Past Lives
November 10, 2007
I’ve been thinking about reincarnation.
It all started with a rafting trip. I went to a place outside the town of Barinas. Carrie and Zman stayed home as they didn’t want anything to do with a six hour car ride. It was just me and seven other staff members plus the family of one of them. It was awesome! The rafting was a blast, the water was warm, and the scenery was spectacular.
The fellow in charge was a Kiwi. It was funny to listen to him speak Spanish with that accent. I engaged him quite a bit. There was an adolescent boy who hung out a lot. He was very quiet, but nice enough, and really polite. I finally asked Don if it was his son. He said, “Yes, that’s my son from a different life.” It got me thinking; How many lives do we live in one lifetime?
I can’t even count the different lives I’ve had. It’s hard to believe that I once worked as a cook or sailed on ships or drove busses. Today I live in Venezuela. That is about as different as it comes it turns out.
The elections are coming up: December 2nd. Chavez is proposing reforms to the constitution. A lot of folks are opposed. As it turns out, the opposition’s strategy is to boycott the elections. When Hugo was elected, he ran unopposed. This was supposed to be a means of protesting. I am still unclear about how this works. It doesn’t really make sense to me. There are marches in Caracas and road blocks in Valencia and people just seem to take it in stride. I finally got a notice from the American Embassy yesterday about protests that have been happening for at least a week. There are no gunshots…yet.
We used to live in Mali; land of peace and poverty. Civil insurrection was not in the cards. That was a whole different life, though. I don’t regret the move here at all. Professionally it was a great move. The lifestyle is different, but that doesn’t equal bad. Different is just different: One more life to add to my many others. I don’t know where the future will take me; what life I will live after this one. It’s better to live here and now. Take it in, work it through, and add it to the library of my mind.
MJR
I’ve been thinking about reincarnation.
It all started with a rafting trip. I went to a place outside the town of Barinas. Carrie and Zman stayed home as they didn’t want anything to do with a six hour car ride. It was just me and seven other staff members plus the family of one of them. It was awesome! The rafting was a blast, the water was warm, and the scenery was spectacular.
The fellow in charge was a Kiwi. It was funny to listen to him speak Spanish with that accent. I engaged him quite a bit. There was an adolescent boy who hung out a lot. He was very quiet, but nice enough, and really polite. I finally asked Don if it was his son. He said, “Yes, that’s my son from a different life.” It got me thinking; How many lives do we live in one lifetime?I can’t even count the different lives I’ve had. It’s hard to believe that I once worked as a cook or sailed on ships or drove busses. Today I live in Venezuela. That is about as different as it comes it turns out.
The elections are coming up: December 2nd. Chavez is proposing reforms to the constitution. A lot of folks are opposed. As it turns out, the opposition’s strategy is to boycott the elections. When Hugo was elected, he ran unopposed. This was supposed to be a means of protesting. I am still unclear about how this works. It doesn’t really make sense to me. There are marches in Caracas and road blocks in Valencia and people just seem to take it in stride. I finally got a notice from the American Embassy yesterday about protests that have been happening for at least a week. There are no gunshots…yet.
We used to live in Mali; land of peace and poverty. Civil insurrection was not in the cards. That was a whole different life, though. I don’t regret the move here at all. Professionally it was a great move. The lifestyle is different, but that doesn’t equal bad. Different is just different: One more life to add to my many others. I don’t know where the future will take me; what life I will live after this one. It’s better to live here and now. Take it in, work it through, and add it to the library of my mind.
MJR
posted by Bronx to Timbuktu at 10:44 PM
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