Last week, Russell Simmons calld for the censorship of three controversial
words -

bitch, ho and nigger.

I could be wrong but I still wonder.

It occured to me the other day, while sipping a cup of coffee at a cafe, that some of the saddest people in the world have to be those waiting tables in the airport. I mean –

waitresses that are working in airports.

They just always seem so sad to me.

It seems like it would be sad to watch people come and go, to imagine where their travels might be taking them or what adventures they have just had when the likelihood is that you can’t afford those travels and adventures for yourself.

And,

to take orders from people who have no real reason to tip you well because they have no expectation of seeing you ever again has got to be a bummer —

I imagine.

Then again, maybe not.

Either way they just always seem like a poem; like a heart wrenching country song that is waiting to be sung…

Every morning without fail –

they do it.

I’m talking about how the people that get off of the subway at the Wall Street stop in the morning. They always act as if:

Everybody should step aside because the grown-ups are getting off now; the serious workers have got to go and take care of real business…

Or is it me?

Maybe I’m just feeling self conscuious about schlepping my daughters violin.

I as so grateful to have been spared.

This afternoon as I sat reading my book on the subway, a man sat down in the seat next to me and kept looking at me as if I was doing something that he wanted me to stop —

doing.

Did he want me to move my handbag? Slide over to give him more room? Was he trying to figure out what I was reading?

“What’s your problem?!”

Anyway, as my fortune would have it, he got off at my stop and started slowly up the escalator (that I swear you could ride to the moon if you wanted to). As this man lumbered cooly up the stairs, I decided that I would teach him a thing or two about staring at people who are simply sitting and reading and minding their own business.

As I darted up the escalater with a forced ease, I breezed right by him, landed at the top victorious and then –

my foot slipped!

Thankfully I was spared any embarrassment because I as able to catch myself and adjust my footing just in the nick of time, allowing me to play the whole thing off as if nothing had happened and I was able to walk away with my dignity in tact.

Thank God!

I walked on, looked up to heaven and decided to actually thank God for having had mercy on my poor prideful soul.

“Thank you God for coming through for me just now.”

I couldn’t resist, however, asking Him where He had been the other day when–

I was running down the middle of Fifth Ave trying to hail a taxi in the rain. Where was He when I slipped and fell in the middle of ongoing traffic, when I was forced to leap to my feet and finish the stupid run to the taxi, when I crawled inside and watched horrified as I watched my knee swell to the size of a cantaloupe, which wound me up in bed unable to walk for two days…

“Where were you then, God?”

Huh?

Have you heard the joke about the bacon and egg breakfast?

The Chicken is involved. The Pig is committed.

Go ahead and laugh. It is FUNNY.

But, when it comes to the things in your life that you say that you want:

ARE YOU A CHICKEN OR ARE YOU THE PIG?

For the most part, MOST OF US are chickens…

They actually leave their babies parked outside of the boutiques while they go inside to shop.

It’s true.

In Iceland the crime rate is so low that women actually feel comfortable leaving their sleeping babies in their stollers outside, in front of the store, while they take their time and shop. People living in Iceland also leave their doors unlocked and yet, they are never robbed or otherwise intruded upon.

In Japan if you lose your wallet or anything else for that matter, you are almost certain to get it back.

In Canada the homicide rate is very low and yet many people own guns.

I considered all of this as I browsed the front page of the New York Times earlier today…

Our minds, bodies and souls are a direct reflection of what it is –

we consume.

“When you seek out your own personal legend, the universe conspires to help you along the way” — The Alchemist

To have a dream is a beautiful thing.

To be able to dream presents a profound opportunity.

To be willing to fight for a dream elevates you to a place of poetic privilege where, you will discover what you are made of and who you really are.

The beauty of a dreamer inspires. The opportunity to dream makes people come alive. The privilege to dare want something more for yourself and for your life separates you from the ordinariness of mere survival and just getting by.

What is it that you want? How much longer are you willing to put up with the fact that you don’t have that yet? When will you be willing to –

just take a chance?

It’s doesn’t have to be an event!

It’s a choice that we can make if we want to, and isn’t it possible in any given moment to make a choice about doing something or not?

FORGIVE.

To grant forgiveness to someone is one of the most extraordinary privileges of being –

a human being.

To require that someone gravel and keep asking over and over again to be forgiven is just not nice. In fact, it’s down right unkind. When we wallow in some middle ground between holding a grudge, indulging in self pity, feeling enttitled to our anger and waiting to grant forgiveness –

nobody wins.

Be mad but then get over it so you can get on with other things.

When someone does something that you don’t like; something that hurts or offends you and they say “sorry”, why not simply forgive them — clean and clear and set in motion the opportunity to begin again, to heal and to build something brand new?

Isn’t that just BETTER?

Forgiveness was never meant to be some event of epic proportion, some drama or a process that needs to take time. It is a choice that is available for all of us to make, and we can make that choice –

on a dime.

Whatever happened to good old fashioned forgiveness?

Last week I saw a one woman show about a courageous Rwandan woman who spent 91 days in a bathroom with seven other women trying to survive the horrible genocide of 1994 that ended up claiming the lives of all but one member of her family.

Today she forgives the killers.

This morning I watch Don Imus apologizing for an offensive comment recently that he is clearly sorry for; he sincerely regrets that he said what he said and yet –

forgiveness seems to be something that people are unwilling to grant him.

Why?

We are all human with human weeknesses and human shortcomings. We all do and say things all of the time that could be percieved as offensive, hurtful or nasty. We have all done and said things that we regret.

None of us are perfect.

We’ve all made mistakes and I don’t know about you but –

I appreciate the forgiveness of others when I do so —

I grant forgiveness when I can…