For
the last few days, I’ve had this voracious craving for a cultural meal. It’s been a while, and I’m starving. These moments come and go for me, but
normally I can satiate in some way or another…. i.e. feverishly googling art museums and favorite artists,
great moments in history, poetry.. and/or current campaigns for humanity… closing my eyes
and feeling the energy of the cultural center of the universe, wherever that
may take me. Most times, simply turning
on some good singer/songwriter tunes and shutting myself in the art studio will
get me over the hump, but lately… I’ve been extra famished. Sometimes, I guess, you just need full
immersion.
This is
one of the challenges of living where we live…. There doesn’t ever seem to be
enough cultural diversity to counter the general consensus. We don’t talk about it much because we stay
so focused on the wonderful people who exist in our lives here; however, it is something we’ve discussed in reference
to building a family and whether the overall view would be a sufficiently
nourishing environment for a child. I find myself surviving it more and more these
days so it seems unfair not to, at least, acknowledge the reality that we live in a place where diversity sadly does not exist in quantities large enough to alleviate the burden of inequality.
And then on a day like today, I wake up with a
wacky idea like, “That’s it, we are going to NYC to drown ourselves in art
museums and every melting pot of skin color, religion, gender, ethnicity, art, music, spoken word, and whatever other giant heaps of humanity we can trip over
along the way.” Then I remember that we also
need to buy a dependable vehicle, and the money isn’t plentiful enough for us to do both
right now and my heart sinks. AND THEN…
I begin to scrawl a list across my soul of all the things I’m grateful
for. Because I am.
I
am grateful to even be endowed with an awareness that the world is a big, BIG place with infinite possibilities. I am grateful that I don’t share the views which
seem to stifle progress, but I can exist in love with them anyway. I am grateful that I have options. I am grateful I can create and write things
which help me explore these options. I am
grateful that my life has purpose and I am always contributing to the greater
good of humanity… even when I feel far removed from it. I am grateful for the path which brought me
to the doorstep of myself. I am grateful
I was given enough humility to knock ....and enough courage to go inside. I am grateful to be standing on a solid
platform of morals and values which once was crumbling beneath my feet. I am grateful to be able to spend my days
with someone who shares the same values and teaches me how to keep them at the
forefront of my life and our relationship. I am grateful that when and if we are given the honor of sharing our lives with a child, we will be open-minded, willing,
and honest parents. I am grateful for
the beautiful, inspiring seascape of the emerald coast outside my back door, inevitably granting an acute awareness that there IS a
power greater than me. I am grateful for
the empowering qualities of powerlessness.
I am grateful that I don’t have to be in control. I am grateful that it is not my time to
venture out into the big world today because there is apparently much work to be done right here. I am grateful for life’s
abundance. I am grateful that I am
capable of having my own cultural and spiritual experience in the midst of it
all. I am grateful that everything I
need, I already possess. I am grateful.
"I am a part of WE. It can't be US and THEM anymore. We have to understand..... WE are all US."
-Cynthia Nixon-
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