Happy Memorial Day

One thing I've come to realize since my trip to Afghanistan is just how lucky I was to have been born here. I won't go so far as to claim that the U.S. is the best country in the world--that's pure arrogance, no to mention ridiculous--but it's a good place for the most part, and more importantly, it's home.

So please use this Memorial Day as an opportunity to remember all those who have fallen, whether through war or anything else, from this country and from all others, because the one truth is, everyone has someone who will miss them when they're gone.

Half-Extinguished Thoughts

   And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
 With many recognitions dim and faint,
 And somewhat of a sad perplexity,                          
 The picture of the mind revives again:
 While here I stand, not only with the sense
 Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
 That in this moment there is life and food
 For future years.

             --William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey

FYI, these photos were taken at Darul Aman Palace on the southern outskirts of Kabul, which is near where this suicide attack took place. The convoy apparently was on the road leading to the palace and the attack occurred at approximately the same time of morning we were there more than than two months before.

It just makes you think.

Outward Eye

"Your outward eye is like the palm of a hand: the palm cannot grasp the whole of the object."

- Rumi

Broom Seller

One afternoon we were driving through Kabul in our little mini bus as always, and we got stuck in traffic in the center of this busy intersection next to a bazaar. As we always did when stuck in traffic, we opened the windows and were all leaning out taking pictures. This old man wheeled his little cart full of brooms/brushes up to us, set it down, picked up these two examples of his wares and held them up for a minute while we snapped away, then set them back down, picked up the handles of his cart and trundled off again.

It was classic Kabul.

Generations