Lean Into the Sun

I spoke to my college friend today.  He teaches students all over Europe and the Middle East how to speak English.  He travels to places that other Americans wouldn’t go if you paid them.  Places like Iran and Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.  He says the food is to die for. He goes there because he figures if you really want to understand something, you have to go see it in person.  He told me tales of the nightlife in Istanbul.  He’s saved up his money and hired someone to be a docent for him for a full month this summer at the Louvre.  He hopes to study a couple pieces of art a day.

I met this woman at the gym today.  Her name was Esther.  She was born in the Philippines, but she is Chinese.  She speaks eight languages.  She is a missionary.  She looks young, but she is not young, so she pays someone to clean her house for her and she highly recommends that I do the same.  It’s money well spent, she says.  She invited me to her church.  She talked to my son like he was a proper person.  They spoke of Beyblades and Mary Poppins and this boy in Sam’s class who speaks Mandarin and how if Sam could learn any language he thinks it’d probably be Swahili.  She said, I’ll have to introduce you to my husband.  He speaks Swahili.

I just love people like that.

I want to be like that.  I want you to be like that too.

Let’s all just throw our arms open to the world and see what happens.

Lean into the sun.

Go on and open up.

It’ll feel good and it makes you look so pretty.