dream or nightmare?--take your pick.

two nights ago, i woke up at 4:00 a.m. after having one of those horribly long-night sleeps where a scene has been dragged out so long inside your head, that it inevitably turns into a nightmare. it stayed with me all yesterday and i couldn't stop thinking about it. i hate this about dreams...or nightmares rather. dreams you seem to only remember for a short while, while nightmare details are somehow etched into the brain or something. it was a dream where friends and family of mine got into a horrible car accident (i have this dream quite often--although, the person who's in the accident changes periodically) and i sat in the hospital, waiting to see each one of them in the ICU (intensive care unit). i paced the hall, picked up the phone, stared into the lounge pop machine while nurses and doctors repeatedly came in and out reminding me that my friends we're still waiting and ready to be seen. i didn't want to go in there though, so i waited longer until my sister blakeley came out (she was the one family member in the accident---riding with four of my friends?? it doesn't make sense to me but oh well...i'm just remembering it) and was crying her eyes out. she felt bad that she was the only one okay and commented on how horrible all of my friends looked. i imagined them all bandaged up, bleeding, unconscious, in comas...or something worse and decided again, to wait and pass the time by avoiding the visual confrontation between my friends and I. i woke up then, and lay in bed, unnervingly afraid to close my eyes and return to sleeping. i don't want to go back to that and i know if i close my eyes i would. so i lay awake and consider the possibility of calling home to see how they all are doing (the whole "dream thing" still hasn't sunk in yet). but i don't, and so, i lay there, staring up at the shell-like fan twirling above my head.

i don't know what to make of dreams like these. i know they do the obvious of temporarily reminding me of what's really important in my life but i think that cliche response unfortunately makes it hard for me to consider things of this nature longer than a day or so. it seems like when something like this really happens, you stop your life and everything that serves you or your self is cut off. somehow--from then on--normal temptations that come your way are easier to overcome b/c you now see a bit more clearly. your priorities fall into place and the meaningless and the nothingness things in life are quickly refocused and put into perspective. usually, there's people left and obviously some regrets but not much else. then time passes by and you slowly fall into the routine of material living again and everything is just fine. i love what God has blessed me with, don't get me wrong. i'm just still trying to figure out when i'm abusing the things he's blessed me with and when i'm not. it all seems to come back to the self and whether or not you have you as number one in your life or if you don't. most of the time, i do and i think many people are with me on this one. maybe that's why it's so hard for so many self-servers to confront each other on something everbody is doing and guilty of simultaneously. i don't know how to confront selfishness in others. i tried to do it this week with my sister and it blew up in my face (sort of) and i felt guilty for saying the things i did and making her feel less of a person than she really is. we both cried and hugged and mended the harsh words for the moment, but again and again i thought about it and wondered if what i did was justifiably right or just plain selfish and wrong or purely serving my own pride. i guess i can sleep on this some more. sorry for the ramblings...hope this hasn't been too morbid--but i guess it's okay every once in awhile to be morbid...as long as it's not every day, all the time, right?

ode to maria.

today is the first day the sun has set in our skin. ever since we arrived, it seems like the storm comes as soon as we're walking down to the beach, and after lying there for 20 minutes or so, we realize that perhaps--contrary to what our mother says--there isn't as much "sunny rays" on a cloudy day with thunderstorms up in the air. but today, we saw the sun out at 10:00 a.m., and rushed to the beach, laid out, and shut up for almost 2 hours. it was very nice and now, we're all very burned. it's amazing what we do to be beautiful on the outside, isn't it?

it's too late for anything profound, but wanted to say thanks maria for your kind post comment. even if it was sarcastic, it warmed my heart. good night.

doing good with no further options.

you ever tell someone a well-known truth or principle to live by, and immediately feel trapped by the words b/c they are not resonating at all with you and your own life? like for instance, when you overcome some weakness in your life--whatever it may be--you feel good and are proud of your accomplishment. however, what about when there's really no other options? example: i was challenging my brother destry today to maybe give up AOL instant messenger for awhile (at least this week while we're in the bahamas) and he said he already gave it up the last two weeks. mind you, it was impossible for him to get on instant messenger b/c there was no internet hook-up location where he was at for the past two weeks...so...you get my point. anyways, i tried to explain this to him, how this wasn't a sacrifice b/c you really didn't have it in the first place to give up, and he wasn't buying it. then i thought of all the many things i do this with in my own life, and how i 'give up' things that aren't really within my free will to give up. it's kind of like saying, "which of these options sounds best to you?" and then they're being only one option to pick from. "I pick THAT one," and applause, i'm a good person once again.

but anyways, that's what's been on the brain and bugging me lately. it's the second day in the beautiful bahamas and i'm trying to love every minute of it. thank God for turquoise water and huge cockroaches that come out at night. they're a good two inches long. good night friend.

bahamas............

i'm off in the morning on a complimentary trip to the bahamas, courtesy of my parents' friends from church. 10 days from now, i'll be a tan, rested, spoiled human being. i guess i'm spoiled already, so won't be gaining that one. oh well. have funnnnnnn in whatever you do. au revoir mes amies.

so much for the people pleaser.

i took a short "personality profile" type test last week which reminded me again of what the myers briggs' test told me 4 years ago: i talk too much and care way too much of what other people think about me. these are two of the "weaknesses" for someone like me (although i could argue for talking too much sometime being a strength...someone has to do the talking, right?). now, thanks to that stupid test, i've become again (for a brief time no doubt) acutely aware of every action triggering one or both of these things. so today at the hospital, i decided to take my former taylor roommates' longwithstanding advice to do what's right and not care what someone thought of me b/c of it.

paula is a 50+ year-old LPN, (which is almost like a nurse, but different in that she can't give drugs to people hand-to-hand) and was having a bad morning. it was 9:00 a.m., and already she was stressed to the bone. now, mind you...she's the kind of person who gets stressed out about a fork dropping to the floor or when more than one patient asks for a glass of water around the same time. point blank, she's always a little grumpy and irritated and aggrivated with human beings. here i come, ready to get a patient and take them to x-ray and paula picks up their breakfast tray and then walks one step before tripping, with food and plates and silverware and orange juice going all over the patient's room floor and out in the hall. i recognize the embarassing situation, drop to the floor, and begin picking up chunks of scrambled eggs. paula helps in repeated sighs and grunts, chomping on her little annoying piece of gum in the process. i'll spare you the verbatim words, but a few minutes later--due to several more time-wasting moments--she snaps at me in front of the patient, complaining that i've wasted her time, and storms out of the room in disgust. now, i said nothing but all i could think of was how unprofessional, rude, and disrespectful this was to me, and more importantly, to both patients in this room. i've felt this millions of times while working at the hospital but have NEVER said anything to the nurse or doctore or employee with the bad attitude. now though, i'm fed up. my personality weaknesses are on the brain and i'm getting hot just thinking about how to confront paula on just how rude she was. i thought for minutes and minutes and after taking the patient to x-ray, made up my mind to suck up my people pleasing instict telling me to just "let it go" and walked up to her alone and went off....sort of. i told her how unkind and rude and disrespectful that was of her to treat me the way she did and she looked at me in shock b/c this is the way she treats everyone. although she never apologized, she accepted my comments with respect and said to take what she says "with a grain of salt." my co-workers--two of them walked by while this was happening and overheard me saying "that was rude" in a very serious tone, so then, were wondering what was up--were stunned. "neville, i've never seen you get mad???" they said. i smiled (i get mad all the time---and they never even know it). "no one make neville mad or he'll tell you what's up!!!" another co-worker said. for the rest of the day, i was seen as a rebel, leading a group of high school dropouts on a road to respect in the hierarchy of employment at borgess medical center. one small step for neville, one giant step for borgess-mankind.

little kids vs. big adults.

home again, but not for long.

today i went back to work at borgess and was asked to stay a few hours later to help cover the several "firings" that have gone on in the past few weeks. i said i would (i've been on vacation and going on in a few days again, how could i say no w/out feeling guilty?) anyways, again and again i've marveled out how slow time can go when you're asked to stay longer at work than expected. time is very very funny when it comes to situations like this and i'm convinced God is behind part of it. why do these hours drag or rather, why do most hours at work drag on and on and on? when i was leaving the parking lot this evening, i thought of how almost all the time, time passes by like lightning. it's 2004 and almost 2005? i can't believe it. i can remember when i bought a "class of 2000" t-shirt as a third grader and people used to gasp when i wore it as if the year 2000 was so futuristic, and i was some weirdo small child who liked to be prophetic or something. but at work...adults get back into little-kid-mode, and those last few hours feel as long as the day before you got to go over to friend's house and spend the night. i can remember as a 7-year-old thinking time dragged, particularly when i was anticipating a special, life-changing event (i.e., going to a birthday party or to an amusement park). i also remember thinking about God and making deals with Him to NOT come back (via "the Rapture"---why i thought about this so much i have no idea---baptist church perhaps:) until this special event in my life had passed. "Please God! Don't come and take us all into heaven until after this saturday when I turn 8!!! Amen!" this was a reoccuring prayer throughout my childhood...not something i'm making up. so, i come to 22 years old and realize that perhaps, me and the next 7-year-old down the block might have more in common than we think. time drags before something special is going to happen in our lives. for me and most of the "adult" world, this special occassion is the end of the work day. for the 7-year-old, it's something much more interesting. which proves what i've been thinking all along: put me in a room with a small child who anticipates jesus coming everyday over an old man who thinks he knows everything any day.

before me, the world went on.

i'm visiting my mom's parents (we call them mam-ma and pap-pa) in west virginia at the moment, and i'm staying in the guest bedroom where there is a very solemn picture of my great-grandmother up on the wall. my parents tell me they didn't smile much for pictures back then. so there she is...lovely old mrs. ora walker, staring right at you as if she took picture-posing lessons from mrs. mona lisa herself. my sisters have always been afraid of sleeping in this room b/c of this very picture. every visit since i can remember, one or more of them were afraid of great-grandmother walker's evil stare---even though she's just posing like a proper woman of her time would---and almost every time, one of my sisters would request that the photo be taken down. so, most of my stays here in spencer, west virginia have been spent with ora's picture in the closet, and all of us lazy, loud kiser kids running around with slap-happy grins on our face. but now, i'm the one staying in the bedroom, and so, i think it's appropriate for my great-grandmother to stay up on the wall and stare at me as long as she'd like to.

after we got home from church today, my mom got out an old scrapbook after my request to see my pap-pa's twin (not identical) who passed away some 25 years ago due to alcoholism. i have never seen a picture of him and didn't find out until a few years ago that my pap-pa even had a twin. so, out of curiosity mostly, i look through the old, beat up, charcoal-colored photo album, seeing if i can spot him. out of the many pictures there, most of them at least 50 years old and some close to 80 years old, i see only one of my pap-pa and his brother, taken with both of them wearing little dress-like clothing at the age of 2. both of them are plastered with a head full of curls, and the black and white photo looks like it belongs in some sort of history book you read in the second grade when you get to the era of the great depression. my pap-pa turned 80 a few months back, so now, he looks much different than he did at age 2. i never saw another picture of he and his twin, but i did see pictures of my mother, growing up from age 1 to age 10. i sit, with fascination and restrained emotional tears as my mom is four and holding a big present outside of her home where there's a sign posted behind her with an arrow and the words "PARTY HERE" appropriately written on it. i look at the picture, look over at my mom who is quiet and has little expression. she's 54 now, and in a second, i look down at her 4-year-old self and think how i wasn't even in the picture back then. it saddens me to see her as a child b/c i know she wasn't appreciated as much as she should've been. she smiles big for photos with her parents...while my pap-pa and mam-ma barely crack a grin. i can see her optimism coming alive, and her wonderful motherly instincts being birthed alive on the scrappy-charcoal-like page. she is incredible and as i look back down, i know she will never know how incredible she is. i may utter words but they won't stay long inside of her. she is too selfless and too giving of herself. it's appropriate that her name means "pure" b/c i can't think of a better word to describe her character. i keep looking...and the photos are still in black and white, and i turn the page--again and again--looking, wondering, thinking, and processing the fact that so many of these people have come, and gone and now, live somewhere else. up in the sky, behind the stars or somewhere else perhaps, waiting for a new day to come.

in the bedroom where i'm staying, there is a certificate in memory of my great-grandfather roma walker, who died the year i was born. on this page, a beautiful poem is written above his name, in honor of his life. this man, i never knew personally---for who he truly was. but i know i want to have this poem etched in my mind, for all time, as long as i live. following are the words.

"If to die is to see with clear vision all mysteries revealed, And away is swept the curtain from joys which are now concealed; If to die is to greet all the martyrs and prophets and sages of old, And to joyously meet by still waters the flock of our own little fold; If to die is to join in hosannas to a risen, reigning Lord, And to feast with Him at His table on the bread and wind of His board; If to die is to enter a city and be hailed as a child of its King, O grave, where soundeth thy triumph? O death, where hideth thy sting?"

track three, dark side of the moon and pink floyd.

thanks to tara, i've been listening to pink floyd's old but beautiful 'dark side of the moon' album (the one that goes with 'the wizard of oz' movie). i've enjoyed the entire album many times through but track three...at around 2:43 in time gets good and then, at 6:01...the song transitions into a wonderful little, melancholy-muck-of-mellowness and this too is beautiful. i really hope some of you have this album b/c if you don't, these words mean very little to you i suppose.

anyways, i'm still on vacation..and sandy cove is great but much different than i left it five years ago. it's not the same and why, did in high school, everything seem so much more "cool." don't get me wrong...i'm lovin' it, as mcdonald's would say...but it's just not the same. like a memory of a really good movie you watched as a child, it just doesn't seem to be as good as i remembered it to be now. perhaps it's b/c i'm getting old and getting more cynical and sarcastic and critical and pessimistic, but i don't think that's all of it. some of it has to be the idea and mystery of a memory that somehow gets better in your head as time passes. the bad gets wheened out, if you let it go, and then, suddenly, you're left with thie utopian scene that plays over and over in your head, getting better and better after each recollection and revisit.

okay, so the trip to sandy cove hasn't been the same, period. however, it's been good in other ways. i've seen the chesapeake bay and the beach and the rocks in a whole new way. the waves on the water move and glide and drift on and on and i wonder what it would be like for the bay to stop, be still and for 2 seconds, be completely motionless. as i walked by the windows on the third floor that overlook the bay whenever you're on your way to the dining hall i was amazed at the water in particular and found it fascinating for the first time. the way it keeps going and sending its odor faintly along for the kids running along side it to smell. the way the canadian geese flitter and dabble in it as if they're testing to see if it's good enough for their kind. i think water is underated and since we get drenched in it every morning, we miss much of what it is and how wonderful and lovely it has been forever. in times like this, i think of creation and imagine what people might have been looking on at this same bay a hundred years ago. i wonder if they looked at the water and walked on or if they took time to recognize the little oddities that came to the surface or the canadian geese casually stopping by for a brief dip. i wonder and then--not surprisingly--begin to walk by, finished with a moment and too impatient to see anything else. it's sad i know, but it's me. i dare not pretend to be this deep lover of the water, who sits by the ocean for hours and hours basking in the salty sense of its breezy air flowing under my face. i'm just another person, walking by who just happens to look over for a moment at creation and think, 'yes, God was right. this is good.' ;)

adventures in midwesting.

since last tuesday morning at 5 a.m., i've been trekking with my friend tara from new jersey (and a few others here and there) all over the midwest, seeing the best and not so best our beautiful area of america has to offer. i've had many record breaking moments...like waiting at cedar point for 6 hours for one ride, getting on a ride that broke down while i was on it, getting lost in the south side of chicago, and having a tire blowout at 4:00 a.m. on the way home one night. many more moments came and went, but as my journey through michigan, illinois, ohio and finally, the beautiful but petite Scottsburg, indiana, i became more aware of how much i love my home and that home is really not so much a place as it is people. it's been a busy, but delightful pass couple of days, and we've driven well over 1000 miles...but now, i'm back in michigan...and home for a brief moment. after tonight i go to sandy cove to meet up with my family and will be there from tuesday evening till later this week. i have many stories to tell from this past week, but for some reason, none of them seem to fit well to come out right now and so i'll stop and wait for some inspiration. in my dreams, in my bed alone, staring up in the dark, i can't help but wonder where time has gone. summer at age 10 used to feel like 10 years, but now, it feels more like 10 days. i don't understand how this works. i only am realizing again and again that time is still ticking and that i am still along for the ride, occasionally taking control to stop for a minute and breathe...slowly.

cranky me.

okay, i realize i'm an extrovert but every day i'm more and more aware of the fact that i need space and down time and alone time and time away from anyone and everything. i think most of my friends/family think that i can't live or survive if i'm not surrounded by people all the time and that's partly true. however, when i don't get away or go somewhere by myself for a few hours a day---whether it's working at borgess by myself for part of the day or simply resorting to my room and crawling up next to a thin, little book---i get cranky and it doesn't take much to set my inside ablaze. try kidding with me during one of these moods and i'll probably ignore you and not speak to you for several hours b/c i take what you said personally rather than as a joke. i suppose sometimes it hurts or doesn't help when i perceive some people or friends i hang out with or talk to often to be constantly joking with me...or always "putting me down" in a kidding sort of way. i suppose i do it too, but i don't want to really and i definitely don't want to go as far as being sarcastic and cynical to the point of making others hurt on the inside. alas, this is my monday predicament and i'm trying extremely hard to remain calm and roll with the hazy punches. i know there is rarely ever one person to blame in a friendship where one is constantly pissed off at the other or vice versa, or when both are ticked and refuse to talk...but a little part of me still likes to believe that i'm the last one to be wrong and am always the more sensible, logical, honest, compassionate one in any friend-relationship. i know that's not true, but that's what comes to me and i'm trying to step back whenever i think this and go, "wait a second--what is the possibility that i could be totally wrong and that it's my attitude that needs changing more than anything else?" i don't like my answer to this question, but it's one i know i need to keep asking.

well, tomorrow is my annual trip to cedar point (a.k.a., "utopia") so i hope my attitude or consciousness gets back to me as soon as possible. i hate going to amusement parks when i'm in a bad mood.

adolescent america.

my dad's message today was entitled, "was the american revolution biblical," and at first, i was a little worried at to how it might be received (even though i didn't have a clue as to what his answer would be). anyways, it was so good and yes, that may sound weird to be rooting for your father and appreciating so much what he has to say in church, but i can't help it...it was that good. he talked about war and I Peter 2:17 (i think that's the reference) and how the men and women during the american revolution struggled with the idea of going to war or "rebelling" against the british b/c most of them were biblically sound and knew I Peter 2:17...where it talks about respecting humanity, loving all believers, and honoring the king (the authority). my dad talked about how appealing respectively to authority and requesting alternatives to war/revolt/rebelling is much more biblically sound than just going to war whenever we're not happy with life or someone who's in power over us. it got me thinking about how bad we are these days when it comes to "honoring" those above us--whether it be parents, teachers, or just older people--most americans under the age of 40 fall into the trap of dishonoring people and for christians (and myself) this is even more a shame. my dad also brought up the point of how young we are as a nation and how we so quickly jump to being against war (in any manner) b/c we see people dying or some extreme people who are involved on either side of th war's unethical and immoral actions or just b/c we think peace comes easy...like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or something. unfortunately, so much of history points in the other direction and we've seen how costly freedom is. it's interesting when you think about the possibility of what the american revolution would've looked like had it been taking place today with all the mass media out there today. i don't think we could've seen 200 years down the road, and seen what benefits or luxuries we would've experienced b/c of it. we are, as my dad says, an adolescent nation...young and immature and often, following in the same footsteps culture-wise as our friends over in europe are. we want the immediate fix and aren't willing to be patient with tough decisions like war and certainly are always too quick to jumpt to one "side" or another. i do it too. i know. i realize this. the other day, i was talking to my dad about "Fahrenheit 9/11" and i was saying that although it was horribly bias and liberal and anti-republican / pro-democratic...it still had a little bit of stuff in it that is good to think about, as long as your willing to filter through all the crap. after telling me this, my dad told me about some of the things in the film that were wrong chronologically and how many dates were switched to create a more convincing story...but then he read me one quote from michael moore taken from a speech he gave after the film screened a month or so ago in great britain. moore said something like this: "i'm sorry that you all have to be tied to a country (b/c of tony blair) who's present day actions in war are forms of terrorism, and who's country who's history is known for being violently sadistic and vicious, always exploiting and terrorizing the poor, etc, etc." now he said much more, but his main gist was how horrible america is and how sick america is and how blah-blah-blah america is, and i couldn't help but think of what a disrespectful, totally dishonoring and ignorant human being he was. i'm not saying nothing he said was true, but do you think he thought about the millions of people who've died for our country...in order to give him the freedom to say such horrible things? i know his quote was worse than what i paraphrased, but you get the idea. this doesn't mean i'm saying to not see the movie...i'm just more frustrated now with supporting financially a man who's so blatantly disrespectful and ignorant when it comes to the country he calls home. my guess is 30 years from now, he won't be remembered like a gandhi of our day---although i think that's how he views himself sometimes. anyways...enough ramblings on the subject...i was just convicted today when i thought about how quick i am to be against something like war when it's one of those things that's extremely har to see through clear right now. maybe in 30 years we'll regret where we are now as a country and what we're doing over there in this war...maybe we won't. my hope is the latter of the two.

oh, and one more thing...from buechner.

this paragraph was in the book i was reading last night and while i've heard things like this before, i was pleasantly reminded of who it is we serve and what this means our lives should mirror because of it.

"If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, 'mind your own business,' and jesus says, 'there is no such thing as your own business.' The world says, 'follow the wisest course and be a success,' and Jesus says, "follow me and be crucified.' The world says 'drive carefully---the life you save may be your own,' and jesus says, 'whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.' The world says, 'law and order,' and jesus says, 'love.' the world says, 'get' and jesus says 'give.' In terms of the world's sanity, jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy is laboring less under the cross than under a delusion." --Frederick Buechner

i know i know, this can give some people permission to be called crazy, radical, frizzy-haired christians, but my guess is (and hope) is that no one reading this will take it that way. happy friday.

called to africa.

i was reading a book last night and it was one of those times where it seemed as though everything i read was coincidental with what has been going on around me. now, i don't mean necessarily that i felt like God was telling me something or teaching me a lesson through reading this author (who's a christian). i mean it was the kind of coincidence that freaks you out. i cannot explain it in this blog, b/c it would be like trying to convince you how ironic things in my life have been lately and that would be just too hard to try and sort out here. anyways, one thing i read from this book that jumped out at me was this Bono quote from when he spoke at Wheaton College in december of 2002. he was talking about the aids epidemic in africa and how he believes God is calling people, especially christians to help out and care for these victims. he said something like what's going on in africa is not a cause, but rather, an obligation or absolute need or "emergency" and of course, i read on feeling very guilty for caring little, thinking less, and doing next to nothing about what was going on over there. i'm an impulsive person, yes that's true...but rarely do i read stuff like this and feel the pressing urge to go to africa (quit whatever future plans i have) and commit my life to serving the sick there. slowly, the thought of graduate school and my future plans and goals and dreams seemed a little shallow when weighed against 2.5 million people infected with aids in africa. i began to feel guilty, and then sick, and then wondered how much of my life i'm investing in the visible world while the invisible world is screaming for my action or my response to it. it's weird how backwards everything is in life...and how far our world is from God's design. when you think about death and dying, things seem to fall more in line with God's design...and this seems to be almost across the board of human perspective (at least here in the west). like the author noted in the book i was reading last night, funerals are a funny thing. people--at funerals--- usually don't include words or speeches or poems or eulogies containing phrases like "he sure had a lot of money" or "boy did she have a beautiful house" or "wasn't she so incredibly beautiful...even for a 90 year old?" people usually remember (if they can) how kind or loving or generous or forgiving or gracious or merciful or compassionate a person was. they see greatness or rather, a successful life defined by these attributes and then some. however, why is it then our world operates on the opposite (lust, greed, the love of money, selfishness, me,me,me)/get,get,get)? for instance, i can spend all my money on music, movies, books, clothes even though i know perfectly well that no one will really care a lick (hopefully not at least) about these things after i'm dead. i know, but don't often think about how so much i'm chasing after for will not matter at all in 75 years. the world will keep moving and people will keep growing old and continue dying. we can try to prevent aging or minimize pain like our society has been trying to do for the past 10 years, but deep down, we know the inevitable will come. then why, do i and so many others continue living pretend-lives that when you examine from a step back, appear as though we don't realize the inevitable will come? i know i sound like i'm blasting materialism, and i suppose, perhaps i am somewhat. but i'm also wondering why i think very little about serving others continuously or why i spend almost all of my money on me and no one else (here and there i give a gift, but even that can be selfish in some ways).

i have nothing more to say so i guess i will end with a beautiful quote that sums up i suppose my entire thinking or rather, where it needs to end up at. Albert Schweitzer once said, "I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve."

my hitchiker's dream coming true...sort of.

i've always wanted to pick up an actual. real-life hitchiker. i've discussed this with friends before...weighing in when would be the perfect and perfectly safe time to pick up one or on what basis. would i need a gun in the glove department or a switchblade in the console? or would i need nothing and take the daring risk (b/c that's part of the mystery and fun of it anyways, right?) of just picking up a total stranger and having a conversation with him/her for the duration of the road ride? i've thought about this a lot but have never yet gone through with it. i had the opportunity on my way out to L.A. last spring on several occasions in New Mexico, where there were many stragglers on the road in the middle of the desert waiting for a lift. then, i thought it would be fine, but never went through with it. i was following another car and so the objection always came up about "well, if this person shoots me and steals the car, it will throw Kaiti (driving the car ahead of me) off and she'd have to go through the hassle of chasing down this hitchiker who stole my car. or i thought of the hitchiker wanting to be dropped off at some place where we weren't going and since i was following and not on my own, it'd be hard to work that out with them and i for sure didn't want to be the one to ask permission. however, much of me wanted to pick up a hitchiker on the way to L.A. but sadly, i never did. ohhhh the regrets.

well today, on my way to work (a 10-15 minute drive on a semi-busy road/highway, but NOT interstate) i saw a 70+ year old man walking along side the road in front of a mini-mall and across the street from Meijer (kind of like walmart but better) waving at every car that passed as if they were a taxi he was trying to "flag down." I was confused. i pulled over to get something breakfasty from Burger King just so i could see what exactly this man was doing and to see if anyone would pick him up. then i thought, while sitting in the burger king drive-thru.."I could pick him up! It'd be my first every real-life hitchiker!",... so, after seeing him continually fail in flagging people down and walking a few steps when the road was void of passing cars, i pulled over to the side of the road and rolled my window down, pretending i had done this before. "Hey....uh...you need something?" i asked. He walked over to the car, leaned his head inside the window and smiled, as if he was wondering what i needed from him. "Good morning!" He said cheerfully...his blue trucker hat was cocked to the side. "Morning...did you need a ride?" i asked. he looked at me as though i were a people smuggler and kindly smiled and said, "Nope. Just saying good morning to everyone who passes by." I was perfectly embarassed. "Oh...well...good morning!" I said. He waved again and then backed away from the car...walking on, and turning around every time he heard a car about to pass. he waved at the car...bending down to the side of the road as if he were giving the side mirror a high-five on the side, and then proceeded to walk further on down the road. i drove away, watching him from my rear view mirror, laughing at this man who's on the road at 8:06 a.m. wishing cars a happy drive, or good morning...from the side of the road. i wondered how many people thought what i thought and how many actually knew what he was doing. i have a pretty generous imagination, but i'm willing to bet that no more than one car actually knew what he was doing, and furthermore, waved back and shouted good morning to him while zipping by. i suppose the niceness and peculiarity of his actions made me even more suspicious (i.e., maybe he just robbed someone's apartment and this was his getaway plan---pretty smart eh?). but nonetheless, i couldn't help but thinking of driver's education class and watching the video that shows a person driving through a neighborhood while every person out on their front lawn waves cheerfully as the driver passes, while the driver honks his/her horn politely and waves with sheer glee. perhaps this man watched that movie one too many times, but still, i would love to see this happening on a regular basis. wouldn't it be cool to get to know people via watching them every day on the side of the road greeting cars as they head toward work? "Oh there's Joel again! He's retired but yet, he always finds time to say 'Good morning!' Gee that'd be swell!!!! (I'm only kidding)----No, but seriously..it would be.