Dear Friend,
I know I'm a day late. Part of me wanted to backdate the date in the subject line in hopes that maybe you wouldn't notice....because my OCD wants even increments of 7 days in between each letter. I've failed after 2 weeks of letter writing. (failure is an option you know....despite how the saying goes)
We did a lot of driving this week in Southern California visiting the Presidential Libraries. The emotional impact of the history was more than I expected. I could feel the weight of centuries piling up. I felt ashamed at the thought that there were world events that I knew nothing about.
As I stood in front of the USS Iowa a few days ago I wondered if this huge ship had ever shared close proximity with my grandfather's WWII supply ship the USS Grumium. I did a quick search and my heart began beating out of my chest as I realized they had shared Japanese waters together during Okinawa. This was just one small dot connected in the span of a few lifetimes, but for a moment I felt infinite....as if I were connected to everyone and everything. It made me think about my great grandmother, who lived to the age of 104, and how she saw 20 different presidents in her lifetime. She saw the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War. She drove a horse and buggy and eventually a Model T Ford. The Model T Ford sat in the barn for 3 days before she got the courage to crank it up and drive it to the neighbors. She didn't even know if she'd be able to turn it off. And then she saw a man go to the moon. I will never know another person personally in my lifetime who lived through so much.
I wrote last night about the experience with Boo at the libraries because it changed us forever. Watching the historical footage put the past into real life for me, it made these presidents and world leaders human. Truth cannot be told, it has to be experienced. And there was so much character and humility. That's what I want to connect to...the values. Connecting brings meaning to our lives. We think we need to be so linear, but history is so not linear when you look closely. We can learn from that. It's okay to wander, it doesn't mean we are lost. Crooked lines are still connected. And experience is like interest being compounded over and over.
To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be. - Miguel de Unamuno
You do have a greater purpose in life, but to live in it you have to seek it. -Nick Vujicic
Move and the way will open. - Zen Proverb
Thanks for listening and Happy Easter,
Ashley
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