Africam and Endless Possibilities

I don't know why, but this morning I remembered the africam website and went there, and now I am watching a solitary pond in the Nhorko Pan, whatever that is, listening to bird noises. I have a cousin who plays this camera all the time in the background of her life, her five year old son and her waiting for something amazing to creep into the camera lens. One time, I guess a hippo came on, and she called all of her friends, and they were so excited, and all tuned in. I thought that was sweet. I've never been much of an animal person, though lately I feel more and more a pull toward them, an affection for them.

Anyway, the africam made me realize again that there is so much I haven't seen or experienced, and so much I'm dying to see or experience in the next ten years of my life.

Here's the list!

1. A humpback whale from a boat in the ocean--I feel like if I saw this I would have no reason to ever feel depressed. The world would be miraculous, absolutely.
2. A giant cactus in the desert
3. An alligator sunning by the side of the road in Florida
4. A pelican diving--a woman at my office told me I should see this when I told her I was applying to University of Florida. Then we googled it and it's beautiful.
5. An ashram, or monastery on a hillside
6. Riding a motorcycle
7. Riding a motorcycle in Europe
8. Mountains with snow at the tops
9. Ancient trees that are wider than my car at the bases
10. Ancient ruins
11. palm trees
12. Old women in Italy pushing food at me the way my "mother" in Romania did when I stayed there.
13. Sitting just outside of a group of people speaking another language I couldn't hope to understand, in another country. Just experiencing this bliss at their incredible different-ness from me. Getting lost in all the sounds and voices, the inflexions and all that, without comprehending or even trying to comprehend.
12. New York City
13. the ocean--I've already seen it from a plane...but I want to touch it, to learn what saltwater feels like...to be terrified of jellyfish, but standing in the water anyway. :)
14. Jellyfish
15. A Sabrina Ward Harrison art show at some small beach in San Fransisco--I know she's held them on small beaches before.

I can't think of anything else at the moment. It's nice because though I get stressed out and so forth, when I think of new things I'll see and experience, new people I can meet and share with, new conversations, I am able to pull myself temporarily from the stale, frightening, tense life that I am living at the moment. I am reminded that this is not the end of my life. That there are still possibilities. That there are always possibilities. And though some of them require money that I don't have, and security that I don't have, someday I may get there. I'll try for it.

I feel like it must be warmer out today. I don't know why, and I know that it's not true. It's nice to remember that it will be sunny again, that I will have a Nouwen beach day with Chase again, and a long walk with Paula down my road where the corn fields start, and the sky is beautiful and wide, and a nice talk with Andrew by the side of the Grand River, underneath a bridge, where the flies are buzzing for the orange light, and the fish are leaping softly.

Winter always reminds me that things change. That it will not be this cold and dark and tense forever.