Tuesday, January 06, 2009

blue sky

the reason i don't blog is because there is too much to blog about. i will explain in a minute. i also don't blog often because while i am learning and processing an extraordinary amount of information everyday (grad school does that to you, i guess), i prefer to share it with real people in real conversation. i'm not suggesting that is a form of "fake" communication -on the contrary i'm much better at dialoguing through writing-and i don't just mean Sarah Palin's real people. i'm only saying that neither this blog nor any one person nor my own brain can handle all of the things i think in a day so i just don't blog often. there is too much to blog about. this is also the reason why i really haven't started working on my thesis. there is too much to read, to process, to analyze, to synthesize, to write, etc.

so i will share some thoughts from the last week and also avoid talking about the situation in Gaza, which makes me very sad.

new year's day i woke up to a blue sky. compared to other blue skies i have seen, this probably paled in comparison. however, the reason it was so blue, the reason it nearly shocked me awake, the reason i stared out my window so long at it is because it was, simply, blue. during the winter, there is no color. everything is a shade of brown or gray-the trees, the sky and even the grass. gray gray gray. so, to see a blue sky is to be reminded of nature's colors and it can jolt the mind awake from its winter hibernation.

i don't mean to criticize winter. i feel extremely fortunate to have lived my life in a place that has very distinguished seasons. if we were more aware of the seasons, i think they offer very simple explanations of life and they go a long way to explaining man and nature and man's part in nature because really, man is neither above nor below but part of nature. seasons show birth, growth, completion, and death. and it starts over. they show that life is cyclical, that things are always changing, growing, birthing, dying. there are many who say they would love to live in a warm climate year-long. this may be understandable in some situations, but sometimes it is the case that this is simply escaping the reality of life and trying to give oneself the illusion that life is always sunny. we who know the winter can fully appreciate the color of life when it finally comes.

p.s. and i mean that symbolically in all its cliched goodness.