After decades of travel and living in many areas, my experience and observations have deepened. I have now delved underneath the layers of appearances that tourists see, peeled back the superficial quaintness and wallowed in the day-to-day gritty.

Here's what bothers me about people. Everyone (almost everyone) is so fixated on their own little dramas, creating and perpetuating them to the point of ad nauseum, that they lose sight of the bigger picture out here. Of which all lived places are a part. Or they don't care. Even I fell victim to this. It took stepping back to see how we really are. Were just as selfish and destructive as those we blame everything on.

But people of any community can make a difference.
If we want to.

I know I am probably stepping on toes with this comment, but I also blame myself. And this is one reason of several I've felt the need to remove myself from just one location, to be able to step away and look back. And at least offer my time and expertise to help in any way I can, no matter how small it is. Because my conscience just won't let me not do so.

“So this whole thing—Katrina, Sandy, drought—is about Exxon making slightly higher profits for a few more years until god knows what happens to the climate?”

“Yes.”

“Dad, how are you losing this debate?”

“We’re not losing it,” I say. “We’re just not winning it fast enough.”

“What’s it going to take?” he asks. “Just what in the world is it going to take?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I don’t know.” I keep saying it. Until I stop saying it."

And I hear my own voice echoing the same..........