a new deal

Yesterday afternoon, I lay on my bed, and looked out the window.

The leaky rainy roof the convent covered the immediate landscape with a gray crystallized sheen, and the cross at the fore front of the building outlined the cloudy sky ahead.

I was tired. Tired of thinking, of feeling, of being, of living.

Since the day of my birth, I have never stopped living, nor stopped dieing.

It is a constant existence, and the struggle never goes away, the nature of it simply changes.

It is a joyous existence, sprinkled with true light, and the realization that happy things really do make you cry, as the F lamming Lips once reminded us.

In the last few days, I had been thinking about the country I was born in, how the reality of the greater existence of government and policy had always indirectly effected me, but never actually touched me or moved me, especially as a young child.

Was the government around me even important at all? Was it not my mother's hands, my father's heart, and God that had kept me this long?

I smiled and frowned at the memories of my childhood that slipped in front of my mind's eye, and then gasped at the sight of three balloons , one red, one white, and one blue, floating above the cross outside my window.

Faith, country, nature.

Faith, a cross that exists sturdy on the outside of our houses, silently blessing us, encouraging us along when the screams and cries inside become overwhelming, when psychological, financial ,or emotional problems become to overwhelming. When we need something to thank for the small miracles that happen in our living rooms but are too proud to thank one another, or moreover, ourselves!

Country, a vision passing by our windows, perhaps holding us together, but never participating in the love and passion that existed within our homes. A presence that oversaw, but did not convince, or change, a distant hand, even when it was right in our mailboxes asking for our hard earned dollars.

Nature, the sky that framed the cross, the wind that pushed the vision, the breathe in our lungs, the reason we were there at all.

A simple picture outside my window that brought meaning to me, a young woman falling asleep after a long day of living and dieing.