oklahoma, the cold, and the world :)

i love the fall and the winter. i love the leaves turning. then the leaves falling and the branches bare. the chance for snow. the increase in nighttime. one year, i lived in a country that didn't have "daylight savings time" and it felt wonderful. growing up with shifting our clocks one hour back in the fall and one forward in the spring, i never realized how utterly disorienting it is at so many levels. it felt so natural and comfortable to have no disruption to the shortening of the day that winter. hopefully one day our country will eliminate that practice.

the cold, especially rainy or cloudy cold days are my favorite. i love snuggling by a fire, wrapped in a cozy blanket. heading out into the brisk air with my old yellow scarf and mittens. corduroy pants. bulky sweaters. thick argyle socks. so why don't i live in a colder year-round climate? only because when i met my husband, he was finally, for the first time in his life, establishing roots. having never lived somewhere for more than one year at a time, he'd now lived in this town and worked at this job he loved for years! i grew up in one house from the age of one until i left at eighteen for college. he went to about ten different grade schools. didn't even remember all the homes he'd slept in, or teachers who'd taught him.

i didn't really need to move away. i was happy to stay. oklahoma is a place i always wanted to leave, growing up. being a liberal and agnostic, in a conservative and strongly christian state, i always felt odd here. i wanted to go somewhere where i would feel surrounded by like-minded people.

but now that i'm grown, i realize that i'm ALWAYS surrounded by like-minded people :)

even if our beliefs are different...even if our politics are different...when i look at another person, i know that they have a story. they have a family they came from. they have memories that affect them. they feel love and pain and sorrow and joy. at least i hope they do. i think about the fact that whatever clothes they are wearing, they picked those out. they looked at that shirt on the hanger this morning and chose to wear it today. or maybe they were too tired to think and just put it on thoughtlessly. maybe they looked in the mirror while brushing their teeth. maybe they thought something about themselves or about the day ahead of them. maybe they wanted to say something important to someone this morning but didn't have the time.

whatever our connections, i know that they are there.

i know i'm not alone in this world. no matter where i am.

my favorite thing i learned from traveling, working and living in other countries, is that the world actually is small. it doesn't matter if someone speaks a different language from me, grew up in a country that was impoverished or war-torn, has a completely different historical and religious landscape...we are all human. we are all in this together.

“A stranger is just a friend I haven't met yet.” ~Will Rogers

what i really wish we would say in schools each morning :)