The Sunrise Suite

My dear friend Ingrid who died of cancer in April of 2009 was amazing in so many ways. She had a knack for finding hidden gems to explore during extended weekend adventures. For years she tried to turn me on to Cedar Key, a little island in the Gulf of Mexico due west of Gainesville, Florida. I never made it there until after she died.

"There's only one place to stay in Cedar Key," Ingrid used to tell me as I joked that she was being paid by their Visitor's Bureau. And then she proceeded to pimp out the Cedar Key Bed and Breakfast as the sweetest, most charming place in Florida.

When I met Bill and Alice--the owners of Cedar Key Bed and Breakfast--in the summer of 2009, I told them that Ingrid had sent me. They were sad to hear the news about her death. They knew the world was at a loss without her.

I felt Ingrid's persuasive words about the place follow me during our stay. The Sunrise Suite, her favorite accommodation at the B & B and our choice as well, had long windows that opened up to the Gulf, welcoming the water and the sky into the sun porch and the living room. You can't imagine the view from the bedroom.

I enjoyed talking with Bill and Alice about their lives during that trip with Husband and D-Man, and when I returned in the Fall with a group of women for a girls' weekend, it was easy to feel like we were picking up where we left off.  There was a lot of hope and light in those brief conversations. 

Bill had discovered a cancerous tumor on his leg earlier in the year, but with some experimental treatments in Mexico, he was cured and so grateful for the bill of good health. We talked about it during both of my visits.

Yesterday I called to make a reservation for the Sunrise Suite for a long weekend in March. When a young girl answered the phone, I asked if Bill and Alice were still running the place.

"Just Miss Alice," the girl said. "Bill died of cancer in December."

The sound of her words kept churning and amplifying like a singing bowl. I was thinking about how Alice was holding up, about whether Bill suffered, about why he couldn't be helped.

No matter how many times I'm jolted with the news of death, I seem to quickly lose touch with the fact that life is too short to get caught up in the minutia of meaningless details. I want to hold on to that. I want to be wiser and stop letting people take my power who are not worthy of it. I want to laugh more, take myself less seriously, and never miss an opportunity to be the person I am.  And I want that for all of us.

We're all so much like Ingrid, we just don't know it. She was 100% authentic, 100% of the time.

Today I imagine her kicking back in the Sunrise Suite with Bill, looking out at the Gulf, sipping a margarita and sending love to those who are still here in the world.

Inside Ducks

Years ago people used to ask, "Is your dog an 'inside dog' or an 'outside dog'?"  These days, there's only one kind: the inside dog, or you're an animal abuser. I kind of agree. But The Peabody has "inside ducks."  I've already posted on this, but here's a refresher. It's a short video I shot today while at a conference at The Peabody in Orlando. Damn they're cute:

Process vs. Instantaneous Change

The same thought patterns in my head yesterday--both brave and big picture, trite and random--are running through my inner script today. I'll venture to guess the same is true for you.

Yet the thought of a new beginning is ever enticing. We're helped along by New Year's Day. It represents the unified, festive nature of oneness in timing and the same desire we all have to change. It's exciting and silly at once.

Years ago I read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. He talks about individual belief systems and the personal agreements to which you have unknowingly subscribed, merely as hand-me-downs from your family, friends and society. This year I ordered copies for family members, including the young D-Man, for Christmas. Perhaps part of rediscovering our true beliefs rests in second chances, a new beginning to how we're choosing to operate ourselves everyday.

We're warned by those on a spritual path that the New Year only begins when we commit to an inner change. This change we uphold against all outside influences that threaten who we really are and want to be. It's a process. Who has awoken the next day to find complete transformation? Who can live up to the expectation of overnight change?

My New Year's Resolution is to begin the process of what I hope to accomplish, not to be that accomplishment instantaneously. I hope you'll allow yourself the same latitude with whatever you hope to create for yourself.

Happy New Year to you!

The Secret Workings of Being Thankful

I've always considered myself to be a pretty grateful person. Throughout the rolling tape in my head each day, I consider how lucky I am to be healthy, to have people around me who care about me, to delight in small things, to notice and enjoy nature, to have a person in a dog's body for a pet, to have something upstairs in the good 'ole brain, etc., etc.

However, I have my fair share of sarcasm. It's there as a coping mechanism to entertain myself when things aren't exactly as I'd like them to be. I'd like to transform that into more active and unwavering appreciation for whatever I may encounter each day.

Julia Osovskaya took thankfulness to a whole new level with her blogging project last year. She vowed to write each day about one thing for which she was grateful--whether it was expression of a fat element of life or a situational reflection that one might not normally consider in a positive light. She succeeded and took me along in her journey.

I found her thankfulness refreshing and contagious. She's found that it changed her life. A couple days ago, Julia shared what daily thankfulness--deeply considered and expressed in writing--did for her. In her own words, here are 5 ways it's changed her. I think the first is most meaningful for me.

1. I don’t really get upset that much any more.
2. I feel much more comfortable when it comes to making distant future plans.
3. I’ve became a much more cheerful person and this is something other people actually now notice about me. Just recently someone told me the first thing they noticed about me and would never forget was my broad smile upon saying hello to them... I would never forget them saying it either, because this might as well be the first time someone told me something like that. And I honestly believe such thing would have never be applied to me if it wasn’t for my year of gratitude that did this magic to me.
4. I get up in the morning and I look forward to every day. This hadn't quite happened since I was a child, so it definitely feels positively new. I think it’s because I now know that no matter what the day ahead holds for me, I will be able to remain positive through whatever.
5. Not only my year of gratitude showed me what my true passions were, it totally showed me all the ways I could try to pursue my hopes and dreams. How is that not good?

Thanks, Julia, for your example of living in gratitude. It's a mindset, and once you get the hang of it, it's just part of who you are. I'm hoping to be more conscious about living in that space.

Check out Julia's blog here. Sending wishes to you for calmness, health and all good things as this year draws to a close.

Each and All

Well folks, thanks for sticking around during the daily blog posts of NaBloPoMo.  Gropius lives within the design of a new model, so to speak, and I appreciate your attention to my random musings. I'll be around, but if I skip a day every now and then, it's fine with me and I dare say you'll feel the same.

Today I thought I'd share my favorite poem with you, a gift handed to me by my 11th grade English teacher, who was an incredible inspiration in my life. All these years later, I love Emerson's messages that everything is most beautiful at its source and we all have the same source that ties us together.

Each and All
Ralph Waldo Emerson


Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,
Of thee, from the hill-top looking down;
And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton tolling the bell at noon,
Dreams not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent:
All are needed by each one,
Nothing is fair or good alone.
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even;—
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.

The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me;
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
And fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore
With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.

The lover watched his graceful maid
As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,
Nor knew her beauty's best attire
Was woven still by the snow-white quire;
At last she came to his hermitage,
Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage,—
The gay enchantment was undone,
A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet Truth;
Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,—
I leave it behind with the games of youth."
As I spoke, beneath my feet
The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;
I inhaled the violet's breath;
Around me stood the oaks and firs;
Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Above me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and deity;
Again I saw, again I heard,
The rolling river, the morning bird;—
Beauty through my senses stole,
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

Not on the Cheerleading Team

Tonight at the Girls, Inc. fundraiser we heard the story of a girl in the program who had tried out for the cheerleading team at school but didn't make it.

When asked if she was doing okay with it all, the girl replied, "Yes, I'm just fine. I guess they don't deserve to have me on the team."

At Girls, Inc., she's learned not to let her confidence get shaken or her inner being diminished by any outside circumstance.  That's pretty cool.

And it's something we could all remind ourselves of at times.

Random Acts of Culture...A Little Lighter Today

To escape from the depression of the public school system failures and those scary new people who will be taking public office shortly, I enjoyed a video of a Random Act of Culture--a cool initiative funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to expose people to the arts.

The Opera Company of Philadelphia surprised shoppers at Macy's. Don't you love it?

A Changing Doctor's Office

I often consider how absurd it is for me to have the luxury of health insurance and accessibility of medical care and to hate--dread--going to the doctor's office so much. It really is terrible of me.

A good friend I reconnected with this weekend was telling me that she's working in a doctor's office while she's going back to school. Working at the reception area, she is often at the receiving end of complaints from people who are sick, exhausted, frustrated and angry about their loss of mobility, fear over their condition and the whole mix of emotion that comes when you're not well.

True to the fashion she wears each day of life, she sees it as her duty not just to check in the patients as assigned, but to give them a warm and genuine smile, to make conversation to put them at ease, and to embrace them as if she truly cares about the whole person standing there--not just getting them to sign the requisite clipboard necessary for admittance.  So quickly, the same people who came in with rigidity, apprehension, tension and fear start to relax and feel that everything just might be okay.

From one or two simple acts stemming from her caring, she transforms what most people dread into something they can deal with. It separates the factory feel of the clinical setting to a nurturing atmosphere that is the prelude to healing. 

I realized through this conversation that half of my "doctor's office dread" comes from the straight-faced, empty method of meet and greet in most of the practices where I've been seen. You're going in for something deeply personal to you--your body, right?  And most of the time, it's more about the insurance card, the almighty clip board and of course the tons of medical pamphlets that have colorful diagrams of your intestines and heart and reproductive organs. Good GRIEF, would it kill them to put up a freaking happy painting or something?

I'm so proud of my friend. We talked about her feelings that this job is a step down, since she used to have a position with much greater responsibility. But I feel that she's there for a reason. Not just to lift the atmosphere of the place, but to really make a difference in the lives of people who need it. And let's face it, we all need more positivity.

I never underestimate the power of someone's kindness. And when you're sick, facing serious illness, or walking into the uncertainty of what is unknown and scary, a friendly face is more precious than anything I can imagine.  She sets a great example. And we can follow it wherever we work, shop, eat or play.

Brave People

The evening was as beautiful as the day was.  The hints of fall and the large half moon surrounded kids running on the lawn, grown-ups carrying their red, gold or silver balloons and music coming from various corners of the park.

This was my first year participating in the Light the Night Walk, an annual event of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It was humbling to be in the company of so many brave people: survivors of blood cancers, those who have lost loved ones to blood cancers, those who are battling blood cancers today, and their families, their friends, their co-workers.

Beyond all the losses of life, time spent in hospital rooms, missed days of work and adjustments to uncertain outcome was a pervasive sense of happiness, of togetherness. No, the walk wasn't sad, but it was celebratory.  For those touched by cancer in whatever way--there is a rawness that opens the lens of reality. It brings a heightened awareness of small pleasures, of the importance of seeing each moment through with as much joy as you can muster.

The crowd this evening was all about life.  Our team walked for Ingrid, and it's true that she was an example of living to the fullest. She lived bravely, faced her untimely illness bravely and died bravely.  The last time I saw her in her hospital room, Ingrid looked at me and said, "This is it, Susie."  It disarmed me completely. She was facing "it" squarely and with the kind of resolute truth and courage that only the bravest person possesses.

Going forward, I've tried to remember that you have to be brave to live life to its fullest. In one way or another, we'll all meet our own day, and when we do, wouldn't it be fine to say we did all we could, all we wanted? 

Yes, you have to be brave to live. I give thanks to all those who face such adversity and set a lesson for the rest of us. Is it not better to stop hiding in the nooks and crannies of life and open up to the lovey opportunities before us? There's no one else to do it.

Thank you to those who donated to Team Ingrid. Special love to Ruth and her amazing parents, who must surely be together again.

Budding Bromance

When the photo book arrived made by sis-in-law, I almost peed in my pants it was so funny.  Outlining the chronicles of Husband and Brother on our summer trip to the North Carolina shore, it portrayed the newly dubbed "Bromance" with class and utmost accuracy.

We had never all spent a full week together in the same living quarters. Husband and Brother's Bromance took the word "together" to a whole new level. The two were hard to separate--the ping pong in the downstairs garage, the beers on the windy porch, the night fishing from the beach, the cow nose ray catching out in the intercoastal, the---okay you get it.

You know, I was thinking "Nice. A good long week with Husband and family. No distractions from the neighborhood boy clan, no calls from work, no man cave, no---Wait a minute! Where is Husband? Off with Brother again. Nice."

God only knew what they were doing. How many times can you go to the bait shop or go for ice in a single afternoon?

In ways, it was a little annoying.  But in more ways, I still can't believe how lucky and grateful I am to have a Brother and Husb who like to hang out together. That doesn't always happen. And when it doesn't, you're up shiter's creek when it's the season for some fam time. That's a shame when people live so far from each other and hardly have the chance to be together.

On the other hand, I can rest easy and delight in the fact that this Budding Bromance is good for the long haul. Thanks, Husb and Brother. Glad the in-law thing is still working. Makes me happier than you can know.

Aw, isn't that cute? Husband and Brother
"walking the line" at Fort Macon State Park

Cynthia Davis Rocks

I've met the coolest people through the Gropius blog. Some of them came here first and I started following them; others I found online in the twisted mazes of navigation and exploration.

I can't remember how I landed on the Running with Letters blog, but Cynthia Davis is such an entertaining writer, equipping each post with just enough details to make every "story from the ordinary" intriguing. I lover her use of metaphor. 

When I discovered her beautiful tiled seahorses, I knew one of them would make the perfect housewarming gift for Brother and Sister-In-Law and for my Goddess friend who left me here and moved out to Arizona.  I was able to select the colors, which she carefully glazed, designed and assembled into these lovely reminders of tropical seas:

Thank you, Cynthia, for putting so much love and care into their creation.  They're beautiful and the receivers couldn't be more delighted!

Bloggers everywhere: it's not only nice to support your fellow social media partners but you end up with unique booty you cannot get anywhere else. Visit Running with Letters and share the love.

It's Kind of...Quiet

Was kind of quiet. Within five minutes of walking in the door, multiple televisions were on, and there was talking across rooms, sighs when the anticipated answer wasn't returned and a general air of drama.

For a week and a half D-Man hung out in Miami for a visit with Nana. The absense of generation induced tension was conducive to unfettered contemplation, and just...peace. With the quietude, calmness crept in and settled. Following that, the ability to actually relax in my own skin.

At first the obvious freedoms and lack of interruptions were the focal point:  I could walk around at night in my underwear if I wanted to. The sound of friends incessantly knocking on the door was absent.  And there was no banging around in D-man's room--the inevitable echo of a teen who's just been denied a certain right of all teenagers everywhere, like spending the night at his buddy's house when he's been there all day.

Ahhhh......sigh.

I forgot what a lack of drama can do for the home. And although I can't imagine life without the sweet and compassionate D-Man, a little breather and time alone with Husband was a good thing. It was easy to sink into just the two of us, knowing that D-Man was safe and also enjoying his time away from us.

Time alone with myself came over this past weekend, when Husband made the trek down south to pick the little man up.

Nothing felt sweeter than cleaning the house on Saturday morning, mowing the lawn and settling down for a solitary and hot afternoon on the porch. I stopped and bought oil paints--the first set I've had since high school--and spent the greater part of the day in the near 100 degree heat listening to late summer insects and swirling turpentine with yellow ochre, burnt sienna and phalo blue.  It wasn't long before the heat wasn't a worry and I just melted into the original rhythm of me.

My life is all the more rich for my home with Husband and D-Man. But there's no doubt that quiet and solitude, and the ability to return to my own person, are necessary parts of being. The same is true for them, and for any of us who have inner lives. I am learning not to apologize for it and to nod with understanding when the call for it comes from someone I love nearby.

It's so nice to have D-Man home again. He's growing up so fast, it won't be long until I'm yearning for the tales of drama that will have long since passed. I'm thankful to have had the space for reflection on myself as a single unit and as part of three.

Window Boxes, Rocking Chairs and Skies

I can usually count on these three unrelated images to reinstitute a feeling of peace.

Flowers and soil attached to the window bring a bit of wildness close to the house, blending manmade structure with a small dose of nature-made inhibition.

There were some good ones last week during our travels.

Windows in the historic district of Charleston

Maybe it's the old subconscious memory of being rocked as a baby that keeps me loving the image of a rocking chair--even when the chair itself might not have been so comfortable.

 

Rocking chairs on the dock in Charleston outside of the Marriott, a one night's stop on our way north to NC

D-Man and Husband chillin' out in rocking chairs on the porch of the beach cottage in NC

I love it that, like life, skies are constant only in their everchanging cloud formations and colors. Somehow, it just works from the vantage point of the human spirit. I find a sort of comfort in that.  Summer in the Southeast is responsible for some pretty dramatic skies--there's a lot of power in those clouds, and they always complete the landscape.

If only the land or ocean could say to the sky,"You complete me." They totally had the patent on that before that creepy Cruise ever said it in that rediculous Jerry Maguire scene. (Sorry, fans of Jerry Maguire and Tom Cruise...can you ever forgive me?)
 

Cotton candy cumulous clouds over the Atlantic Ocean

Subtle sunset over Atlantic Beach

  Not so subtle sunset over Charleston

Summer sky over Fort Sumter, off the Charleston coast, where the Civil War began

My Grandmother's Beach

Experiences during the formative years follow you around for a lifetime, and if you're lucky enough to have had positive ones, they provide ongoing sources of mental vacations for those times when you can't get away.

The first time I learned we would be spending a week away from Charlotte during the summer to go to the beach with the entire family--including two aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandmother--I was pissed. Being a young teenager, all I could think was that it would diminish the freedom of summer by seven days.

But my parents were good enough to let me take a friend with me, and it turned out to be a great time.

Every year for a number of years after that, my grandmother continued to rent this large house on Atlantic Beach, North Carolina for the purpose of bringing her family together as the matriarch and preserver of traditions. The large porch was equipped with rocking chairs, and the long wooden boardwalk stretching down to the beach gave an open invitation to the rough surf everyday. Always this beach seemed to exist as it must have for millions of years, without crowds of people, hotels or commercial establishments.

Of course most of our time was spent on the beach itself; or on the deck looking at the sea, feeling our hair coated with salt and imagining what was swimming out there near the horizon; or propped up on the boardwalk rail marveling at the clear, star-filled sky untarnished by light pollution. It always seemed windy at night.

A few mini-excursions came to be anticipated, some with joy and some with a strange nostalgia not entirely inspired by favorable expectation...

An older cousin-accompanied trip to Jungle Land, a mini-golf and bumper boat adventure that we always did at night. I can remember how magical the artificially colored water looked--this sensory experience mixed with the distinctive smell of gasoline dissolved in sunscreen that was still lingering from a day on the beach.

A sweltering exploration of Fort Macon, which was always reserved for the hottest day of the week. My uncle would tease us relentlessly about making the short drive there until one early afternoon the inevitable summons arrived.

A visit to the towns of Beaufort and Morehead City, where restaurants that have been part of family summers forever, along with little shops and nooks along the Sound, were waiting to be re-discovered. In those "must buy a t-shirt everywhere" days, it was a paradise considering the possibilities.

One evening we went to the mysteriously named Radio Island, surrounded by the Sound, to hunt for "specimen." I always admired my family's knowledge and love for nature, and my uncle, who was a judge, was famously entertaining on his vacation days. He strapped a headlamp on so he could more carefully identify little shrimp and marine life in the tidal pools. I remember the feel of the sand stinging my ankles as the wind whipped up around us.

When my grandmother became too elderly and physically challenged to organize the trip, we were also getting to an age where things were fast becoming too complicated to coordinate over several families.

We would all miss out and think back on those times with such fondness.

I'll never forget my gratitude to my grandmother for many things, and these summer weeks live in a place of my consciousness only reserved for love and innocent, untethered happiness. I go there often in my mind.

This year, my father rented the same house on Atlantic Beach. We haven't been there together for over 15 years.

Sunday we'll meet my parents and my brother's family there. What will the week bring?  Surely we'll be equipped on arrival with tales from past years and the intentions to visit Clawson's, the Fort and other fond remembrances. But we'll also carve out new stories, built from experiences driven by a different time and a different place in our lives.

I only hope they will leave a similar lifetime impression for D-Man, who is just around the age I was when I experienced the first summer at my Grandmother's Beach.

We Are the World

Our local PR association is being challenged by the state organization to come up with an adaptation of an 80's video, movie, etc. to show at the annual state conference. It's something sort of fun they do every year to shake things up a bit, demonstrate creativity and get the chapters involved a friendly little war.

I can't make it to the conference this year, but I'm pretty impressed with what my fellow association peeps have come up with: an adaptation of "We Are the World" called "We Tell The World." Now how clever is that? They got together last night to record it at a local studio that donated the time for the love of fun and competition. Can't wait to see the final result.

Meanwhile, I can't get the original "We Are the World" out of my head.

I was in third grade when it came out and became hugely popular. It really brought alive my very first awareness of the troubles around the world and the belief that we share a responsibility to help people everywhere who are in need. The feeling I got from the song and the video were exactly what was intended. It was before the days of skepticism, back when I believed everything was golden and lovely and people helped because they cared, not because it was politically correct.

I still feel that way about all of the artists who came together to make the song. I will always remember the opening lines with Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder.  "There comes a time, when we heed a certain call--when the world must come together as one..."



Do you remember when the song came out? Was it inspiring for you? Does it remind you of a certain time in your life?

Three More Chunks of Inspiration

So the presentation of the 10 slides that inspire me on Friday night at the Art Center was an interesting test of timing. The shows were pre-timed so that we had exactly 30 seconds to talk about each one--no more, no less. Loved the challenge!

Here are several more inspirations I shared. If you're good enough to leave a comment, tell me three things that inspire you--could be people, actions, places, ideas--anything!

Remember Bob Ross, the wet-on-wet oil painter from PBS? What an inspiration he was for me as a young artist. To this day, I'm not sure how much of my love for him was the painting and how much was the calm, soothing voice of caring in his narration of the process.

When I had the opportunity to meet him after a painting demonstration in Charlotte, he remarked in that same genuine kindness how nice it was for him to meet young painters. Bob stayed until he had spoken personally with each and every one of the people who stayed to meet him. Bob died of cancer in his mid 50's. I never knew he was sick until I heard he passed away.

This photograph courtesy of Getty Images was taken of slums in India. It's inspiring for me because it reminds me that I'm a minority in this world--I don't live in poverty. It's easy to take green space, food, resources for granted when you've been surrounded by them during every part of your life.  Keeping this image in mind reminds me to be grateful for this rare abundance. I think about this a lot and hope I give back enough to earn the privileged place I hold. I am so thankful for what I have...and for what I do not have to worry about on a daily basis.

Photography inspires me. I took this image at Hillsborough River State Park, surrounded by infinite details of color, light and texture in a backdrop of green. Photography makes me slow down and take note of the little things, the beauty we often walk past. I used to be the program director of a nature center and it drove me crazy to hear people coming back from their walks, talking about how "we didn't seen anything." They were hoping for an otter or a bobcat and didn't notice the abundance of beauty all around them. So sad. I love that taking pictures keeps me focused on the extraordinary in the ordinary. It's there for all of us.

You're the Inspiration

I remember loving the (then) new Chicago song "You're the Inspiration." Awww, it was just so sweet, wasn't it?

A couple of weeks ago a local group asked me to be one of 10 speakers to do a 5 minute slide show featuring 10 things that inspire me, speaking for exactly 30 seconds about each. Of all the public speaking I've been doing, this one was the hardest to put together, precisely because it's about me, not about a subject. It's been hard for me to get into. I'd love to say that I picked the top inspirations. Most of them are. But then I started picking through them, replacing a few of the slides because I didn't think I could explain them in a way that would be interesting enough.

So what else would I do? Blog about them of course.

Our planet from space is one of the most profound and inspirational images I have ever--and will ever--see. First photographed about 40 years ago, it was the first time we could see in a clear, visual sense the magnitude of our beautiful earth. Carl Sagan's thoughts about it mirror mine exactly:  everyone who you've ever met, who you will ever meet, who has ever lived...lived on this sphere. 

I think of that, of how simple it is that all of humanity, along with all of the wildlife, diverse plant life, water and clouds are contained in this rock. How can we fight?  The "reasons" for war, destruction, selfishness and greed seem so meaningless, so hard to understand, when you look at our world from this inspiring perspective.