Hello, morning.  Can you see me yet?  The darkness of night still shrouds your glory, so perhaps blindness ensues.  I understand.  The same thing happens to me, sometimes.  Even now, I wonder if my reality is fixed - or if it is waiting for the curtains of time to open and display the truth.  The idea scares me.  I don't know why.  Am I that easily frightened or just too simple to grasp the complexity? 

Hello, friend.  Can you hear me yet?  The distance between now and then fades your voice, maybe it's just a bad connection.  It wasn't before.  The lines must have gotten old, I guess.  I was really hoping to talk to you - my questions are building and the answers are fewer still.  The confusion scares me.  I don't know why.  Did you gently drift away or have I forgotten how to reach you? 

Read more »

I've loved listening to Barack Obama speak for as long as I've known of him.  The "new guy" at the 2004 Convention, the "new guy" as the Senator from Illinois, the "new guy" with the audacity to announce his candidacy for the presidency.  With each step along the way, he grew into a true orator ... finding his voice.

He's not so new, now.  Not to any of us who live in the world today.  Yet - his words, his emphasis, his tenor and his depth still inspire us.  The underlying strength of the man is not that he leads us to believe in him.  What matters more than anything else, the reason we elected him our President, is his belief in us.

Here's an interesting take on his words, his thoughts and the expressions of each.  My thanks to Old Grouch for passing it along to me.

http://www.themillionsblog.com/2009/02/diagramming-obama-sentence.html

I love to fly.  Especially when I'm dreaming and my outstretched arms are all I need to soar above the ground.  But that's not what I mean.  I love airplanes - the sheer power, the force underneath me as the engines roar.  The take-offs are my favorite part.  It starts off slowly, the speed increases and you have just enough time to feel the rush in your gut before the wheels leave the ground and you're going up ... up ... up and away.

I suppose it started when I was a child of about five.  My older sister and I lived with my Mom here in North Carolina, my Dad lived in New Jersey.  Need I mention they were divorced?  The custody agreement was that we lived with her during school months, and with him during the summer.  So every June, just as all my school friends were planning slumber parties and picnics, we were packing to leave. 

Read more »