Faith in the Present

The West is so appealing to me.  The mountains, the people, the weather, the trees; all of it seems romantic and majestic and far away.

I am a Taurus.  Now, I don't know how much stock I put into astrology, but I will say this -- I exhibit several Taurian qualities to a t.  One of those qualities is that I love, love, love being social and experiencing new things, but another is that, dammit, I just don't want to leave my house sometimes.  Actually, right now is one of those times.  I really only want to be left alone to nest and meditate.  Anyway, I digress.  The point of me saying all that is simply that I find the West coast to be a beautifully attractive area of the country and it calls so strongly to me from time to time... but I am not leaving the Southeast.

We are overpopulated, sprawling, bigoted, less progressive, not as good at managing our natural resources, and probably a little more unappealingly work-centric than our fellow surfers and ski bums of the West.

But this is home.

I like fried eggs and grits, and cotton farms and peach orchards.  I like our little mountains (or, in Florida's case, our entire lack of mountains altogether).  I like Alabama.  And I like Florida.  Despite the fact that both states have ridiculous governors and are full of some of the most racist people I've ever met.

One time, I saw this couple at the tea lounge that I frequent.  The guy was a know-it-all religion major at USF and found it necessary to tell his girlfriend (quite loudly) that Tampa was essentially a hopeless shithole of a city and that it only made sense for them to move to another, more suitable city.  Anyway, later on, I walked over to the girl after her boyfriend had left and we started talking about community.  I told her I thought it was ridiculous to leave a place because you thought it was hopeless.  The only way that a place generates hope is if the people who are most capable of giving it hope... don't actually leave! She agreed and said that's what she'd been trying to explain to her boyfriend.  We both spoke of the current beauty of Tampa (if you only look further than skin-deep) and of this city's potential to become a bright beacon of exemplary community behavior for other Florida cities -- if only we would stay here and offer the city what hope we had to give it.

I see hope in the southeast.  Hope for a brighter future for the poor and uneducated of Mississippi, hope for clean shorelines in Florida, hope for a better state government of Alabama, hope for better water resource management in Atlanta, and hope for an overall progression of social and natural resource beauty in these states.  I see this hope on the horizon, and its manifestation is coming soon.

It must come soon.

We are all one community, we are all neighbors, we are all family.  What the southeast does matters to you, whether you move to Seattle or not.  You cannot ignore us.  You cannot turn a blind eye by moving to your more suitable, progressive Western city and simply forgetting about Tampa or Biloxi or Atlanta or Birmingham.

I have something to offer this part of my family; I have knowledge and love and I want badly to offer it to the Southeast with no motive besides that of compassion -- so that we have no choice but to use the knowledge and love in order to progress toward becoming better neighbors toward our fellow citizens across the country and across the globe.

We only have one option,
M

A Fair Balance.  Co-operation, not competition, in work, communications, and economics; the sharing of information and ideas so that all people can learn and live sustainably.  It must start with you -- having faith in where you presently reside.