Filed under: Love, Politics, travel | Tags: airplane, miracle, tragedy, valentine
No one would expect a valentine’s eve dinner to be particularly 
phisophical, yet, for some reason, my v-day dinner was just that. Teddy and I sat in a sea of lovebirds, red balloons, and waiters balancing Italian platters over our heads, yet our minds were stuck on the twisted fate, or chance, of the airline industries recent media-infested roller coaster blitz. First, there was the hudson river miracle landing. Barely even an injury, the pilot praised as an all-american hero, and the passengers given another chance at life. Fixated and fascinated, the media soaked this story up like a sponge, giving viewers a taste of what it’s like for an expected tragedy to end soo well. Two weeks after this astonishment, people held on to the hero, the miracle, the lives that were saved.
Then this miracle was harshly overpowered by the tragic news of a small commuter jet crashing into a suburban home in upstate New York. 49 lives lost on the flight, one life lost in the home. One passenger a widow from the 9/11 attacks. Everyone prominent people in their community. Today, the media questions the pilot’s actions…did he have control of the plane? Was the weather to blame? Could this have all ended differently? There are no conclusive answers yet.
What is the hardest for me to grasp, and what brings me back to my first sentence, is, how can something so unusually miraculous proceed something so unusually tragic? Are we being told anything by these two earily similar dramatic events happening within weeks of one another? Was this all just purely by chance, or did something bigger and higher have to do with these two events falling into history as they have? Certainly, there are no right answers, but if anything, the notion of questioning this can be powerful enough. What are we being told? What are we being shown?
One thing that can be agreed upon is that often the news surrounds negative events. So rarely do we have good news! The war…the recession…disease…tragedy…sadness…oy vey. So, we held onto our good news for dear life, we held onto our all american pilot who saved 50 lives with their 50 stories to tell! And boy, did we get a smack in the face when flight 3407 crashed into that small house in Buffalo. We got a serious reality check that these miracles only happen so often, and that tragedy can happen even more easily.
The most poignant point made during our shared tasting of a slice of tiramisu: the world is inherently disorderly, with a constant desire to make it orderly. All we can do is pick up the pieces that fall that are out of our control. While this is inherently pessimistic, it’s comforting to know that humans are able to adapt so easily, to communicate so well, to question and to challenge and to solve problems. Some problems are solveable and some problems are just too late to fix, but nothing is predictably good or predictably bad. All we can strive for is goodness in order, in this chaotic and unpredictable world.
Filed under: Love
It’s Teddy’s 25th birthday today! He is 1/4 of 100.
That's teddy.
I feel in a bit of a slump today. I have the blues. The post thanksgiving, pre christma-hanna-kwanzika, recession-filled, cold tuesday morning blues.
I think in both respects, life can by so cyclic, that sometimes the predictable feeling of knowing what’s behind you and in front of you can make you feel like you’re wading in a swimming pool of clocks, thinking about the next event while finishing the current one. Definitely a mixture of the two. I suppose it breeds productivity which is always a good thing, yet also breeds a feeling of unfulfillment, when you’re constantly waiting for the next hurrah. Either way, here we are today, doing our tuesday morning routine. Thinking about lunch (lentil soup today), and planning events for the weekend (seeing friends, sleeping, painting, yoga). I guess in that sense life ain’t so bad. Ultimately, I need to not think so much and focus on the pleasures of the present. For the present only lasts at this moment, and that’s really all we can hold onto anyway.
that I’m afraid to be too personal. There’s a mystique about being thought provoking and relatable, yet still remaining a mystery…do you agree? But isn’t that what a blog is for? getting personal and letting your ‘readers’ get to know you and your thoughts? Perhaps you’re learning more about me in this own little reflective piece right here, without even me telling anything about myself? Deep, huh. Anyway, happy thanksgiving to all, I hope everyone has a most fantastic splendiferous lovely feastful enjoyable thanksgiving, as I’m about to have.
So now, I am thankful to those who have been reading and enjoying my own little very personal yet not too personal blog!
While there are many things I’d like to write about right now, I feel quite fixated on how real and epic the climate of our country is lately. So very much, that I feel like in my lifetime, the weight of our outside world and need to survive has never felt so…heavy. Sure, I’m only 23, so life’s weights have been lifted by other’s for the majority of my life (thank you mom and dad), but this is a tough “real world” to enter, even after a year or so within it.
While times are tough, there is something quite romantic about it, and I find peace in that, in feeling so alive, in feeling the personal and collective struggle of gettin’ by and survivin’. In fact, there’s no better time in the world than now to appreciate the good things we are fortunate enough to have. Family that would help you in a time of need, your health, your friends – we are all in it together, we all feel it together, and I think there is something to really embrace as a society about that. What hurts you only makes you stronger.
I went to Hershey, Pennsylvania with my boyfriend this weekend, and it was awesome. Some pictures for you to sample the fun:
Filed under: Love
Last night I was watching CNN, which I’m unhealthily addicted to, and one of those inspiritational yet depressing commercials to donate money to African children with no families came on. It featured a young boy who had just lost his mother and father, having to raise his 5 younger brothers on his own. It made my cry. One tear came down my cheek at the thought of this boy’s life – not feeding himself so he could provide the scarce nutrition needed for his young siblings. I think we can all look up to a person like this. But, the focus of this posting is not to dwell on the sadness, nor to sympathize with this boy’s challenges (although most of us do inherently) – rather, the focus of this post is to recognize the pricelessness of certain gifts we recieve in just being alive, no matter how much money you make or food you have. Love trumps it all, and there is no better feeling in the world. In the Indian peaks of Mount Abu where 22,000 people live, in the Bible Belt of Batesville Arkansas, in Beijing where the streets are flooded with 17 million people, in the slum cities of Mumbai, in the cramped studio apartments of New York city, and in the poor villages of Ugu, South Africa, couples in love lay together and sleep at night. Mothers and fathers care for their mothers and father. Children feed their siblings before themselves. Deep, strong, unequivocal, unconditional needs for giving and receiving love are everywhere, no matter what race, creed, class, gender, specie.
Well, that is the message I took from this commercial I watched on CNN last night. My one tear was a definite tear of sorrow and sympathy for these poor children, but, at least I can have comfort that there is love in this world, and if we could all be so lucky to experience it in our own lives, then that is worth living for in itself.
Allisonwritings 
