Higgs Boson alert

So I’m feeling a little anti-climatic about the Higgs Boson.  I’m on high google alert (code red of course) for the confirmation that this elusive “God particle” exists.  There are hints, there are murmurs and there are numerous emails alerting me to this fact.  I am pins and needles sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for someone, anyone, to say “yes we have found it.”  This spec of dust that begat everything, all the stars and the universe and the very matter that makes us what we are.  Of course, this is just proof that Einstein was right.  E=MC squared (couldn’t find a little 2 to put up there).  From nothing, something can come.  From energy, matter can be made.  This Higgs Boson particle is the existence of the nothing that made the big bang.  

I don’t pretend to know what I’m talking about or even what they’re talking about.  I have forever been fascinated by space and the realm of possibility that there are otherworldly things of which I know nothing.  I cannot even comprehend string theory.  Look it up if you dare.  But what I do enjoy is the search, that desire to dissect and understand our very existence.  I’m not a religious person, but I do believe in things beyond the universe I can see.

So, what happens after Higgs Boson?  Michio Kaku believes we will then look for dark matter.  That invisible net that binds the planets and the stars together.  We are hurtling toward nothingness, but what does it matter anyway?  We only have this brief period of time here.  Then what?  I’m not sure.  I’d like to believe in another universe, in another time, I will be me just smarter.  I won’t return that phone call, I won’t go on that date, but I will still end up where I am.  Content in what I am contributing to the universe.  Content in the love that surrounds me like an invisible dark matter binding my soul and my heart.

So after the Higgs Boson discovery, I will be excited for the next thing and the thing after.  Because I want to know. I want to believe this all means something.

MIEZE’S MUSINGS # 2

I am amused by the human race.  I sit on my perch, looking out the clear wall at them below.  They talk into devices, punch buttons on them and drink out of cans.  Always in a rush, always scurrying to somewhere else.  The sun warms my face and they don’t even look up at it.  They really don’t know the secret to happiness.

Stop and stretch in the sun every once in a while.

I AM ENLIGHTENED

FINALLY

There is only what lies ahead

What is done

is gone

Happiness yet to feel

Pain yet to endure

Potential already in motion

Embracing the road I’ve taken

Too late to change it now

Maybe I wouldn’t if I could

All things brought me here

This moment

I’ve seen happiness

I know passion for all things

I’ve soared above what will only hold me back

Soaring

Feeling

Finally

REMEMBER

Ten years ago, I had just moved from NY to the Poconos in Pennsylvania.  We were still only a couple of hours from NY, but it felt like across the country.  My stay in the city had been quite a culture shock for someone from Kentucky, but I had grown to love every noise, smell and bright light distraction.  I would hold my daughter’s hand as we pushed our way through Times Square crowds and worry the city might gobble up her up.  It never did.  Instead, it transformed her world and mine.

We would walk down to Central Park from the apartment on Park Avenue.  The park felt like a mirage in a desert of skyscrapers and traffic.  We would feed apples to the horses drawing the carriages for the tourists because no self-respecting New Yorker would ever ride on one.  We would walk and eat our lunch on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum.  Both intimidating and inviting, New York welcomed us as temporary residents.

Every weekend was an adventure.  We took ferries to the islands and explored the nooks and crannies the tourists would miss.  We saw off-Broadway plays and ballets on ice.  We would spend hours in Chinatown and cross over to Little Italy for gelato.  We walked miles in gardens and museums, soaking in the world outside of our own.  My daughter started kindergarten in New York and I began to think of it as home.

Moving from New York was heart wrenching.  I was trailing after the man I had followed to New York and he had decided we were moving to his parent’s home in Pennsylvania.  Two years had not been long enough in the city, and I didn’t want to move.  As a goodbye gesture to the city, we went to the World Trade Towers one Saturday to buy tickets to a Broadway play from a broker in the building and to eat ice cream in their shadow.  I remember thinking how funny it was that over the years in New York, I had driven by the towers several times, but I had never actually been there as a tourist.  

I was on a business phone call on September 11, 2001.  The man I was talking to suddenly seemed excitable.  He asked me if I heard a plane had flown into one of the towers.  I remember thinking it was a small plane and how horrible they had made such a mistake.  I remember standing in my bedroom, turning on the television, watching the smoke billow from the first tower and then there it was.  That second plane.  As it smoothly flew into the second tower, the explosion that followed, I knew for certain it was not a pilot error.  We, as a nation, were being attacked.

That morning is a blur of emotions and knowledge.  The pentagon was on fire, the towers were on fire and there was a plane missing over Pennsylvania.  Nothing and nowhere felt safe.  I held my daughter in my arms and vaguely explained to her about the planes flying into the towers.  I didn’t tell her about the horrific number of deaths.  I didn’t explain to her we were being attacked by terrorists.  That knowledge would come later.  The enormity of those attacks would come in our subsequent visits to New York, when we would drive by the place where those towers stood, now a huge hole in the earth.    

Ten years later, the feelings have not subsided.  This sadness over what human beings are capable of inflicting on each other.  But life goes on.  The city recovers and embraces every new person who dares venture there.  The skyline is forever changed, but the spirit of what it stands for never will.  Because New York City does represent what is the best in all of us.  That you can have a dream and make it come true.  That you can leave your doorstep and explore the world and it will make a better you.  That none of us are immune from tragedy in our lives, but we endure.  We get up in the morning and are hopeful in the light of a brand new day.  

That day instilled in me one thing.  When faced with my ultimate demise, I want those seconds or minutes before I leave this earth to be filled snapshots of  happiness and joy.  I want to explore and soak it all in.  This world is a wonder to behold, this life an amazing collection of moments.  No amount of hatred or vitriol can take that away from any of us.

I like………

My daughter singing in the car – she has a beautiful voice

Standing outside in the pounding rain

My new Android phone – suck it Iphone.

Purple the color of fresh picked eggplants

Spotify – I’m obsessed with obscure music now

Dark chocolate 72% cacao squares – I eat one every night and enjoy every single bite

Walking down by the river front – catching a breeze off the water

Turning my face up to the sun and forgetting for one moment it causes wrinkles

Swedish films – go figure

That I’ve ordered a Ukelele – and I’m determined to learn to play

Big bouquets of basil – I’d rather have that than flowers

Merging onto the highway just as the sun is rising and it momentarily blinds me and I’m reminded of the wonder of it all

Ancient Aliens – I’m hooked on it and Giorgio’s hair

Giggling

Eating a spoonful of peanut butter every night – it’s just good

Colored pencils

Spinach in and on everything

Fuji apple pear water

Cinnamon in my tea

Swats

Good night spoons

April

Scruffle

Hats in the summer

Cow keychains

I really like me

Vegetable Soup

I’m finding my way back to cooking again.  I forgot how much I love the chopping and preparation part.  It’s like meditation for me.

I am on a journey of discovery, to taste, to feel, to smell, to hear, to touch it all.  This is my vegetable soup with lentils, speckled butter beans and spinach in a tomato broth.

So delicious.  I couldn’t wait to eat it.