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Monday, November 2, 2009

Retrospective Look at Clarksville

While on my road trip last week with Monkey, he snapped this morning picture before we set off for home. We stayed the previous night in Clarksville, which was beautiful, although it wasn't Chattanooga.

Digressing into current events, the time has fallen back to standard time, and it's nearly dark now, just after 5 pm, here in the Centennial State. The sky is overcast, and it's bitter outside. My mood seems to reflect what's going on outside. This time of year always seems to remind me what I've lost, what I've thrown away. There's a song by Incubus called "11am", and it opens with the lyrics: "7 am. The garbage truck beeps as it backs up, and I start my day thinking about what I've thrown away. Can I push rewind? Are the credits rolling signifying the end? Did I miss the best part? Can we please go back to start? Forgive my indecision..." I love that song. In a very general way, it seems to correlate with my mood when I'm down and morose, and finally appropriately connected with the not-so-joyous memories of my life.

There are times when I am happy where I long for the balance of feeling not so great, where I am frustrated that I can't seem to be immersed in emotions I feel should be tied to memories. When these times finally arrive, it's bitter, yet also sweet in that it gives me hope and faith that I am whole and not fractured.

Random Musings on Society

I've been reading a lot of news lately, news about health care reform and balloon boys, wars and potential troop deployments, mid-air collisions and innocent, young ladies being traumatized after their high school homecomings. My friends and family are drinking, celebrating, mourning the deployment of their husbands, laughing and crying together, laughing and crying alone.

I think about the things I learned in history class and things I've researched on my own, talking about how we were as a society and culture and as a nation. We used to have block parties and talk to our neighbors. We used to let our kids vanish for hours at a time, to where, God knows, only having faith that they would be home for dinner. We used to care about things that meant something and dismissed trivial things as they are, in fact, trivial.

Now we've shifted. We don't let our kids leave the house. Some of us do, and are branded "bad parents". We don't know our neighbors, and we don't know what's really going on in the news. We do know that Eastasia is at war with Oceania... or, wait... that we are at war with the Taliban and terrorism as a whole. We're at war with an idea. What happened to the guy who sued God in Nebreska? He's crazy! But we're at war with terrorism, and that's accepted. Grab your duct tape and plastic wrap.

I don't have time to mold this into anything cohenent and constructive, so I leave you with this: get involved and care about what you get involved in. Enrich your life and grow with those around you. Love deeply, despire the potential consequences.