Musungu

Let me start by saying that I am writing this hoping that as a white male sharing his experience, it can influence other white people to be open to the reality that the black experience cannot be discounted and must change. It is only through listening and educating ourselves that our eyes and hearts will open. Mine open more with each passing day. It may be heart wrenching but I think it is critical if we hope to change things.

My experience is as imperfect as me but it is mine and I hope in sharing it you accept that it comes from a desire to ensure our children, all races and color live the change.

My first encounter with an understanding that I was white was as an 11 year old. My family had moved to Zambia from the West Island of Montreal in 1972.

We were met in Lusaka in July of 1972 by another Canadian Family whose Dad knew my Father through work with CN Rail and they had lived in Zambia for the last couple of years.

Now growing up on the West Island I cannot remember if I knew a Black person before landing in Zambia. Of course Sports and T.V. but I do not recall a black kid at school or a black Family at our Church. At 11 years old, I do know that color had not crossed my mind.

Our first night in Zambia was at a Railway Guest House in Lusaka, it was owned by Zambia Railway my Dad's new employer and we stayed over night with the other Canadian Family. It was a big house with a big yard and an African garden. I had never seen plants like these. As a first impression of Zambia I was jacked! The staff at the Guest House were incredibly kind and welcoming.

Dinner was full of conversation, excitement and discussion. It was all very positive and honestly at 11 lots of it was not really interesting but one part I will remember forever.

I heard the other Dad tell my parents that "the boys", my brother and I, needed to be careful and not venture out on our own because we were white and it could draw attention. Yes it was a safe place but.... This was the first time color was introduced to me or at least the first that I remember.

Now if you know me I am not good at being directed and I do not see the world that way. To me the world is inviting and magic, so I knew then and there I would do the opposite and from the first chance once we settled in Kabwe, I ventured far and wide.

Musungu is a Bemba word.

Bemba is one of the languages spoken in Zambia. During my time in Zambia I learnt to speak it and another African language called Nyanja. I was not fluent but got pretty close. Musungu is a term used for white people.

I remember vividly driving or riding my bike into Villages outside of Kabwe and the little kids running up to me or the car chanting "Musungu" excitedly announcing our arrival.

We spent 6 years in Zambia and I honestly fell in love with it and its people. In my time there I never once felt at risk, not once did I feel nervous about being a white living in Zambia.

Living in Kabwe was magic! We had a wonderful house with a property that had Avocado trees, Mango trees, Papaya trees, a small patch of Bananas, massive red Poinsettia's and a small thicket of Bamboo. Our street was lined with Frangipani trees.

For the first three years school was correspondence courses from Canada and along with a few other Canadian kids we attended the equivalent of a one room schoolhouse.

There were two main industries in Kabwe, Railway Head Office and the Mine.

We joined the Mine Club which was a massive property that had a pool, movie theater, pool hall, Rugby Club, Baseball Club and pretty much 4 pubs. Going to the pool introduced us to a new set of friends outside of the Canadian kids. I think we went to the pool pretty much everyday. A mixture of expats (white) and Zambians(white). White Privilege. As a 12 year old I could see it.

My other friends came through the my broader community.  Middle class Canadian equals advantaged expat in Africa. Our first Houseman had a family of 5 children, 2 boys and 3 girls. Learning Bemba, hanging out after school, playing football and learning about life and a wonderful friendship ensued. From this friendships expanded to neighbor kids and so on. I learnt a great deal from them and spent a lot of time playing with them A favorite past time was going to the park and playing football. I had a football and that was a ticket to great fun.

Life in Zambia was great and I was not being careful. I had in effect 2 lives. My expat life and my Zambian life. At times they crossed and at times they did not.

One very sad day after a heated disagreement with my Mom Peter was fired. Peter was a chauvinist and Mom could only take so much. Likely he got over a years grace because of his children from her but it had to come to pass. It was really hard to lose my friends, heart wrenching.

I was getting older and noticing more about being White in Zambia.

This brings me to someone that was about to influence me like no other in my life, Stephen Chimusana Manda.

Stephen became our new Houseman, he had been employed by the Barclays Bank Manager who lived in the house behind ours. The Chisletts left Kabwe and Stephen became our Houseman. At the back of our propert was what in Canada we may call a Coach house. That is where Stephen lived. Stephen was a character and took a great deal of pride in his work and shortly after he started working for us got married. Stephen spoke Nyanja, so I was about to learn it too.

Overtime but quickly Stephen became like a Big Brother to me. Including putting expectations on my behavior around the house. We shared our love of Football and would sit together outside his house listening to Zambian National team games. We also would go to watch the Kabwe Warriors play at Railway Stadium. We became closer as time passed.

I was becoming more interested and aware of politics. Zambia got its independence on October 24, 1964. There was not a civil war like Zimbabwe or many other African Nations. I witnessed racism, I heard it come from many white mouths. Guerrilla Wars in Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa surrounded Zambia and many days were tense. I can remember seeing Cubans in Kabwe who were rumored to be training troupes not far from us. Race was very much part of my education.

Fortunately I grew up in a home that focused on love as a value and Mom and Dad had many Zambian friends and worked in charities to help where they could. Our house and the people in it were always representative of our community in Kabwe.

I would ask Stephen about what he recalled about Colonial days. He would share his recollections. We started to talk about racism. I am certain I drove him nuts at times but he was patient and understanding. I summoned the courage to ask him had he ever been targeted by racism? Was he ever called Kaffir? Asking and saying that word out loud to Stephen was really hard and honestly right now as I type I feel anxious and  I can feel my heart in my throat.How did it feel/ Did it make him angry? Did he resent White People?

There was another name that I called Stephen that I will share. It was Ba Milamu, translated it is Brother in Law. I called him that because I heard him called that by Royda's Sister and I decided it fit. It made him laugh and it is what I called him more than I called him by his name. I think it was my way of expressing his importance to me.

Stephen was as always thoughtful and patient in answering my questions. He had been subject to it. It made him angry and scared. No he did not resent White people just racist people. He impressed on me that hate was hate and not all people hated.

He had a Baby boy at this time. Jason was like my little brother he impressed on me that Jason's life would be different because of the changes.

That conversation and that friendship has made my life very different than most. It caused me to read and explore the black experience in Africa and the US. I have read the writings of Stephen Biko, Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela. These helped me to have conversations with other black friends about their experience.

I am a White Canadian Man. My experience however was shaped by Africa. My resolve to understand was influenced by my friendship and love of Ba Malamu whom I miss to this day. It has been strengthened by friendships over the years.

My ask of my White Friends. Read, listen and be open to accepting that the Black experience is real and that it has to change. Be open to the part you play in changing it. You likely have not contributed to a negative experience but each of us has a role in changing it and calling out loudly if and when we see it.

My ask of my Black Friends, understand that I cannot know your experience but that I have tried for years to listen and educate myself and call me out if I am not standing with you in a way that actually can help effect change. In essence forgive any words that I may have written above if they are not on point. Help me be on point. It matters to this Masungu greatly.






                                 

In my Life

There are many things in my life that make me smile or tear up and a great deal that I have to be grateful for, I try to stop and remember them as often as I can and then there are moments that imprint gratitude deeply into my soul.

About 20 years ago I was sent to the Toronto Bus station to pick up Amanda's Cousin and his Wife. I had never met either of them and had only seen pictures of Paddy. Little did I know the impact this would have in my life.

These past 20 or so years both Amanda and I have come to cherish the friendship that has developed over the years with these two. They have become a constant in our minds and our hearts.  What we seem to have in common most are our love of family, travel, music, laughter and honesty.

The imprinting came these past two weeks where we spent 8 fantastic days in Omagh with Paddy and Carmel. They are so easy to be around, so caring and so kind. Sharing their home and hospitality and omg lots of laughter.

Central to us all are our children: Niamh, Aoife, Kaelan and Claire. Our children have known each other since birth and I think Paddy and Carmel were among the first whom we shared our plans to bring Claire into our lives. We seem to have a similar approach to our kids honest, mature and accountable would be the themes that I think are most similar. Sure we have our differences but we enjoy them as much.

Seeing our 4 girls together is pure magic and something I could never have imagined. Seeing Kaelan sprawled on the couch with them and Claire is a picture and illustrates just how important they all are in our lives.

While we have met up in Florida with them the past two years, spending quality time in Omagh was so much more. An opportunity to have them experience all that Amanda cherishes about "home".

Amanda and I sat quietly last evening thinking and talking, reminiscing and laughing. What we both know is that having Paddy, Carmel, Niamh and Aoife in our lives makes our life so much more rich and special than it could other wise be.

In my Life...For that, I am so Grateful

Inspiration

This past week has been an Epic week round here! May 4 we celebrated GOTCHA day, yes it has been just over a year since Claire became our official and legal child. That in itself is inspiring enough to fill a stadium. We have had such a great year with her. I think these pictures say it all.

We quickly moved to Amanda's Birthday which is a day I am more than grateful for and finally we watched as Kaelan navigated through Power Weekend, which is her black belt test. Now this is no small test, Kaelan was dropped off at 7 pm on Friday evening and was put through 40 hours of training, learning, testing and growth that most mortals never experience in their lifetime and she is still only 11. All candidates stay at the Dojang for the entire test.

This morning we watched as all the 2010 Black Belt Candidates completed their Power Weekend with a 5 KM run on the boardwalk at the Beach. 23 people in all tested this past weekend and along with other family and friends we braved the cold and yes SNOW FLURRIES on Mother's Day to cheer and display our pride for each and every one of them.

Kaelan has blown us away, she had the time of her life. This morning when we picked her up to take her to the run she was sitting on the floor feeling very nauseous and I was concerned for her. She was clearly not well and was drinking to try and stave it off. I asked if she wanted me to run with her, to which she was emphatic, no. This was her time, her run, her power weekend and she was going to do it on her own!

She was wobbly right to the start and headed out. She not only finished but she impressed with a very solid run, to be honest I was holding back tears I was so very proud of her. Each and every candidate did an incredible job and they have set the bar very high for next years candidates and we do not have very far to go to find inspiration.

So after a few hours of some well earned sleep, Kaelan found the strength to celebrate Mother's Day dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Toronto. Fitting to celebrate at the Hard Rock at home after our first with Claire in Moscow last year.

So as I look around me this past week, I have nothing but inspiration around me. Claire the 2 year old little girl from Birobidjan who has captured our hearts and is thriving, Kaelan who I cannot choose words to describe but to say I admire deeply, Amanda who stands by each of us and supports, prods, laughs and reminds us that we are accountable, those who have completed the 2010 Power Weekend and those who have been told you are next.

I am not from Africa but I am of Africa

These past few days since Madiba passed I have felt almost embarassed at the wash of emotions that have come over me it has been a journey of discovery for me.

I left a meeting on Thursday about 4:30 and walked up Yonge Street towards my office, it was a cool evening and I was walking quickly yet enjoying the freshness of the air and as I walked past a restaurant I noticed the television through the window and the headline "Mandela has died". It stopped me in my tracks. I stood quietly as people rushed past staring at the headline, my first thought was simply "it has come".

It was a difficult Street Car ride home, I texted Amanda " My heart is breaking, Madela has died" She responded in a way that gave me comfort. "I know, I didn't know how to tell you."

My embarassment has not been because of the fact I have cared but because I feel it at a depth that many likely would not understand. The voices inside me have been harsh, you are not African it should not mean so much to you, people will think you arogant, the elite of North Amercia are not hipocrates, how are you different from them? Just because you travelled there doesn't mean what you think it does.

I gave myself a head ache.

No I was not born in Africa, I lived in Zambia from July 1972 and the last time I was there was September of 1977. These were the years where I became a young man, where I became aware of and saw first hand the ugly under belly of racism. It was also where I became friends with and very close to people who defined my understanding of Africans, where I explored, had first love and developed a sense of politics that differs from what you learn from outside of it all.

The person I miss most from my time in Zambia is Stephen Manda. Stephen was a man that became my big brother, a man I called Ba Malamu, in his language it means Brother in Law. I was curious about what he had lived through and how he saw the black white story. Even though Zambia was independant it still carried many of the shackles of colonialism and as a young man it was confusing to me. What I did know was that Stephen was a man I looked up to, adored and adopted as a big brother. He taught me a great deal about what it meant to be an African man and by default a man.

I had many Zambian friends, white and black and I do know that there was an unstated difference if not in our eyes in the eyes of our parents perhaps? I used to ride my bike out to the smaller villages that surrounded Kabwe and I learnt to be quite fluent in a couple of languages. I loved being there because it was simple, it was happy and people seemed to me to be so genuine.

At that age I could see the conflict that existed in the minds of many of the white community who had been in Zambia since before independance and I heard the conflict often in conversation. It was something I was very interested in how could you not be? It was sometimes a dialogue that was contradictory to reality both theirs and mine but it was often full of conviction.

I was not political at that age but curious. I visited South Africa on vacation when I was 16 or 17 which was a profound experience for me.

I was well aware of Apartheid and had had some families talk about it to me while I lived in Zambia both white famalies and black famalies. I knew many Africaners and had heard why this made sense to them. These were people who were from most points of view caring, loving, intelligent people and people who were gracious. It confused me to death and still does. I cared for many of these people.

While in South Africa I visited Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. It is a magical place, a country with diversity of landscape as well as diversity of culture. Its people of all colors were wonderful and offered conversation and hospitality. To this day I am not sure I have ever been to a more beautiful country anywhere.

By an odd coincidence I decided to read the book "Roots" during our vacation there. I tell you reading that while seeing signs "Whites Only" perhaps ingrained a sense of reality that I otherwise may not have had. At the time I did not know the name Nelson Mandela, he was not part of my experience as much as he had been in prison for 12 or 13 years at the time. It was a time that my politics were being formed and a time that my culture was being cemented.

It was a time that the Western World was still not interested in the plight of South Africans and had not condemned the policy of Apartheid. Those who were interested in fighting for freedom were not supported by the West be it in voice or sanctions or money. It was Castro and others who were willing to support. Yes they changed but only when it became evident that they were at risk, it was not Apartheid the west was worried about, it was worried about being shut out.

In my time I heard many political conversations amongst adults and a man who became the official opposition Leader was a family friend, Andy Mazoka. I heard talk of Coup D'Etats and how we would need to just stay indoors for a while if it happened. I heard, saw and talked about poverty, true poverty. I witnessed the challenges of a growing nation. I saw the challenges that newly independant countries have because so few people were educated by the colonial powers ( a strategy nothing less) and how it challenged them to run and grow the country. These are the things that shaped me.

The last time I was in Zambia I left not knowing I would not be back. I left for school thinking I would return but my fathers contract ended prior to my next holidays. I never said good bye to Stephen and his family ( I did send him a letter), so many friends that I was close to did not get an appropriate good-bye. To this day I carry that regret and it was a time before internet.

The lense that I use when I look at the world is one that is highly influenced by my time in Africa and by the many experiences that I had, the people that I love to his day but have lost and the many many people who influenced my understanding of right and wrong.

As I grew I never detached from the experience always have finacially supported African causes and have passionately called out racism when presented.

When Mandela was in Toronto in 1998, Kaelan was only a month old. I went to see him speak. I went alone because there was no one that I knew who wanted to go. KK was too young to bring or Amanda nd she would have come. I was in the presence of the Hand of God. I never felt like I did that day and have not since.

When he talked about truth and reconciliation it touched me, perhaps because of the people that I had met in my time that I was conflicted about. Perhaps because it was a true message of love.

I am heartbroken that we have to live in a world without his voice. I am heartbroken that his work was not done. My tears though have not only been about loss. I am so grateful that he was put on this earth to guide humanity through the challenge that ending Apartheid was and continues to be. I am grateful that his voice was added with the others: Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Malcom X.

My tears were tears not because I am African but because I am of Africa.

 

It Feels Different this Time

I am not sure why, but even at this stage of my life I seek out growth, not small things but big ass smack you in the back of the head growth. Tomorrow evening I will be honored in receiving my Second Degree Black Belt at DeSantos Black Belt Spectacular.

It has been a very different journey than my first and it has smacked me in the head many times over during the journey and particularly in the last 9 months. In receiving my first there was a sense of accomplishment, a sense of arrival and a sense of responsibility. This time I do not feel the same things in fact I feel undone. SMACK, good, this is good, really good.

For a while I have been attaching this feeling to many different things trying to name it because as humans we have to give things names to make sense of them, or at least we think we do. At times I have attached it to my lovely tendon in my elbow that reminds me every time I use it that it is unhappy with how I have used it. undone.

I have attached it to age. Really Tom.........undone.

I have attached it to the challenge of having a full life and trying to be everything to everyone and all I do. undone.

I have attached it to not having been able to actually fight Dave the way that KJN outlined for us. We will get there professor. undone.

Physically I am beat up. My elbow will need a few months of rest after tomorrow before knowing if it will heal on its own. My piroformis needs to relax and heal, I need to be less twisted. I am at peace with all of this because I earned all of it. undone.

So at this point what is different? For a while I have been thinking that maybe I am done and that my possibilities in martial arts have reached their peak and I cannot build from where I am. I have come to realise that this is not the case.

I could choose to be distracted by the noise, I could choose to take the easier path and choose to take my belt hold it high and say wow look at what I have done. But there is something in me that fights and rejects that thought.

I am undone, the feeling is exactly what I need to feel. When I look at it I am starting to get excited because it means that I am beginning. I am beginning to learn that gratification and fulfillment do not come in a moment, they are achieved in a lifetime. Each moment along the way is to be celebrated no matter if it is good or bad. Each moment is an opportunity to learn and be better. Each moment is about loving and honoring it.

So, I am undone and it feels different this time and it should. It feels better because it is undone. Undone is possibility, opportunity, challenge and growth. It is exactly what I should be feeling and I am only sad because it took me this long in my life to figure this out.

I am so happy to be a Martial Artist because it is a singular journey that you do together with other  people, it is just like life.

Only time will say if this has changed me for the better but I know I have been changed for good. -praphrased from Wicked.

One Love

$1.75 Live Below The Line:

An important part of a Martial Arts Journey at my Dojang is to participate in Empathy Training during a testing cycle, it is a part of the cycle that I actually look forward to and find to be an opportunity to open my mind.

For my first degree belt two years ago I spent 24 hours mute and found it to be a challenge and interesting, my family found it to be a blessing! For this belt I wanted to connect to empathy in a way I have not in the past. I was stumped and getting frustrated, I have had many physical injuries over the years so a sling, a wheel chair or any other seemed to be something I had done. Then I was fortunate to get an email from Make Poverty History, an organization for which I have been a member for years and it presented "$1.75 Live Below the Line"

Live Below the Line is an initiative of the Global Poverty Project, an education and campaigning organization whose mission is to increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action against extreme poverty. The Challenge : BRING IT ON: Just $1.75 of food and drink a day for 5 days.

The issue of poverty is something that resonates with me emotionally and politically and with the DeSantos Walk to Niagara for breakfast programs for children it also aligned with fundraising we were doing as a team. Yes, I also found something that could potentially change the blessing of mute to the hell of Tom being hungry! It seemed to be a natural and providence.


I talked to Amanda about my choice and her response was perfect, "that's a great idea and I am sure you will be a joy to live with through it." I had found the sweet spot so all I had to do was figure out what to eat that would cost $8.75 for the 5 days.

Firstly for those who do not know, I love food and I love to cook. I find food to be an essential part of relationships, celebration, love and an expression of who I am. So figuring it out was relatively easy and I landed on 35 oz of rice, a bunch of celery, a bunch of broccoli, 9 eggs, 2 onions, 3 cans of baked beans and some salt and pepper...$8.75. All set.

Through this I was continuing to train, work and maintain a regular day. I had the added pleasure that I started my work week on the Sunday because I was running a program.

Sunday was the start and for this it was an easy start, I got up for 7 am training and began with no coffee. Now here is the good part, I went to decaf in July and did not need to deal with caffeine withdrawal but not having decaf was still a change that was noticed. Day 1 passed by easily and seemed fairly normal.

Things changed, as the days went on I found the experience to get harder and harder. By Monday evening beyond feeling hungry my energy level was depleting and taking an hour class was more of a challenge than it should be.

As the hours moved on the hunger came and went, more came than went. I found that I had a light headedness and concentrating took effort and I had to focus harder than usual. The third day was particularly hard and I had the fourth day to look forward to.

I found I was thinking about what I was doing a lot almost fixated. The fourth day I was a host at a cocktail reception at work for the folks that are in Toronto from across Canada for the program I am running. This is a NICE cocktail party with exceptional food, great wine and beer. I could have water. Oddly enough while there it was not as hard as I had anticipated, the thought of it was more challenging than the experience.

Now if that wasn't bad enough, the Blue Jays had a game that night and I continued my hosting of the group at Rogers Stadium in a box with the new recruits an Executive and all the food and drink you wanted. That's awesome! I got home about 10 pm had a glass of water and went to bed.

Only one last day ahead of me and it was the worst. Every challenge seemed to amplify, I felt anxious, hungry, light headed and at times I will use the word emotional. I was crabby by 5:15 and should have gone and slept in a hotel. I was not anything to love that night at home. That night sleep did not come until very late. Hunger kept me awake. I was tempted to go and eat so I could sleep but what stopped me was thinking that there were many children struggling to sleep because they were hungry, so I did not out of respect for them.

I began to think of the breakfast programs that we were supporting and began to think about the kids.

I do not know how we let children go hungry, ANYWHERE in this world. If I was feeling the way I was and am an adult how can a child cope? How can they learn? How can they play? How can they relate? How can they feel whole? They are bombarded daily with advertising, bombarded seeing others eat. How can they sit at school and see people eating lunches and snacks that they cannot even dream of? Yes we let this happen every day, every hour and every minute of every day in every corner of this planet. It is in a word cruel. No child should feel the way I did.

If we have such promise in the western world why do we let a child go hungry?

All I did was spend 5 days on $1.75 a day for food and I honestly felt it and no where to the extent that many children do every day. I never thought about hunger this way because I have never truly been hungry before.

Now I hunger for change.

Providence and Aging

As I sit and write, my freshly poured Guinness settles in my glass and I amuse myself with the thought of the simplicity at which it settles as compared with my inability to settle over many things these past many months.

These past months, since I updated the blog, have been incredibly eventful and I feel so less settled than my now settled Guinness. I think that is why I have chosen the title of Providence and aging.

I have struggled these past many months with the challenges in life that have presented themselves to me, road blocks, bumps, bruises, injuries, set backs and mind bending crap that have made me question so many things. These things have happened at work, play and with my family and for maybe the first time in my life, I have had to face realities that seemed distant and almost foreign to me.

Today has been a day of Providence.

First, I have to admit that as a human, I happen to think, at first blush that no one goes through what I do. Then, I realise after a slap upside the head that most do and in fact I am lucky. Please bear with my self absorption for just a few minutes please...

At 52 years of age, I decided that training and trying to obtain a second degree black belt was a great idea and I set off on a path that was less to do with getting a belt and more to do about me than I could have ever imagined. I have trained diligently and dedicatedly over many months because that is what it would take, after all I got a black belt once, just how different might this be?

Physically it has been a challenge, as I age, just like anyone, the physical challenges may be greater than anticipated and my body responds differently now than it did even 2 years ago. OK, not easy to accept for the narcissistic person that is inside all of us. I never knew that anyone had a Piroformis muscle, let alone that it could wake me up in the middle of the night. Nor did I think that after so many years of athletic trials that I could hyper extend an elbow and ignore it because somehow that would make ir better or....sprain a tooth!

I try and train 5 days a week and have done so for the most part since June of 2012. I am learning that the physical things are the easy part. Really they are, as much as my body says, are you f(*&^%$ kidding me as I write.

What I am struggling with is the emotional challenges that are associated with being a 52 year old.

Shit, as I read that I feel like a leftist self absorbed insecure Mama's boy...but it is not that.

I have reached the age where one begins to feel the weight of arbitrary measures. I am slower, I may not have achieved what I set out to do, or be, athletic endeavors are more challenging and you start to feel like you may be marginalized because you have fewer years ahead than behind.

A few weeks ago I sat in conversation with a friend and admitted that for the first time in my life I have felt vulnerable. Toni said, "you need to figure out why"

Sage advise, and I have yet to figure out why but today I was given a few clues and thought that just maybe I would share.

I went to train this morning at 7 am, yes on a Sunday. There was nothing unusual o0ther than I missed watching the fights last night at Sean's because I was a tired old fart...and we went through a usual routine and then about 15 minutes before the under belts left we had to line up.......in order of age...shit... I hate age because somehow to me that is an admission of something that I am not sure I can even explain but I knew one thing I was at the end of part of the line.

For the first time I was faced with the fact that there is only one person in this years candidates that is older than me. One, only one, that means that everyone else is younger than me...everyone but one. crap really everyone are you kidding me?

I looked in the mirror at the length of the line to my left and it was long. It was like it was screaming at me.HEY OLD GUY MOVE DOWN!

My piroformis muscle tightened, my back tightened, my elbow ached and my tooth....well it felt sprained!

And then it hit me.....I show up 5 days a week, I do this, I love to fight and I am getting better at most things every day. Providence....because what other sorry assed 52 year old does this?

I left feeling like maybe, just maybe, despite everything that is happening to me I am doing something right. The day was not over.

Our afternoon was spent with fabulous friends that we have the fortune of knowing because we are all blessed with having met in Birobidjan, Russia while bringing a little girl and a little boy into our families.

We are 2 families that would never have met if it were not for the desire to add to our families. We met in a small town in Russia in a restaurant called Scmack and have developed a friendship that we otherwise would never have known. We are different and have different experiences but have a bond that is powerful because it is a bond that is forged from a common experience and an experience that has a foundation in love. In the end we are very much the same.

PROVIDENCE...

So, tonight as my Guinness depletes and my age advances I am reminded that providing has a great deal more to do about the heart than anything else. (Sean you tried to tell me that a year ago)

I am reminded that there is infinitely more opportunity ahead of me than behind me and that is a choice. Opportunity personally, physically, professionally and spiritually.

Today has been a great day of Providence and this year has been a great year about uncovering opportunity...I have just not always been looking forward and too often been preoccupied with the present.

It is providence that all the people who have been there to open my eyes have had the patience to try and let me open to the possibility and allow me the time to hear.

Asimbonanga....but I am still hopeful too.