Weather you know it or not

The news is bias, as we all know, and it's actually not that informative. In NY I'd hear who was shot in the bronx, who tried to jump off the tapan zee bridge and what's happening in lybia. 

Now I hear who's still flooded in Jackson, who murdered their girlfield in the trailer park and what's happening in Ukraine. 

It's locally depressing and wordly detached. We don't get much about the day to day in other parts of our own country- and I realize now the south has, and always did have, some crazy fickle weather. 

We get ice storms that are impairing but beautiful.

We get lots of flooding when the rain is relentless. This was a park like front yard of my son's classmates house. Now with 4 feet of water, a flowing river took over their yard. I dropped my son off for a play date and after 2 hours of pummeling rain, I saw this. I told the mother, "you have a river in your yard." She said, "yeah, it happens every time there's a lot of rain. We we have that hump there so it never reaches the house." Ok. If you're ok with it, I guess I'll be. 

This is our back yard. The volume is much more profound in person when your used to just grass being there.

And we get tornados. Random, unpredictable- it's like practicing medicine, they tell you that conditions are favorable for the possibility of the development of a tornado. We are not diagnosing one, but we're not ruling one out. 

There was one small but destructive tornado since I've been here, about 30 miles away. The emergency broadcast system interrupts the radio stations indicating the location of these favorable conditions, or the location and speed of powerful thunderstorms. They add a scroll to the tv, all the while I tell my kids, don't worry. I actually like the thunder, I find it amazing!

The country

I don't know what image gets conjured up when you think of the rural south, the one stop towns. When someone tells me they live "out in the country" I often picture a dinky house on a dirt plot with some dusty farm next door, far out from anything. I never like to be too far out from stuff- grocery, stores, friends, etc. But there is a simple beauty to the country. 

I went in a field trip with my boy and his kindergarten class to a petrified Forest "in the country" and this involved about a 25 mile ride after getting off the interstate on a two lane country road. 

Houses, rolling hills, horses, farms... there were so many opportunities to stop and take a picture, just because of the simple, God given beauty. I didn't because 5 miles off the highway, my gas light went on and I had no idea how far it would take me on this country road or if there was a gas station ahead. I passed probably three cars on the whole journey, if that. 

As I took in the beauty, one undeveloped mile after another, I said screw the petrified Forest, and put a gas station into my iPhone. 

I came upon a wide farm and passed a huge green farming tractor riding along the shoulder. The guy in the cab was talking on his smart phone. What an amusing scene- the basics of historical food production coupled with the top of technology, all in rural Mississippi. 

It was quiet, the air was clean, the sky was blue and freckled with puffy clouds, the horses seemed happier. 

These horses itched their backs on the ground, hoisted themselves up flicked their manes, looked at me with an air of displeasure. These were some animated horses. 

The wildflowers are quite lovely and everywhere- purple, fushia, yellow.

This is my kids picking some flowers. And believe it it not, this is right next to my house.

Us New Yorkers and northerners have to get out of the congestion, the poor air quality and embrace the country sometimes. Even a ride up the Taconic north of peekskill, or removed Connecticut like north of New Milford, Litchfield and on will do it. Especially in the fall...

And yes I did get gas when the back road intersected a bigger back road. I also found that the ride was better than the petrified Forest. A number marked one big hard piece of tree after another. I liked the gift shop and flaming was cool. 

Had I sped along at 75 cause I could and not taken in what was around me I would have missed a big part of the gift of that day. Sure a picnic with my son on my birthday is priceless (with 40 kindergarteners around) but you miss so much when life is taken as an event, and not the whole of the adventure. 

Human

This quote, since I first heard it, changed the way I thought about people, things and life, and has resonated with me for years.

"I am a human being. Nothing human can be alien to me."

Terence 

A16 year old stabbed some people in a school in Pennsylvania the other day and while the story played silently on the tv at the gym I was at, one girl said they were reporting he had bad acne and was taking an acne medication and it can cause psychosis. 

A few moments of silence passed, and debunking the group-think that could have ensued from the tone and manner in which the comment was proposed, another girl said, "I was wondering what excuse they were going to come up with for this one."

I laughed, knowing that's how it goes. 

But then the quote floated back to my mind and I remarked, "that means that if you trace back enough, every one of us has some factors that can be identified that would cause us to stab, shoot or go all Michael Douglas in Falling Down on people." 

I could be viewed as questionable for saying that, or stripped down insightful.

We've all got the ingredients to do the abhorrent, we as humans have the potential or capacity to do all things human- good and bad. Voluntary or involuntary. Psychologically, physically. 

How can that quote not foster empathy for others?? 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-eREiQhBDIk