Today's topic: Describe your location.
My immediate location is our rec room (a few minutes ago I was downstairs in the living room. Oh the difference a few minutes make.) It's cozy here, warm from our computers and the wonderful buoyancy of heated air. It is however, poorly lit where I sit at my desk. The main lighting is overhead, in the center of the room. My desk is not. The hubby is at my left playing a video game at his computer. The cats are currently wandering hither and yon.
One step removed from that, I am in Huntsville. My corner of Huntsville is a delicious blend of suburban (we live within a walkable distance of the grocery store) and rural (our property borders undeveloped land and our yard plays host to deer, squirrels, birds, rabbits, and more.) It's much greener here than in my native desert of Los Angeles. Tonight it is also much colder, with bits of snow twirling in the air, melting as they hit the ground.
Another step back and I am in Alabama. I do not know much of this state. I am not versed in its history aside from the splashes it made on the national stage during the Civil Rights movement. I understand that we have some pretty beaches, but many children at this end of the state grow up without ever seeing them. Somewhere near those beaches is a museum that my grandfather is in. I keep meaning to go visit, see his pictures, learn a little more about the man who died when my mother was just a child.
Zoom out again and I am in the United States. Nation of plenty--of things both good and bad. Plenty of optimism and plenty of hate. Plenty of inspiration and plenty of material pursuits. Plenty of innovation and plenty of close minded "it will never work". Plenty of work still to do.
One more zoom out and I am on a blue and white ball. Bright and full in contrast to the dramatically dim and open of space. I don't know what's out there, but answers to that question filled the books, tv shows, and movies I consumed as a child. Whatever the answer is, its sure to be more glorious, more awful, more surprising than anything we have anticipated, shaped in our own image.
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