fresh as the morning ...

... there is something "fresh" about getting out early in the morning. Maybe it's just that yesterday is gone ... , and so far this day is perfect. :-)

Yes,

... tonight, despite the fact that I have much to do ...., I took the time to watch a movie. The movie, “Color of Freedom” was the nearly entire story of Nelson Mandella’s (played by Dennis Haysbert) incarceration in South Africa, his trials and tribulations over 27 years, and ultimately his release and rise to become through free and fair election .... the President of South Africa. It was a stirring tale well told, of not only his struggle, but the struggles of both sides of apartheid - the good and the bad - and those caught in the middle, the very human struggles of all the peoples of South Africa. In that regard, it was intense and exhausting to watch, and as one might imagine it was long - but it had to be as long as it was in order to do justice to all the milestones, all the people and characters (and their families) who played such important roles in the positive outcome, the only outcome that could have been ... positive and just. It was told through the eyes of the prison guard early on in Mandella’s incarceration assigned to keep a watch on him and to censure his mail (and that of other prisoners in Mandella’s close association within the ANC).

As I grow older and reluctantly wiser in both American and world history, I realize that knowledge, true knowledge doesn’t come to us in ‘school’, but rather in life, and even then over many ... many ... years. And, history does repeat itself ... over ... and over again - in ways we cannot recognize when we are young. I suppose that is the natural ‘order’ of things. I look back now and wish, rather foolishly perhaps, that I had just been more ... attentive.

returning to ... Haw River

... I have returned to this rock in the Haw River over the many years and seasons since finding it so precariously perched in a river of many moods, such a mighty temper, and such a peaceful soul ... such a pretty place in our countryside. And yet ... over the many years and my returns to check on the rock - it still has not moved. It is ... I think ... my rock now, a gentle yet strong gift for which I hold no deed. But it is far enough removed from our collective greed and nature ... and safe enough for now, to stand forever ... in my memory.