Blue Sunday

I worked a long day yesterday... until 10pm. In the middle of my day I received word that a beautiful little girl, one that always epitomized the awesomeness of children for me, passed away early this past spring from a sudden infection. 48 hours between diagnosis and death. I can think of nothing more tragic... nor more insistent in its reminder to us all that life is SO precious and we truly should not waste a moment.

Something shifted for me in that moment... immediately upon reading the email... a new urgency in what I'm doing on this planet. Within 30 minutes... I had signed up two new members for Greenpeace.

I'm not trying to say that Emmy's passing and global warming are directly related. No. What I'm saying is that the connections between us all... the web of life... the flow of life through every single thing...

Life is fragile. The earth is fragile. We are fragile.

We need to take care of and appreciate each other AND the world. Nothing could be more fundamental.

After a truly rough day in Boulder on Friday, I felt pretty deflated and cynical. People can be so... trying. But when an amazing little girl like Emmy suddenly disappears... it gives you a new set of eyes. Emmy is in all of us... whether we feel we've lost that or not.

The woman who flipped me off yesterday after I asked her to help me save polar bears... Maybe she just lost her Emmy, too. How could I possibly know? Why did I cry out of my own self pity when I could have simply remembered that this woman could be in pain and that I was merely a convenient target?

Of course, in my typical fashion, I have swung the pendulum a bit too far today. I'm melancholy... mourning the pain of everyone... sad for the 99% of people I encounter each day who seem angry/upset/frustrated/whatever. I allowed myself to become blue... and now I'm attempting to dig myself back out.

Balance.