All is so well here. I've been busy at Blue Cross and have spent so many great evenings with friends filled with laugher, evening walks and complete loss of time management. I'm continuing to write and feel so inspired by the surroundings here -- the mountains, daylight, darkness, horizons, plants, flowers. I'm discovering the natural beauty of how words can blend together in poetry and prose and how storytelling can begin. I've focused more on words than length lately and have no idea where a longer story or novel will take me. I've loved blending religion, history, current events, culture and familiar words and sayings into poetry.
I've continued to feel very guided and excited (yet also quite lost) in post-grad plans. There are so many paths I'd like to explore yet I'm struggling to select what I'm most interested in. I continue to ache briefly each day in the most selfish ways for Scotland and the U.K. In doing so and in vividly remembering friendships, words exchanged, events, days, experiences when a song or word is said, the memory comes back sharply. And beautifully. I've considered the good and bad of this. My year there feels like a long dream that I've just woken up from. It feels like a different land and place entirely from everything I've ever known and seen. Yet I lived it just as I've lived life here and it impacted me more than perhaps any year has. Recently, I actively began striving to live in the present, not the past or future. I read an article earlier on the NY Times about nostalgia being healthy and warming. It explained the benefits of nostalgia being far healthier than reminiscing, and proved that thinking of nostalgia makes one physically warmer. Katie and I tried it this evening when we grew chilly while working in an air-conditioned classroom. Between laughing, it seemed to work for us both!I want to enjoy the moments here and understand that the people we meet will remain. I have one year left of University and it's a searching time. This summer I've been in the workforce and I've loved it, yet it's also made me thankful for being a student for one more year. I'm doing. I'm learning. I'm reaching and grasping. We all are. The options today, the opportunities, ideas and pathways are endless.
I read this New York Times piece earlier by Roger Cohen titled 'Dreaming of Mandela' and it might be one of the most beautifully-put and eloquent pieces I've read to date on Nelson Mandela. A few lines that have remained with me:
"Why think of a black man in a cell for his just beliefs when you could gaze at the canopy of purple-blue jacaranda blossom over the avenues of Johannesburg?"
"And on Robben Island, Mandela learns that not even a life sentence can condemn a man to abandon the mastery of his soul."
"I have been dreaming of Mandela. An old idea: He who touches one human being touches all humanity. I have been murmuring his name: He broke the cycle of conflict by placing the future above the past, humanity above vengeance."
"The truth is we did not deserve him. We could not even imagine him. But, as I learned young in South Africa, the human spirit can avert even inevitable catastrophe."
The full article is brief and worth the read. Find it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/opinion/global/roger-cohen-dreaming-of-mandela.html
Lastly, I've tried to pay close attention and understand the Egyptian revolution. Like many perhaps, I've struggled to completely grasp the Egyptian Revolution. I found this video extraordinarily helpful. Three minutes. Explanation and an inspiration. Consider watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4umifTLSII
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