I was beginning my journal writing for today with the TV still tuned to CNN when the announcement came that bombs had been detonated at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I had decided I would write a BLOG piece on what it means in these confusing times to be "American," I listened for awhile and then picked up my cameras and headed down the sea, which is what I often do in times of great confusion. I've postponed the writing about what it means that I am an American.
From the Ocean Beach Pier I watched surfers who almost certainly hadn't heard the bad news. They were mostly young guys, so it was easy for me to think of them as symbols of lost innocence. Eventually they had to come in and learn about a new tragedy.
7 comments:
I hope those surfers stayed out extra long....but for sure, now they have heard.
Maybe they don't have to come in.
D.J.
What wonderful surfing pictures! I bet you couldn't have gotten them so well with your phone camera -- or whatever it is called.
Two days ago my Canadian granddaughter and two great-granddaughters parked at the beach and watched from a high point as the surfers did their amazing rides.
H.T.
You're right... I definitely couldn't have got these pictures with the phone.
Jerral
Leave it to old men like us to ponder the meaning of it all...for we have lost and forgotten the innocence of simply accepting what is...life...for what it is...a flleeting moment of now...like a red rose blooming...for just exactly that moment you noticed it. Did it even exist...much less beautifully bloom but for the moment. Oh, how those young men and women out there on the waves...experience their moments...intense as they are...now...not even giving that withering rose of a moment of ours a moment's thought. Jerral, I love you, my friend and teacher. - D.J.
David, beginning a new day with these thoughts on my mind will make this a very good day indeed. I am grateful. Thank you for this rose in full bloom.
By the way, it has been pointed out to me that the last photo with just the hand of the surfer above the water is symbolically open to interpretation. Is he going down or coming up? He's definitely coming up. After a day like Monday in Boston, we must always come up.
I sat this morning in front of my computer screen and cried while looking at the picture of the 8 yr old boy killed in Boston...at the finish line, his. I want my grandchildren to have firendships like ousr, that have years behind them, that look back with gratitude and joy and always look forward because we trust there is more life to explore, experience, and celebrate. The idea that someone would take that possibility away is abhorrent, and heart breaking, and changes my mood and, for a time, limits my hope. And so, I look out my window at the mountains and I know, as the hymn writer has penned, "Morning is broken, like the first morning..." and so it goes and always will. Looking at show capped mountains reflecting the increasing brilliance of the Alaskan Sun or ocean tides sweeping along the shores of southern California reminds me that violence painfully interrupts, but can never stop the amazing beauty and ever-lastingness of life. Life is good, hopeful, and I'll never stop being amazed by the beauty of life each day regardless of the ugly violence that attempts to destroy it. Violence is a painful heartbreaking intrusion, beauty is, well, forever. I know you well enough to tell you that though YOU lose your innocence on occasion, this may be one of them, it's not a permanent condition. The pictures of the water prove it. Remember your baptism and be thankful...again. Peace, Bob
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