Finding water, realizing opportunties

How do I know that God is real?

Water.

As I have said before, I'd not realized how much I took being near water for granted until I got landlocked like a mutha'. I truly didn't appreciate the Potomac -- as nasty as it is, it is flowing water (for that matter, so is the Anacostia) -- until I didn't/couldn't see it anymore. Can't claim to be a beach bum although it was 20 minutes from my house growing up. Something about moms hating sand so she rarely took us, but the beach was always there so it wasn't a big deal to be "near water."

But to be here, in seclusion, or damn near as close as I can be, in the Golden Isles...the first thing I did this afternoon was go to the water.


No silly, I didn't get in -- it's gotta be freezing, duh, it IS February, but I got close, looked out across the oceans, thought of the ancestors, their struggle, this waterway is of death as much as is it of life, the contradiction of the south, how someplace so naturally beautiful can be the site of such wretched, horrible, historical offense, let the breezes hit me in the face and the back and let the sun set and found out just why the Golden Isles are....

This is just day one, I am sure to be more amazed by the wonder of nature in the days to come.

-----OooOoO---OOooOO---OoOooO-----

Yes, the south baffles me. Or I should say I am baffled by my feelings for the south. Yea, that's more like it. I was genuinely moved by the opportunity to be a witness to history this weekend. I was among the thousands that paid respects to the first African-American, first woman to lie in state at the Georgia Capital. I could hardly pry myself away from the screen watching the coverage of the funeral yesterday. So close, but so far, yet here. Did I have such opportunities in other places? Did I take such opportunities if they were there? I think I have so much to experience in the south, and I am starting to make concerted efforts to take advantage of opportunities. This past weekend helped me come to this realization. I'd been coasting for years -- way to damn long. This relocation has been the impetus and as much as I am baffled, I am learning, growing, and even blessing and sharing. Opportunities arrive, in the form of historical moments, in the form of teachable moments, in the form of reconnecting with long-lost peers, in the form of soul-searching journeys. I am finally at ease with making the most of them.

Opportunities.

That's how I know God is real.

P.S. Stevie Wonder's CD, A Time to Love, is my new FAVORITE CD! I haven't' stopped listening to it since I opened it last week. And to think I was about to return it. It resonates with me on SO. MANY. LEVELS, it's unbelievable!

[Song of the Day: "How Will I Know" by Stevie Wonder feat. Aisha Morris]