The Last Sunday Before 2010.

noreply@blogger.com (second space) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:40:00 +0000

I guess today is as good a day as any to start my blog. I've read that a good blog should have a focus and since I've not yet realized this focus I'll simply begin with my day to day.

It’s Sunday. & my day was filled with a series of tasks. & like any one, once I finished my list, I felt a mood of accomplishment. I even managed a phone call to a close friend. In 5 days it will be the New Year. It will be 2010, a seemingly fictional and far futured number. I resolve to reevaluate my carbon footprint & to find ways to minimize it. I also resolve to write more, read more, & paint more & to be more involved in civic matters--I mean, if I’m stopped on the street to sign a petition regarding gay marriage, something that directly impacts me, to actually take the time to do something about. So I resolve to slow down, and as my good friend Daniel says, “One day the world will slow down, go to its room and think, before it can have dessert and play Nintendo again”. This I will put back into practice, and hopefully this time never lose it.

Today the city was sweet & full. The air was light & crisp. In a city that stands out, nothing really stood out today. It’s the Sunday after Christmas, and most people were in habit-hobble moving from store to store, & the ones manning the stores were gauging their hours by the moment. Maybe today my connection to this city I love is weak or maybe it’s so strong I am over feeling & I can’t tell the difference.

As I walked the streets I think of my mother. I think of mortality. I think of time & space & super strings. I think of my nephew’s small perfect face. I think of atoms forming into stars, how its birth will eventually change me. I think of my childhood & church, the days standing in mass, dreaming of a world that knew of harmony & peace.

A child reaches for her mother’s hand. An elderly woman with a cane scoots slowly across the street. A bald man buys an awful orange hat from a street vendor & tries to talk down the price; the vendor breaks him a deal. Behind me, a couple debates over restaurants & brunch lines. I walk on, still thinking of my mother’s face & hands.

Life is ongoing and everywhere. & even on the days when your personal set of bunny-ear-antennas seem out of range or need a tweak, we are all connected & subject to one another, & on some level in contact.

Recently, my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It’s on the left side of her brain sitting on vital nerves. She is nearly, if not fully, deaf in her left ear. & she lives with a sharp chronic ringing pain in her left temple. She is scheduled for surgery in February 2010. She is 50 years old, only 20 years old than I. The news of this was like getting punched in the face, & then gagged. I felt (& feel) helpless. It’s difficult to not think the worst, but I remain optimistic. They say there’s a point in every one’s life that shifts one so severely that real change can be made. I think this might be mine. But more on that later.

For now, & at the risk of sounding trite & cliché, if there is some thing broken in your life, attend to it now. Now is all there is.

Second Space

The Last Sunday Before 2010.