Going and Growing: Another Day of Chill Intensity

Don't get used to this habit of a daily post, it's just the whole exciting-new-endeavor phase, along with my ridiculously light course load enabling me to write on the whim. I'm trying to figure out whether to take only four courses; which involves one class a day three days a week, and 2-4 classes a day the other two days...what do you think? Is that enough school? Haha.

Well today was wonderful. I mean, in some ways. It is 10th anniversary of the tragic September 11th terrorist attacks. I was nine years old when I woke up on that sleepy weekday to hear on the radio announcers confused and terrified. I remember my first thought being "How could towers that big and strong fall down?" It didn't even occur to me that there were people inside! Maybe that is just how a child's brain works. At school all the TVs were blaring and my grade 4 teacher made us write a paragraph about how we felt, because "this would be a day to remember." When I saw people jumping out of windows from the 100th floor my heart jumped out with them too, what would it be like, free falling to your death knowing there was no other way to end it? What were they thinking? Did they feel air on their skin and look at the clouds or was it just all crashing rubble and blistering fire?

What did they say to each other before it was all over? Were they expecting just another work day?

The thing is, I had a family tragedy this summer when one of my cousins who was very young was killed. It was unexpected and it jolted me into the reality that all of this, all that we take as a given, all that we know we don't really know at all. We are not in control. And most of all, this life is a fleeting, precious, and valuable gift.

Have you listened to a really powerful piece of music that stirs something dormant in your soul? Well today I did, it was something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFSRs7iqAv8

I went to a lovely inter-faith Sept. 11 ceremony at a United Church and it corporated many different traditions and religions (Centre for Inquiry, to Sikh, to Lutheran) and I was so moved by the messages of healing and remembrance. It felt good to do something on this important day. It is also a full moon tonight and in many different beliefs that has significance. Basically I am just feeling really connected right now, on a Sunday at university.

When I went to Kenya this summer on a humanitarian-educational trip (I will tell you more in another post) I was interested in how seriously people take Sundays. There is no work on Sundays. I like that. I like that we set aside time for rest and renewal of spirit. It is vital, essential, and something we don't realize in the speedy chase of North American paced lives.

So my learning today is this: slowing down Sundays makes me more sunny :)

All my love,
Emmy xox