Anne Spera
Hmm…Where Do I Start?
While in the process of starting this blog, I’ve discovered that it is difficult to choose one topic with which to start. There are so many things I will write about and all of them are in my head and are queuing up and shouting, “Me first! No, not him, me first!” and acting like a bunch of reporters trying to get the President’s attention during a press conference.
During my not-so-short-yet-not-that-long term of life on this planet, it seems to me that my reality has really boiled down to the realization that only I can live my path. It makes no sense why we humans seem to judge each other’s paths in life, based on the views of our personal vistas. So why do we have to have a “this vs. that” mentality? Why is it that there has to be “one right religion” or “one right political party” or “the officially correct way to raise a child”? Why can’t we look at another, smile and think, “that’s his/her path, not mine” and go along our merry way? Why can’t we just keep each other company or help each other with our burdens when our paths are parallel? Are we still stuck in the “survival of the fittest” mode or have we evolved beyond it? I would hope we are more enlightened than that.
Yes, I know about yin and yang, light and dark, good and evil. I’m not really speaking about the divine balance of this universe we live in where you have to have one to be able to discern the other. I’m addressing the issue of how we treat one another and how we really want others to treat us. There are some that say that we always want others to treat us well, (hence the Golden Rule) but do we realistically expect that? Do we honestly feel that others are here to help us in some way? Or do we feel that everyone else is an interloper in our day and should be avoided at all costs? I think the reality is probably somewhere in the middle; some of us really are helpers and others of us simply don’t know how to help.
What is all this hustle and bustle about, anyway? Is life truly better lived in a hurry? I’m a person who enjoys noticing the shapes of clouds, rainbows, colors of flowers, even textures of grass. This caused my mother a good deal of consternation during my childhood because she was always telling me to hurry up. What I really wanted was for her to slow down and enjoy the view with me.
How many of us have kids like that? How many of us have encouraged our children to look more closely at bugs in the grass when it wasn’t on a school field trip? How many of us enjoy our children’s questions and revel in their unbridled curiosity? I hope that there are many of us out there. When my daughter was about 5 years old, she once asked me, “Mommy, where is war?” Tears welled up in my eyes as I began recalling the events of 9/11 in my memory, and I simply said to her, “It lives in the hearts of men.” Of course, I realize she could’ve been asking me where this “war” she kept hearing about on the news was geographically located. But at that very moment, it seemed more like an existential question. “Where is war?” Wow, what a question to come from a 5 year old! I hope my grandchildren will someday ask her, “Mommy, what was war?”
I invite you to share your insights, your stories, your kids’ funny sayings or whatever is on your mind with me here. I look forward to seeing the perspective from your vistas!
Anne
