Friday, October 06, 2006

On Turning 42

This is a sea change year. I read once that every seven years every cell in our body has been replaced, so I have always imagined that in the process we go through a sea change (where an inland sea's bottom flips over and rises to the top) initiating an alteration in our persona. This is my sea change year.

For a long time I have been somewhat ambivalent, or even hostile, to the arrival of each birthday. Not this year, I have worked to hard to bring about changes over the last year and to grasp at some sense of where I am at, what I am doing, and what I care about. I look forward to the future (even as worried as I am about the direction of our country and the passivity/amnesia that infects its citizenry).

I've been training hard. Preparing my mind and my body. I know it is a common mistake for us to imagine that this is a watershed moment in history (far more important than any other moment), but can we deny that the upcoming years are not vital to the direction of our dissolving democracy?

So, if any of you raise a toast in my name when you are out on the town tonight, please add a salute to those that are actively fighting the current regime and that they will continue to grow stronger--that they will have the courage and fortitude to speak truth to power, and that more and more people will take to the streets and scream "not in our name."

I have no answers, just a lot of questions--I'm OK with that.

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