Distance

  Distance is an amazing thing.  In astronomy we talked about the planets, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe.  It all was so hard to comprehend--more like a pretty picture or a virtual tour that we just looked at and admired--not reality.  It's amazing just how big and small the world is all at once.  Traveling can be so eye opening if you allow it to be.  Some times I just lay there in bed thinking about the universe.  Imagining this picture that was painted for me in astronomy, then I start to zoom in on just our own individual planet.  Even up to know my grandma and I just stayed shocked that technology has allowed us to stay in touch even though there is so much distance between us.  In real time I can talk to my grandma on the other side of the planet.  She and I have eight hours of a time difference but yet I can still talk to her.

  This past summer when my Saudi friends returned home for Ramadan, I remember talking to them and asking where the sun was.  I would ask them, "Do you see the sun?  Can you send it my way."  No matter how far in distance we are, there are some "universal" consistencies in our world.  The sun is the same no matter where we are and the stars are still all the same and so are people.  Before I left for Jordan I remember just looking up at the stars and taking comfort that no matter where I go, the stars will still be the same.  The world never sleeps.  I will always be able to see the big dipper from any place in the northern hemisphere.  Walking home at nights it always makes me feel so connect to see the basic constellation as I did back in Oklahoma.

  Just as well, not matter the distance, people are always the same.  I jokingly told my friend the other day that there was life in Jordan.  He asked how Jordan was and I said, "Well, there is actually life here!  It's not just a story that they tell me about.  Perhaps there isn't really life in China, I don't know, I haven't been there yet."   It's just amazing how life goes on all the time all around the world and it's so humbling whenever you just take the moment to think about the approaching seven billion people in the world and how they are all so similar.

  We all have drives and desires.  We all seek love, companionship, adventure, and truth.  We all justify our own thoughts and we try to make sense of the world around us.  Things motivate us to act one way or the other way and all through often times the majority of our misunderstandings are explained in just completely different ways of thinking, we still have the same primal motivators.  All humans are motivated by pride, respect, expectations, culture, ambition, greed, desire...the list goes on.  Whenever trying to understand another culture or another point of view, I take comfort that most likely, it's rooted in one of these most basic human emotion that we all can understand.

  When talking to a friend today, we discussed how people are people.  He said, "You can't find a place where everyone is bad."  I thought that was a very optimistic point of view.  I liked it.  Given in any situation, you will find good hearted people--any faith, any culture, any location or vocation.  People are always bound to surprise us and to cut a whole in the boxes we have build for them.  When you really start to get to know someone, you'll discover that they are much more complicated then we think they are.

  I love meeting people.  I love exploring but most of all, I like to just explore people.  Last night over an ice cream treat my friends and I were talking about our hobbies--a very elementary language lesson, but I was a good question just to start to better understand my own friends.  It's amazing how you can be friends with someone for so long but when you go to a public meeting where they have to give a random piece of information they can completely surprise you with stuff you don't know about them.  Last night we asked this public group question about hobbies and I surprised myself whenever I said that one of my hobbies is just meeting people (I make up stuff all the time that usually these ideas don't really come out until I make it up randomly on the spot).  I like to explore and learn.  I think that every person I met is an unread book, a new expedition that is to be traveled.  We are all so vast and deep no matter where we come from and I love to just explore people.  You can think you know someone but after 10 years most likely they've changed so much that you get to learn about them all over again.  I love it.  Meeting new people from all over just reminds me of how universal we all really are.

  Yet at the same time, even the slightest distance can change everything.  In Amman, Jordan, it is normal to find a girl wearing a vail and pants and a young guy wearing shorts, but if you go just 30 minutes to the city of Salt, expectations are completely different.  Just moving from one part to the other can change so much.  It takes around five hours or less to get from Amman to Tel Aviv (it's hard to judge because of transportation and boarder time fluctuations) but just reminiscing on the abrupt change in culture and mindsets amazes me.  In Jordan a girl is bound by the expectations of her community in so many ways but five hours away, girls are out on the street at 4 am going to the club in a mini skirt with no consequences.

  It's amazing.  Distance.  It can change so little and also change so much.  I often like to think of the world as a watercolor piece where colors bleed into the next and slowly fade into a new color.  In this world our distance and neighbors help color our world so much.  As you look at the cultures around the world, usually they change very gradually.  You can see the Indian influence in the Middle East as well as the African and the European.  Even between Israel and it's neighbors, even though the gradient is more abrupt, still parts of the Arab culture bleeds into the Israeli culture.

  Whenever I'm alone or lonely, I like to look to the heavens just because they remind me that we are all together and we all face the same problems and complications.  "Nothing is new under the sun."  As quoted from P.S. I Love You, if we are all alone, then we are all together in this too.  It's amazing how far away I can be from my friends yet I can feel so close.  Simple dialogue helps quench the ache of loneliness.  Communication even in distance helps heal the heart from sorrow.

  Loneliness it the downfall of mankind.  It's not good for man to be alone.  We are social creatures and no matter how far or near people are to us, the most important part of companionship is not a matter of physical connection (although we need that too) but most a matter of emotional connection.  No matter the distance, I still feel loved when I get an e-mail from my best friend or when my friend messages me on Facebook every day.  I feel connected and so close even though we're literally worlds apart.  Looking up at night or at the dawn or the day I remember that no matter how far I am away, I will always be so near.

"Waiting

How can someone so close

Be allowed to be so far away

Your red leaves fall in the evening

While Im waking up to smog these days

You know how I love when the sun touch my skin

But I still miss your thoughts on rain

So come and save me over the thin phone line

Just one of those days

Where you learn to fly

WIth broken wings

My thoughts are on an airplane home

While my feet are still on the ground

But you were never late

To pick up the phone and call

Now it's fall and I miss 

Making love in the sunday afternoon sunlight

Wednesday, thursday

One down, a billion to go

With glasses foggy you're losing sight

So come and I'll save you over this thin phone line"

"Across Waters Again"

-Blindside

  

Just once again...pillow talk.