At first I hesitated to write and share anything that makes me feel vulnerable, questioning just how much personal and intimate information about myself I should really put out there. After a second or two of consideration, I realized that there is so much personal information already out there that if someone should stumble across this tiny smudge of me; thats okay. I'm cool with it. Obviously I'm more than cool with it, I'm doing it intentionally with that very hope in mind. I'm trying to share. I'm reaching out to random souls (and some not so random) in our gigantic universe of synchronously beating hearts. Trying to sway as one, maybe. Oh the symbolism I can come up with. Ahhh. So soothing. So warm and fuzzy.

Speaking of symbolism, I had a few realizations recently that's made me deconstruct some of my own theories. Before I go into all of that, let me start by saying that I love, love, LOVE symbolism. I love it even more when it contrasts the representationalism that is so widely accepted. I don't believe that everything is hard and fast and factual. Some things are, sure, but most things are not so linear. If you drive a sports car, you are not necessarily hot. If you are a size three you are not necessarily healthy. If you have a partner it doesn't mean you are happy. If you are happy it doesn't mean that you are blessed beyond belief or that somehow you are oblivious to all things sad or hard. Everything vibrates, everything has an ebb and flow. We are an ever changing energy, tumbling and tumbling, how can we assume anything just IS?? I love that a tiny flower can convey love. I love that a kiss on the forehead or a squeeze of the hand can mean more than a gift of a corvette. I love that we read each other like books and only half the time do we actually know the language we're reading. I love everything that balks the implied absolutely concrete facts of life. I want be someone who cries when I see a rainbow. It doesn't have to make sense. I want to feel overjoyed when the first blossoms spring from the bud. I don't want to look at the world and believe there's no magic there. I want to believe in fairies but more importantly I want to flutter like a fairy myself.

I have no desire to have both feet planted on the ground, but maybe I need to touch down a little more often than I do.

I've felt controlled many times by my own ideas about "what things mean". If food goes bad in the fridge before I eat it, I feel that I didn't feel enough gratitude for that food, and I feel sorry that I'd taken advantage of the farmers who planted it & grew it and harvested it, and I feel ashamed that the sun did all that work to grow it for me. Look at the resources wasted, look at the clean water gone - the gas to move the food from florida to the grocery store, and from the grocery store to my house - wasted. I don't see a box of rotten strawberries anymore, I see a box of lavishly squandered natural resources laced with bitter sadness and regret. I see the dollar store as repositories of solidified sweat from children forced to work long hours with no pay & no love & no stories read to them at night. I see teak furniture as a symbol of America's greed. I imagine the torn down houses and ravished lands of the people we've destroyed to make our teak patio sets. I seriously want to throw up when I see hand knitted anything because I know there is a person who knitted that in hopes of being able to feed her family even though her fingers will bleed. I see vehicles choking our Mother Earth. I see us devouring our planet like a tomato worm on a heirloom vine. Sometimes these thoughts bombard and immobilize me.

So, I suppose one thing I'm saying here is that there needs to be a balance. I'm trying to reel myself in just a little bit. I'm trying to remember that physical objects and actions in the physical world are what they are - but that doesn't negate it's possible symbolism. The object as a symbol may or may not be valid; but am I seriously qualified to constantly judge that? Maybe not.

So while thinking about all of this, I then came to the conclusion that I might need to focus a bit more on some of the actual events and things that are going on around me right now for REAL for SURE rather than trying to find meaning in shit that is just shit. Focus on good. Focus on people doing. I need to focus on all of the dramatic movement happening in society. Not in an abstract way, but right freakin' now, right outside my window, right within my office, all around us kinda way. There are just as many amazing things happening in the world as there are shitty things. Every day. Small miracles and random acts of kindness. There is an abundance of love. There is an abundance of delight. People are paying it forward; people are stepping up. People are rallying together for change. People are feeding the elderly and the hungry and the disabled and the poor. People are making other people's lives better all the time, in big ways and small ways, sometimes with a much needed hug or a loving smile. Sometimes by changing their minds and challenging their prejudices. We who chose to walk that path are making things better every single day; and we're starting with our selves. We have a lot to rejoice about. We have a lot of goodness to recognize if we make the honest attempt to see it. I have to believe this & give gratitude for this and keep this going. I'm going to forget regret, forge forward, keep symbolism in check and love completely all the people whose hearts continue to beat with mine.