Day 257 Life's Binary

August 23, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

There we were—ages 30 to 70, three Americans and two Belarusians sitting outside on my back deck, talking under the stars in Pasadena, Maryland. There were some pauses in the conversation flow to allow for translation between English and Russian and back again. We were people who grew up on different parts of the planet, under different governments and with different experiences. But bottom line, we are all connected. 

We talked not about the weather or other safe subjects, but about ideas and feelings, about fears and hopes. As planes from BWI flew over our house, as stars and planets appeared above our heads, as tree frogs serenaded us—we shared how travel changes us forever and how we can never go back to who we were before. We understood how important travel is to open our minds and to connect with those we always considered different from us. We agreed how important it is to venture outside of our comfort zones. I believe that life is full of continuums except for one binary. We are either growing or dying and we can only grow if we dare to explore.  

Before going inside tonight, I asked everyone to take turns pointing a flashlight at my lens and writing or drawing something. The result was a blending of each light writing. In the end, we are not so different.

My gift today is connecting under the stars.

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> Day 258 Tossing Pebbles

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html