An Awkward Conversation

She came over and settled down into the couch next to me. For a while, we ambled over comfortable subjects and revisited topics that we had hashed out long ago. Then she mentioned an acquaintance that I had met when I first moved to the Springs.

"Remember Nate?"

"Yeah, he was one of Teddy's friends right? Glasses, dark brown hair..."

"Yeah, that's him. Well...," There was a long pause as she shifted uncomfortably, "He died Jamie, about 2 weeks ago."

I swallowed hard and hurriedly looked away. What do you say when you knew someone only as an acquaintance? The last time I saw him was at church and even then I had a hard time placing his face with some other place else that I knew well.

"How?"

She sighed. "It was suicide"

Multiple questions flooded my brain. "Was there a note? Was he depressed? When was the funeral? How does Teddy feel?"

But for some reason I couldn't ask any of them. The questions ran from my brain and trickled into my heart.

Whenever people die, it's a shock, a suprise. It feels as if they are suddenly snatched away and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

But suicide's different. The person chooses to end their life. And while it's a shock and suprise to those around the victim, there's also an overwhelming sense of guilt.

A sense of guilt that in some possible way we could have done something to stop it.

I didn't know Nate well, but the guilt is still there.

Old Soul Song

A poem from my past, be inspired ya'll.
..



I want to build
a wall around me,
so no one can look
if they really don't want to see
me








To creatively borrow a quote from my friend Grace,

"Sometimes we put up walls. Not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to knock them down."

Me talk pretty one day

I realized yesterday I can't talk. I guess speaking English is not my forte anymore.

Yesterday I called my boss to tell her I was going to be late because there was this bad car accident on the enterance ramp. So I proceed to tell her that I just got on the Interstate at "U-nit-tah".....


For those of you that don't live in Colorado, it's pronounced "Yoo-in-tah"



Totally mis-pronouncing Unitah like a misplaced Texan is a cardinal sin.


My boss completely cracked up and when I showed up at work, everyone made fun of me for the rest of the day.

Which brings me to English lesson number 2:
Make sure you use the correct word in a sentance.

I was at work the other day completely starving. So I said to my co-workers, "I'm so hungry, I feel emancipated!!"

I'm sure being hungry might lead to someone becoming free. But in the end emancipated and emaciated are not the same.

I'll learn English one of these days. I guess today's just not my day.

.... And tommorrow's not looking to good either.

Knowledge is power

Wal-Mart is the nation's largest private energy user. Each of the discount giant's 2,074 supercenters uses an average of 1.5 million kilowatt-hours per year; combined, that's enough to power Chile.

It's amazing how one single smell can bring back a flood of memories.

Yesterday, I bought some new shampoo and as a proceeded to use it in the shower, it had this particular smell to it.

And the smell transported me to Spring of 2004 when I was staying in Manchester with a Welsh family. I stayed in a green room that was decorated with fresh daffodils, drank horlicks (it tastes like warm malted milk), watched Bridgit's Jones Diary, was quizzed endlessly about facts on the state capital of Nebraska, played with a cat, learned to play piano from tab, visited various public schools, went white water rafting in wales, celebrated mum's day, explored an old barn and still, did a high ropes course, saw a soap show being filmed, and lost numerous games of cards.

Those memories came flooding back from just one smell.


Odd, and yet so comforting....


Ah Cheadle Hume. How I miss you.

Go

Someone once said:

One can't forever stand on the shore. At some point, filled with indecision, skepticism, reservation and doubt, you either jump in or concede that life is forever elsewhere.