Change of Habitat

A few months ago I sat in a van full of Portuguese people I didn't know driving through a cork/bull-raising farm to play my flute with a local band I had just joined. I was just riding along enjoying the view when it dawned on me that I was in a completely unfamiliar situation right down to the language I didn't speak and the clothes I was wearing that weren't mine. I smiled and shook my head. I had gotten up that morning in the same country, I had put on that unfamiliar band uniform, I had gotten in the car and driven to the town where I play in the band. It was amazing to me all the little steps I had taken that were no big deal at the time, but that had gotten me into that situation. It is interesting to think of the remarkable things we may do in any given day in a completely unremarkable way. Our ability to adapt amazes me, because it's not just a physical adaption but the adaption of our complex mental and emotional processes as well. The stretching and pulling of my insides during these last 6 months have been taxing, but they have made the reaches of my heart a little bit bigger. They have afforded me with more compassion and understanding... things I have been less than short on in the past. My eyes have been opened again to new perspectives... even more ways of seeing the same things I had always seen before. How foolish would I be now, even more than ever, to think I knew it all. There is so much out there I don't understand. It seems kind of funny to hold an opinion on anything when you know there is so much information out there that you probably don't even know about. Of course I go on holding opinions because they are open, as ever.
The more I write it seems the less point I have.... or the more points I have. I guess this is more random pondering. A change of habitat can cause you to ponder in a random way. Whenever I get more settled maybe my thoughts will be more pointed. Or maybe I'll never be settled again, who knows. Whatever. I'm going to go back to the place I was before all this dawned on me.