Sunday, January 4, 2015

new year's revolutions

So here we are in 2015 and it feels both fresh and familiar.
The days are surely getting longer, aren't they?
It's been a tough start. Tbh, I'm feeling lost, anxious, fretful, not quite sure where I belong.
Who's my tribe? What the hell am I doing with myself?
I rang in the new year with good people, partied late and slept late and enjoyed a brisk sunny afternoon restorative walk. The next day dawned misty and cold and I went to a friend's dad's funeral, sat among long-time friends and contemplated life and loss and love. I heard the priests talk about God and Heaven and I wondered, do people really believe this? I did, for a time. Can I begrudge them the small comfort of believing their loved one has passed on to dwell with others who have gone before?
I think I can. This fantastical belief, against all facts and sense, it serves as an insulation from the reality, that life is short and difficult and exhilarating and we'd best spend our time not listening to some tired old man's querulous ideological interpretations of mythological deities, but instead, helping each other, taking care of each other, loving each other, finding and bringing what joy we can during our brief awake time on the planet.
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Then I go get coffee from ETG and find the front door window covered in plywood. A man broke in at 11.30pm Saturday night, and is on security camera rifling through the cash register, making away with a couple of rolls of quarters. 11.30pm on a Saturday night in Fremont--party central for much of twenty-something Seattle, and no one stopped or called the cops? Apparently someone else happened along and went inside too, to poke around. No coffee was stolen, none of the delectable pastries, not the enormous Kitchen Aid or the espresso machine. The antique mall was targeted recently too, the barista told me. A man in a trench coat walked out with a bearskin rug. Someone else made off with several of her rings. For crying out loud, Seattle, what is happening to us? Who the hell are we?

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