Peace

"Peace is hard, but we know that it is possible. So, together, let us be resolved to see that it is defined by our hopes and not by our fears. Together, let us make peace, but a peace, most importantly, that will last."


I'm pretty used to quoting people who are long gone or no longer in a position to be heard. I love reading through old speeches from presidents and leaders and Nobel Laureates and innovators. A well-phrased truth makes me listen, helps me to better appreciate the successes and challenges of any given situation.


The above quote is the ending paragraph of President Obama's speech to the United Nations General Assembly today. I actually sat down and read the whole thing and I invite you to do the same. No matter what you think about the man or how he's fared in office, this document is full of good quotes. 


"The men and women who built this institution understood that peace is more than just the absence of war. A lasting peace -- for nations and for individuals -- depends on a sense of justice and opportunity, of dignity and freedom. It depends on struggle and sacrifice, on compromise, and on a sense of common humanity. "


""But let us remember: Peace is hard. Peace is hard. Progress can be reversed. Prosperity comes slowly. Societies can split apart. The measure of our success must be whether people can live in sustained freedom, dignity, and security. And the United Nations and its member states must do their part to support those basic aspirations. And we have more work to do. "


"Ultimately, peace depends upon compromise among people who must live together long after our speeches are over, long after our votes have been tallied. "


"True peace depends on creating the opportunity that makes life worth living. And to do that, we must confront the common enemies of humanity: nuclear weapons and poverty, ignorance and disease. These forces corrode the possibility of lasting peace and together we're called upon to confront them."


I pray that words and thoughts like these, that talk peace to everyone, don't end up being left out of history books because they were ignored and become obsolete in the conflicts of our future. 

Fireworks

I feel like I've been everywhere.

I just went back to my good friend, my google calendar. We had been separated for most of the summer and I think it might have gotten lonely in those long months with hardly a date to remember. But, ever faithful with unfailing memory, it tells me that I attended graduation on May 8th and proceeded to say Screw You to commitments, other than Jennifer's Wedding, which was lovely. I know I went down to Charleston the week after graduation because I drove back up just before the wedding. I know I spent some of the week after that in Chapel Hill because I gave a planetarium show before I flew out on the 22nd. And then I know my summer was a crazy blur of cities and countries and accents and people, which I blogged about here.

Then I flew back on August 11th, cut my hair, couch surfed in Chapel Hill for a week while I worked and surprised Pam for her birthday and finally moved into my apartment in August 20th. I then spent a surprising 14 days sleeping in the same bed. That's the longest time, need I remind you, I've had the same space to lay me down every night since I moved out in May. On September 3rd, I drove up to Ohio with some friends to see Rachel get married. On September 5th, we drove back. On September 6th, I rode up to Baltimore to attend a workshop at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and today, September 9th, I drove back to Chapel Hill/ Carrboro and then back to Granite Falls because I still have so much stuff at home.

And I'm not complaining, really. Everywhere I've been has been part of the amazing opportunity that being a semi-adult with no unforgiving ties to a place is. There have been astounding circumstances that have worked out in my favor to allow me to end up where I am. All the places that I am. But I have to admit that I'm tired. Starting a new job while going through reverse culture shock while trying to move into a new place while having nothing to contribute to said new place other than an unwavering desire for a hammock while feeling a nigh unstoppable urge to hop in my car and drive somewhere insane like Sacramento wears on a person a little bit. Still, I'm having the time of my life.

That last sentence was brought to you by the responsible adults of the world. Of course she's having the time of her life, the responsible adults think. She's got to take advantage of this time before her real life starts.

I'M REAL NOW, RESPONSIBLE ADULTS.

I exist now. I live and breathe and take up space and contribute to the economy now. And I'm not the same person I was four years ago- I just spent two weeks listening to freshmen talk and try to impress and I know that I don't know anything and that's all the difference. I think now. I'm humble(r) now. And I can't reclaim the person I was and I don't need to and I don't need to imagine the person I will be because I am a living, breathing, thinking, loving person now. Don't patronize me. Life does enough of that already.

 It's just that I'm so ready to be taken seriously, as a thinking person whose opinion doesn't need to be edited with caveats and addendums. I guess I haven't earned my stripes. I haven't worked for years at different jobs scraping to pay my bills. I haven't formed and lost relationships. I found a wrinkle on my face the other day (I think it's from laughing or smiling ironically). Will you stop doubting me then, when my face is covered with life's declaration of the dying resiliency of your skin?

I know I'm just starting out. But it feels like I've been starting out for a long time now.

As I drove back today, I sang until I was hoarse, I prayed as only one can do when the windows of your car have been down for two hours and the sound of the wind washes away your yelling, and I sped on with that inexhaustible sense of freedom that comes with seventy miles an hour on an interstate. I slowed down when I got into Hickory because the speed limit's changed in places and because every stop light caught me. I looked around for a sputtering motorcycle behind me at one light as I was worried about the constant backfiring coming from his bike, but couldn't find one. Then the colors lit up the sky on my left and I almost missed the green light watching the fireworks.

I sped up the hill to the stadium and pulled into the megachurch parking lot right beside the field. There were four or five other cars already up there, having caught most of the show from this momentary vantage point. I parked and turned off my car and sat with Holy Ghost Tent Revival playing through the cracks and booms of the pyrotechnics. Sitting, curled up in my driver's seat, feeling the greens and reds and blues and whites reflect off my face.

Then, right on cue, after the last barrage had faded from the sulfur-ridden air, the five or six of us who had pulled in off the road started our cars and turned around from our terrible parking jobs and drove out of the lot. It was odd and wonderful, flitting into and out of the lives of these people who I never met, all of us drawn like kids to a cotton candy booth to what I'm sure was a bright remembrance of our childhoods, lighting up a night already dominated by a moon that cast my shadow onto my passenger's seat.

I raced the cloud of firework smoke across the river. It only seemed right, for a person just beginning.