When I got sick back in 2008, there were a lot of things I didn’t know. I think we all are willing to say, on any given day, “Ya, I don’t know a lot of things.” I think what we are not so willing to admit, is that quite often, learning those “things” does not come easy. There’s the fun stuff we learn…how to build something new, how to make a new recipe, how to get somewhere we have never been. We know these things will be challenging, but because we make the choice to learn them - the challenge is sweet. But then there’s the stuff that doesn’t come so easy. The stuff we learn about ourselves and about the world that comes out of suffering, out of pain or even out of tragedy. If we stay the course long enough, if we see that anger and resentment and bitterness are but a passing guest, we find ourselves on another side of things. It’s the space where tragedy and loss blossom into something far greater. Beyond that which grasps to destroy us. Where walls fall down like silk off a wooden rail. Where vulnerability meets honestly and finds rest in the soft pillow of love.
To list all that I have learned since 2008 - especially for the purpose of this small post - would be crazy. And I’m not even quite sure where to begin with the point I’m even trying to make right now because the magnitude of it seems too big for words. I write it and re-write it and each time it just seems like another Hallmark greeting card or sappy Facebook poster. But I’ll do it anyway; partly because without Facebook I wouldn’t even be able to say what I’m going to say. And also because without Facebook it would not reach even one tenth of the people that I hope it reaches.
This is the big thing that I have learned. The life changer. The energy behind my life and the “thing” that I now base all that I believe in. It motivates me. It makes me compassionate. It changes my political view. I softens me. Ready?
This world is filled - FILLED - bursting at the seams and overflowing - with absolutely beautiful people. Wonderful, creative, loving, humorous, compassionate, colorful, broken, lovely people. Who wake up every single day hoping for the exact same thing I do. To be loved. To be healthy. To be cared about and to be given the chance to care for others. They, like me, want to be celebrated, want to listened to, what to share their dreams and hopes and fears and to laugh the laughter of our common Joy. To find what binds us in the depths of our hearts - to know the commonality of our deepest fears and sadness and to run wild with our shared story of resilience, of courage…of hope. We long for these things. No matter our age, our race, our sexuality, our social status or the land on which we place our bare feet each morning.
Since becoming sick I have gotten to know people from all over the world, thanks to the “world wide” web. From every state in our Nation to countries all over the world. I regularly communicate with people in Russia, in the Scandinavian countries, all throughout Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of these relationships have absolutely changed my life for the better. Have some of them not turned out so well? Yep, of course. Realizing all the good in the world does not somehow make all the bad go away. And it surely does not make you naive. It makes you compassionate…if you’re lucky enough to see it through.
So why write about this today? To be honest, I contemplated not. Mainly because there are so many of “you” out there. You who have imprinted on my heart so significantly that you are part of my very fiber. I see your faces in all that I do and say. I hear your voice in my head, even though many of you have never even spoken to me - our relationships carried on the written word. And maybe I should just do this more often. Point you out. Show the world these everyday heroes in my life. Some of you are so quiet, so humble, so unassuming I fear offending you with my own willingness to be “public”. Yet, in a world so eager to make us all enemies, I want desperately to let them know about you.
Philip Buttà , you are one such person in my life. Today I choose to celebrate you. I’m hoping you’re “okay” with this since you have been working so hard to promote your new CD and the causes you so passionately believe in. Phil came into my life just like many other of you - through the internet. To this day I’m not sure if it was I that was on his blog or he that was on mine! Either way, we met through words and it’s been words that have bound us together ever since. I’m pretty sure that if I actually meet Phil in person some day he’s going to look quite odd to me. I have this vision of a man whose heart is too big for his chest. That the enormity of his love for people and for the four legged of this world is just so colossal that it is impossible to hold within the frame of a normal man. I can honestly say, I have never known a person like him. And it’s this very passion that drives the words and the music behind his new CD. The minute he released it I could hardly wait to buy it. Separating the story from the man is impossible. And knowing some of Phil’s story as well as knowing what I know about his talent for music made this a complete no brainer for me. The fact that by purchasing it I also feeds a rescue horse a bale of hay…well, that not only is a perk, where Phil is concerned - it just makes sense.
Thank you Phil for being my friend. Thank you for who you are, for saying it like it is, for taking risk and being vulnerable, for being one of those voices in my head that makes me a better person. Thank you for all of your inspiration, for being “out there” with your creativity and for sharing in the ups and downs of being an artist - as well as telling me when to get off my butt and get back to work. Thank you for keeping tabs on me when I’m sick, for giving me the dream of someday traveling to New York with Dave and surprising you at one of your gigs and for making my mouth water with your pictures of home baked bread! You are one of the heroes in my life and I am so privileged and honored to share your CD with my world. May we all have just a little bit of what you have in your heart. My, what a wonderful world it would be.
Please consider supporting Phil and his campaign for Lucky Orphans Horse Rescue.
Peace,
Theresa
