Hi. You found us. Or we found you. We found each other.
This is an audio journey.
This is an attempt to connect more meaningfully.
This is an attempt to connect.
To listen,
As well as to speak words into the world without fear.
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio: Don White, story. carefulGIANTS, music.
Things found in real life:
My hand overlaid on top of the handprint of John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth
A rainbow on my wrist made by a parting gift from my cousin, who died of pancreatic cancer in June
Things found on the internet:
This New York Times article about a doctor who regrets her “truth” spoken to a dying patient.
“But when I think about that night, I know that I added to my patient’s pain in the last hours of his life. I wish that I had done it differently. I could have paused and told him that yes, he was going to go home. I could have simply been there with him and said nothing at all. That small kindness might have done more for him than the truth.”
This Mary Oliver poem, “At the River Clarion”
“If God exists he isn’t just butter and good luck.
He’s also the tick that killed my wonderful dog Luke.”
“...If God exists he isn’t just churches and mathematics.
He’s the forest, He’s the desert.
He’s the ice caps, that are dying.
He’s the ghetto and the Museum of Fine Arts.
He’s van Gogh and Allen Ginsberg and Robert Motherwell.
He’s the many desperate hands, cleaning and preparing their weapons.
He’s every one of us, potentially.
The leaf of grass, the genius, the politician, the poet.
And if this is true, isn’t it something very important?”
This photo and quote from this portrait of Laurie Anderson
The ALIVE hour