So here is a mash up of the day:
Friend brings up issue with her that makes me think of my past and dredges up all of the horror, the horror, the horror, and then I realize if it weren’t for that, I’d not be here now.
Yoga person chants May All People Be Happy and Free and says the corollary is May All I Do Make People Happy and Free, bringing me to my big point with Friend #1 that I learned from my experience that everyone is capable of falling down, but it’s the picking yourself up and setting yourself on the right path again that takes strength of character. And so trust the one you love who lost his way is capable of learning that lesson. If it wasn’t for my losing my way, I wouldn’t have found my way.
Then another friend who I had wished happy birthday across the miles and I were reminiscing about youth and particularly how fast our kids are growing up and I realized yet again if it wasn’t for the path I took that led me to Tin, and if I hadn’t chosen that path, then Tin who needed Tatjana and I to be his parents and to live in New Orleans, wouldn’t have come here, and we are all where we need to be.
And then I walked into the Community Bookstore on Bayou Road to give them a poster to put in their window for Re-Bridge’s Kid’s Event and the woman who runs the place said, “Lord, if it wasn’t for the Storm, there would be no Re-Bridge, Lord, if it wasn’t for the storm, there would be no charter schools, Lord, if it wasn’t for the storm there would never have been a white person walk through that front door.” A man behind me who walked in after me said, “Amen.” I said you mean the Federal Flood, not THE STORM, and she said, “Yes, indeed.”