Musing In A Pre Dawn Sun

In the midst of upheaval and just the scariest time of my entire life - it helps to notice tranquility and beauty where you find it. Often, it's right in front of my eyes out here, if I can lower the volume on my mind's daily musical revue of old negative tunes and its favorite playlist of fears.

This morning, just before dawn, the sun splashed a soft reddish hue across the farmland I drive through around this time nearly everyday. I am still adjusting to not being on MetroNorth barreling into the ugly tunnels beneath Grand Central Station. It's funny what you get used to.

This morning's pre-dawn light was just so beautiful, that I really noticed it. The sun softly stroked the countryside, making it red. Yes, red. I had never seen a red like this before. A crimson red with sheaths of pink running through it here and there. Glorious. There is no color in any spectrum of man's paints that is the same. Inviting and illuminating, this unusual hue engulfed white barns, silos and fresh and still-bare, post winter fields in a hazy splendor. I didn't want the sun to rise and replace all this with what would be, in comparison, the harsh glaring light of day. I preferred this lighting. It reminded me of the morning or afternoon sun in Italy's Chianti region. It was warm and protective. You could disappear into it, or at least hide your bruises inside the deep shadows it made with ease - sort of like pulling your bed covers over your head and sinking into a place more inviting than its alternative. I could have stopped the day right here. Next time, I'll stop long enough to take a picture of splendor, for you and me.

It's Spring Now

March 20, 2009.   It's finally Spring.   It doesn't feel like it outside, but it feels like it in my soul.

I've been stuck, stuck, stuck in my life now for over two years, nearly 3.  Shaken to my core.  I lost my job back in March 2006 and what a ride this has been.

Figuring out who I am without all the trappings I had built around myself in network television news. AND making friends with extraordinary people of every possible category. In the end, a journalist is an observer of who people are, what they do, why they do it and how their decisions impact everyone else. This journey is perfect.

At some point, I realized I had embarked upon a Spiritual journey - one not about what's around you, but what's inside of you. One not about what other people or even you think, but about what you come to know. And you have to accept that many, many people are completely frightened of walking your walk, with good reason. Spiritual transformations, at least the ones I have knowledge of employ pain and unbridled fear to get your attention and then force you to calm down, breathe, and move forward no matter how scared you are in order to mold you anew.

I had to work through remnants of serious anger, over having to battle cancer, over being denied what I had earned, etc. You eventually develop the will and the strength to turn all that noise off and that's when you figure out you have been handed a great gift - the freedom to design the rest of your very life. YES, you have to think positively. You have turn from negative thought and persist at being happy and turning around even deep despair. The positive approach is the only life affirming approach. You have to think: Wow! It's like lots of beautiful open road unfolding before you in the Tuscan countryside. But, before you press the accelerator, you need to translate the road signs.

So much has happened. And believe it or not, out here in the middle of Amish country where horse drawn buggies mingle into traffic with Jeeps and Fords, I am finding exactly what I've wanted since I was a child.... a way to satisfy my need to be deeply involved in international humanitarian drives. Out here, It turns out , there is a plethora of global humanitarian organizations. Who knew? People here believe in saving some corner of the world.

This week, I met a lovely Vietnamese woman who was a cinema and television star in her homeland and lost absolutely everything in the 1975 Fall of Saigon. She is a beautiful and elegant and strong woman who found her way to Hollywood and rebuilt her life. But her pains and her losses still cause her to pause often in the telling of her story. She implored her audience to go deep inside themselves in times of despair and find a way to BELIEVE everything could change tomorrow. I listened to her intensely. I hope everyone did.

In the circles traveled by a New York network television producer, you do not get to know much about the kinds of lives everyday people live or have any everyday people's number in your blackberry, unless you want to interview them for a story. This walk into my soul has changed all that. One of the first bits of Spiritual direction that came through for me when I first got here was to try to know and understand a wider group of people. I've met incredible people. Titles are not exchanged or talked about really. Conversations are built on something else, somehow.

At Costco's this week, I ran into a marvelous woman rather down on herself. She runs a house cleaning business but really wants to launch herself as a personal trainer. She certainly has the body for it, but she's afraid that that is just something someone like her can not actually pull off. She is scared. I am hoping to be a source of courage for her. We ran into each other in the prescription pick up line. I spoke to her, drumming up a conversation - something I love to do. You just never know who you'll meet. She immediately said, "You're not from here." First glancing around to make sure no one overheard her she said, softly, "The people here do not open up to people they don't know. They are nice people, here. Don't get me wrong. I've been here 18 years, but they don't start conversations with strangers. Are you from New York or something?" Yes, was my answer. " I figured as much. I'm from Brooklyn originally." she said. And I responded, ' And yes I hear it in your voice." We laughed and walked together and ended up talking to each other for over an hour and a half leaning on the jeans display just short of the aisles of cash registers that were just going to have to wait for us today. We agreed that New Yorkers are often misunderstood, thanks to a few really obnoxious folk that get outside the city limits, act up and make life hard for the rest of us. My new friend and I just automatically bared to each other our perceived personal worts. It dawned on me that, back in the city, hanging out in my circle, this conversation would never have happened. I shopped at Whole Foods not Costco. I had to smile. A journalist needs to know "real people". I used to complain that the major networks did not, often enough, interview "real people". There was more concentration on the politically powerful and the monied suits. A journalist, a writer, a storyteller needs to know and be able to really connect to everyone's story. Another gift of this journey.


THIS NOTE FOR FOLLOWERS:
 I still have my Joe the Cobbler story to publish here.  Budget constraints associated with technical problems have delayed that.   But,  it's Spring. Things are thawing.