Eating That Elephant

I’m sitting at my computer with the sun streaming through the frigid air outside and into my warm room, sipping coffee brought to me from across the ocean by a friend, it’s rich flavor blunted by local raw cream and a bit of honey. The dichotomies of life seem harsh and stark today.

The world seems off-kilter, tilted, like the deck of a boat in uncertain weather. The thoughtless routine of daily life goes on, and yet it seems ever more important to elude it’s pull. And to find meaning; if not outside of that routine, then somehow within it.

I’m eating my local organic eggs with a mango, which I see (after scrounging the label from the trash in curiosity) is from Peru. And I’m remembering a sustainable local dinner provided by a lovely vibrant woman, a woman who would embrace my mango from Peru and yet, also inspire me to notice, to appreciate, to live with awareness and conscious choice. A woman who is suddenly gone. Somehow I just can’t find the meaning in that, quite yet. But I can sip my coffee with awareness and appreciation, and I can give out unconditional love, and that will have to be enough for now.