Fall City solitude

It's so very difficult to grasp what real life is all about out there...in the real world. Here, the concern is whether or not there might be a flood...or snowstorm...or massive windstorm. These things are rare. Once, every year or so, something like that happens and the little neighborhood huddles together to weather the trying times. What must it be like to face the unending challenges of war, political upheaval, religious persecution, rape, food and water shortages...? So many trials go on each day elsewhere in the world as I sit on the porch, basking in the light of the lamp and contemplate how I'll deal with the snow flurries in the forecast. Life is so fickle. My being as a human might easily have existed in the body of a waif in the Gaza Strip. I may have been a warrior in a distant African tribe attacking and fending off interlopers. I may have been raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, or Mormon, or as a poor Mexican trying to find a better, yet illegal, life in the grand USA. I may have been so many things and yet...I wonder if any of the snow flurries might stick to the road. I wonder if I'll be able to drive to the store for fresh cigarettes...and wine. I don't know what to do or say about all this. However, I do know that my own existence as it is...is all I know. I am truly sorry to have reaped the rewards of a life, free of life-and-death challenges...a life, sheltered from the real world. Indeed, I am sorry to have traveled along a path of soft sod with roses along the side for my pleasure...while so many others suffer. What's to be done? What's to be thought as I look outward and upward, and the flakes of snow fall gently upon my knees? I suppose I can only hope I used my wondrous time with ample appreciation...and maybe give something of value back to those in need and those less fortunate. That's what's happening today in Fall City.