Take it home with you...

Have you ever been on a vacation and bought something like an aloha print skirt and when you return to life in the city it seems rather out of place? Or perhaps you go to Italy and buy a leather jacket because that's the thing to do, and then you return home and realize that it's a bit too flashy for your small town... When on vacation anything goes, When in Rome do as the Romans, right? It's one of the best things about traveling, you take on a new culture! You can eat and dress and talk in all new ways. You go at their tempo, perhaps that means dinner only after 8pm or drivers who ignore traffic laws. There's no point in traveling if you expect everything to be the way it is at home. The point is in the experience, learning and exploring. It's the sensation of completely new flavors, sights and smells... And pushing yourself to new limits, and discovering your own capacity to adapt and broaden your understanding how big and small the world is. Big because you discover how much more there is to learn, and small because you realize that no matter where you go- we are all the same in so many ways. Like the street car vendor who is waking up early every morning and working hard to make a buck to provide for his family- just like you. Sometimes you go home with a better understanding of people or of history and how the past has affected where we are now. After my recent trip to Brazil I want to return with two souvenirs... I was awestruck at the beauty of God's creations, I saw nature at it's best on a small island off the coast, green vegetation and pristine bath water beaches providing a home to creatures of the sea. And then the people, soft hearts and respectful in their nature, not greedy or pushy and they did not expect rewards for their kindness. The people had an aura of humility that I admire and I do not want to forget. Like the aloha skirt, perhaps these ideas are not as popular at home. But I will not hang these memories in the back of my closet, I want to remember the beauty of the place and of the people because these are worth taking home with me.

The Popular Plate...

All it takes is one popular plate to get things started... your house can be spic-and-span until you are suddenly rushed after eating and must leave that one plate in the sink. Before you know it, that one plate has invited a few other friends to play in the sink, and then word gets out and the whole kitchen joins in the fun of making a mess. The same thing happens in other rooms.. that one skirt that you didn't hang up so you draped it over the chair has turned into a mound of clothes... Or the laundry that you did, but couldn't put away... Or the bag that needs to be unpacked... the stack of mail or the trash that needs to be taken out...

The problem is that in your regular routine you can only manage one task at a time. So once it gets started when you are holding dish number two- you think to yourself, "I only have time for one and since there are two now, I will have to wait and do both of them later..." This scenario continues because next time that two is three, and then three is four and so fourth. It becomes so overwhelming that all of those two and three minute tasks have added up to take hours when you finally get around to it. Sadly I think this is how people handle other areas of life too. For instance when I am trying to stick to a diet, after I fall to a moment of weakness and indulge in one cookie-rather than stop there, I think "Oh today is lost now, I'll start again tomorrow or next week..." and I end up eating them all. For others this happens with sins or spending or gossip or whatever it may be. We have goals of keeping things clean, sticking to our diet or staying within a budget, etc.- and after the first slip, It's so hard to go back to a clean slate! So I blame it on that first plate, don't let that one slide or when you are standing there with number two- don't stack it on, just wash them both!

Lotto for the lonely

Last week I went to the Orpheum theater to check out the lotto to get tickets to Wicked. You arrive two hours before the show, put in your name and wait until they draw the winners of the $25 tickets. As I stood there waiting for the drawing to start at 6pm, I looked around at the other lotto participants. Everyone circled around as the announcer began to draw names. A mother and daughter sitting on their suitcases were the first to win, obviously tourists either on their first or last day of vacation. The crowd cheered as they went up to receive their pin and select their seats, then the daughter announced that it was her mothers birthday and everyone cheered again. Then a young guy in tight jeans and the long hair side sweep won, and turned from a college punk to a giddy little boy and again everyone clapped and the announcer continued. Then the older man in the flannel shirt and wrangler jeans with timberland boots and his wife in nearly the same outfit but accented with a brushed out perm (again, obvious tourists) won and the crowd cheered. My favorite winner followed, the eight year old hispanic boy and his father, he was so excited and as the crowd clapped his very white but crooked teeth were a glowing smile against his bronzed skin. Despite the fact that each person hoped that their own name would be called next, there was a genuine happiness for those who won each time. And although we were all strangers we clapped and cheered and smiled for the lucky recipients of the tickets.

I thought to myself that when I am a lonely old widow that this is where I would come and immediately feel as though I have friends. I thought of the homeless man I passed on the street just around the corner on my way there, I'm sure he would have smiled when he saw that little boy when his name was called. There is something sweet about moments when the barriers between strangers dissolve and we realize that we are all in this journey together, it is not a competition but often a lotto of what life will bring. We should cheer on one another's good fortune, and if we do then the happiness we feel for others will spread into our own lives.