I'm Safe
You may think that this winter kale captured my eye at the farmers market today, and you would be right. You may also believe that I was lucky to be able to walk in a leisurely fashion around a bountiful and lush market in a town such as this, and you would also be right.
Amidst many other bins of the most fetching varieties of produce, the kale was exquisite, so I took a moment to take its picture for this post. But I was thinking about Egypt and Tunisia and Mexico and yet was unable to. There is chaos and pain in those places, suffering and indignity, atrocities I cannot really imagine since I do live here and my life is based on good fortune and pure luck of birth. I have no idea of it really, no concept of mortal danger.
I photographed the winter kale and noticed its shades, its texture and its shape, how it was arranged in the bin at the farmer's table. I was not hungry, but I imagined I would begin to have a more noticeable appetite sometime soon. The kale is safe, clean and delectable, and it is offered to shoppers who may make a multitude of choices about what to cook for dinner or decorate their dining tables with or what they will buy plenty of just to have on hand so that they may have comfort and reassurances in all parts of their unflooded, unburned, unbombed homes. It seemed so weird to imagine both possibilities at the same time, life and death occurring simultaneously, not because of natural disasters but because of human evil contrasting with human goodness.
There is no answer to why I was born here and not in a place where existence is tenuous and life can be an agonizing crush of pain and savagery. I just was. The answer I have to the question why is to honor love and gratitude, to conduct myself in ways that do not support brutality in other countries or even in neighboring cities.
How did a bin of kale bring me to this mood? It was beautiful, plentiful and the ordinary human beings around me were safe from threat and evil and I knew it. That's the only way I can explain it.
About Christine
Resident of California's Central Coast where the natural environment serves as both anchor and sail for creative efforts in photography and writing. Registered nurse with interest in the science of positive psychology and motivation now pursuing parallel...
Connections
Causes Christine Bottaro Supports
The Nature Conservancy, California State Parks, The United Way
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How can a thinking person ...
... not have these thoughts and come to these conclusions?
And yet I suppose some don't.
Barb
Thinking
I know two things at the moment: 1. Thinking about something and understanding there is an implication for you, a connection, does not relieve you of some kind of duty to solve the problem. Somehow we are all part of the problems of the world, if even in the most infinitesimal ways. (Grain of sand in stream idea of a few posts ago.)
2. Failing to make the connection does not make you a failed person. I have seen hundreds of people embracing positive change, encouraging others, who may not be taking time to delve into the news to find out which countries' people are currently being held hostage by evil. But I believe that their love-centered lives make a very big impact on the world, everywhere.
In it all, humor must be mixed in, and therein lies your strength, Barb. It's a salve for weary hearts.
Cheers,
Christine
I think of the luck of being born in America also.
Especially after having seen how people live here. I have a friend who is a diplomat in Egypt - Cairo, to be exact. She can see the riots from her home. She has not been able to leave for 4 days. The internet was down so we couldn't even communicate.
Elections are coming up and we are being warned to stay alert, to not travel, and refrain from going to crowded areas. Just that little tidbit is unnerving.
I am supposed to be coming back to American in February for a visit. I'm wishing now I could leave before the elections.
Great post, Christine.
Poignant, and appropriate.
Thankyou,
Sharon
Anxiously Waiting
When I see journalists and diplomats in far-flung regions of the world where dogma overlies everything, I find myself hoping for and imagining their safety. Your friend the diplomat is one of a breed of people who are so undersung and invisible most of the time to us who are unwilling or unable to do what they do.
I hope your expected journey will be able to go off as planned and that there will be no great danger to you - no danger at all, of course.
Thank you for the insight into the situation there. What are the issues currently?
Cheers,
Christine