be that much more serious to everyone else. When somebody kills themselves with a gun it's not pretend. There are no second chances the way it can be with pills or slashing your wrists. A gun is instantaneous and the truest kind of lethal. That's it, no time for rehab or therapy. This was my choice and now everyone else has to deal.

I feel broken-hearted and helpless for people who choose suicide. the way all the living feels when it happens. it makes me want to call Pat's Mom and tell her it's not her fault. Call everyone Pat ever knew and tell them it's not their fault. 

I wonder if because I'm writing and thinking about him, his spirit can sense it and is next to me now. Reading over my shoulder, disagreeing with everything I think. If once you die, your spirit grows exponentially- being everywhere at once, with every person who could ever hope to think of you no matter they're location.

Heaven's always seemed like a selfish place to me. Why should we need an afterlife if we lived the best we knew how during our living life? Shouldn't this life be enough? I wonder if I'd still think that if I wasn't American.  

   Until now, heaven's always seemed selfish- something people make up to make themselves feel good about dying. What's so bad about dying if you know you did your best and made the most of it while you were alive? But there are those who didn't. There are those like Pat Flynn who I hope are in heaven. Who deserve heaven. And who deserve to wait for their family to be back together. I hope heaven exists, if nothing else for that reason.

    

I wonder when you die if someone comes to you and gives you a list of options and tells you to pick. Like buying a new car, sort of.  They show you a list of all possible options for your soul and body: heaven, reincarnation, becoming an angel, rotting in your grave etc.  And if you were a good person, your reward is to pick. You get to choose what happens to you. I wonder if you're lucky enough to pick more than one. Like: I want my body to chill out in this casket and eventually become part of the earth, and I want my soul to be shuffled on to the next life.  Just like a car. We're really just like a car that's able to upgrade.

Man and it's inventions. When I'm 90 I will re-write this and I'm sure it will be much more eloquent and appropriate.  Although, I hope to never be too appropriate. Life is full of those who are too appropriate. I'll let them worry about it.

how fitting...

my horoscope for today reads:

       It's time for you to get some new adventures cooking -- make some travel plans.

In three day, I'll leave for Montana to be a cook for Remi. 

What makes my life is the randomness, and sharing it with those I love.