From 32,000 feet... OR "aren't we each a who?"

I try really hard to picture it differently... the Brown furry patches instead spread across the whole of this living breathing speck... sprinkles and splashes of imperfectly perfect blue green scattered about... No Patchwork... no flecks of white and flashes of cold silver... Wrinkles from the strain of trying to up heave her illness... or piles dumped there by an elephant flicking the dust of his shoulder... And then the haze thickens and for the time being it is hard to see clearly again...

All I know is that with each answer received the questions multiply. Maybe we cling to each other because we are so desperate to convince ourselves of our significance on this little ball of muck where it is so obvious that we are naught but some sort of freakishly mutated out of control virus... Significance to stoke our egos...even if it is simply in the eyes of another mite. Are the ant's lives more important to most of US just because it is quite probable that they “love” each other? Does it stay the 6 year old’s canvas hightop?

I kept picturing this huge foot coming down from the sky… as it would look for the bugs when I trek though a patch of damp mossy ground… It’s amazing how much trees look just like moss from this height….. It scares me and fascinates me… the possibilities for what it all means are terrifying… But if we see that we could be hurtling out of control talking to the great pachyderm in the sky… how can we not be terrified? And if we are terrified how can we function? Better yet, what is the function of a smudge on the tip of a bullet? So is it living to function? Or to fight against the external pressure to function… and if the bullet has already left the gun than what is the point of EITHER? ….. I ask myself “If you have to ask ‘what does it mean to truly live’ does it mean that whatever you are doing isn't it?” The paradox presents itself once more… the insanity of the juxtaposition of the sheer horror and unbelievable beauty of this world within and without us... If we recognize that we are a tiny part of a very small smudge on something so much larger than anything we can comprehend, how can we continue on with “normal” life? How can we see one without also seeing the other.... I believe the answer is that we can't... Either our eyes are both open. Or they are BOTH closed, and we are lost in our slumbers... living in our dreams.

Some days I wonder if I am still asleep... I've heard the alarm clock enough times that if I'm not awake yet I must be a pretty heavy sleeper... I sure hope I’m not… I’d hate to miss out on all the "living" I might do… The canned air is becoming harder to breathe… And the seat beneath me jolts me from my page for a moment… From two rows forward I watch the stream of golden drops collide with the silver hair of the woman in the seat just in front of me... saw the mama cringing and heard the baby coo... and then we all laugh. Because we've ALL been there.

-K Prue
Written November 8th in transit from CT to GA...