Whirled Peas

Years ago, I watched the Berlin Wall come down.
Today, I watched what happened in Egypt... after witnessing, over the course of days... a whole country of individuals rise up and become a hive of humanity all focused not on protecting their queen. Rather, hey wanted to overthrowing their "king."
It was profound for me to watch that hive of human protest grow and stand their ground.
To watch the army shift to the people.
To witness a non-violent overthrow of a man I believe was a dictator and narcissist.
To this blogger, the image was/is.... inspiring.
I am so sick and tired of one people or culture lumping and labeling another people or culture... through ignorance or prejudice... into a mish-mash of ignorant misperceptions.
Many people believe everyone in the Mid East is a religious, violent extremist.
Much is to be learned from the lesson Egypt has tough us and the whole world.
However, this is not a poltical blog and I am merely a P.I.
So I call it like I see it.
And I say "You Go Egypt!"

And I say, c'mon America. Let's get it together.
Let's stop saying we are Republicans.
Let's stop saying we are Democrats.
Let's just say we are Americans.
Yes, some of us really hate Obama and want him out.

Yes, others of us really support him 100% and believe the mess he was handed when he came into office was not his doing and will not be his undoing.
Some cheer Sarah Palin's shooting wolves from helicopter as a sign of her strength.
Others see it as animal cruelty or insanity.
We will never ALL agree as a nation.

Point in fact however:
We Americans citizens are ALL Americans.
And as one American I was pleased to know other  Americans who were watching tv....
or listening on their radios...
or following on the net....
would see the faces of all the Egyptians in the crowd, men AND women.
And those images were being projected to a nation of viewers I believe has been fixated on Martin Sheen and Lindsay Lohan for way too long.

I felt... at last.... Americans can really see that other cultures in what they believe are third worlds can be first class.
It was important to me, that people realize  just because others seem foreign does not make them less human.
And every culture contains people who are as real, kind and as caring and emotional as we are.

My job is cross-cultural.
Almost every day I go into different homes.
I  meet Somalians, Egyptians, Iranians, people from Iraq, Samoa, the Phillipines, Guatamala, Peru,  England,  Africa, Croatia, New Zealand, Russia, you name it.
I sit on their furniture. Study the art on their walls. Smell their food. See their children. Photograph their injuries. 
And sometimes... watch their tears flow because they too have been catastrophically harmed by someone else.

Seeing those tears of joy on the TV screen flow this morning  down the faces of the Egyptians... well, it led me directly to this blog before I start my day.
I fully intended to blog later about the  woman I met this week who told me what it was like to have a huge bottle of liquor slammed into her face by another drunk woman. How her teeth shattered,  how her cheekbone cracked and her eye cavity turned to dust. Then I wanted to tell you how she got through it.

I fully intended to blog about how I am often in awe of people who have been sober.... for months,  years, decades even....
then they get an injury and refuse painkillers because their sobriety is more important to them than their pain. 
Despite their shattered, crushed, or broken bones, they tell me the pain itself is telling... and they'd rather bear the pain than the addiction.

We are now a nation addicted to drugs.
Knee shakes? Take this.
Virility diminishing  with age? Take that.
Anxiety? Stressed out? Bummed Out? Here's a script. Pop this pill.
No health insurance?
No problema.
Drink this, snort that, needle anyone?  Huff paint or if you prefer....inhale bath salts? (I wrote a blog about that below).

As you go about your life, know this.
We have only one life.
Just one.
How many experiences we pack into that life....
how many people...
it's all up to us.
How we handle our emotions, bodies and minds...
whether we evolve or devolve...
it's up to us.
For most people, it's about choice.

Some of us choose to exit this existence by their hands, in their own way, for their own reasons.
Others hang on the very edge of the cliff of life with unbelievable determination and strength.
I say.... make today a new day in your life.
Make today a new start.
Jump start your heart.
Be that person you've always wanted to be. Starting now.
As bad as you think you have it, someone, somewhere, has it worse.