My little family took a drive this weekend. We went to Breckenridge CO, about two hours west of Denver. The trees are already starting to turn.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

~Shel Silverstein
I found the place in Parker, CO, where the sidewalk ends and remembered this poem. I wanted to share the moment. Shel Silverstein authored children's books of poems and I used to read them when I was in elementary school.

I got an email from Amazon.com last week that informed me I could watch a movie for free at their site. I had bought both Fahrenheit 9-11 and Sicko, both Michael Moore films, from Amazon, so their resonance engine sent me notification that I may like his new film Slacker Uprising.

So I devoted an hour and a half reclining on the couch in front of my computer, all comfy cozy with a blankie. I don't really know if the movie was worth the time...still thinking.... At least I have high speed internet now and I didn't have to wait for any rebuffering!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GIYC4K/ref=pe_32660_10397280_fe_exp_1/

I do have some insights from the film, though. It was like a video diary from his cross country tour in 2004, aimed at getting the slackers of the nation to get up off the couch and coerce their neighbors into going to the polls to vote. He was asked by the media if his own movie (Fahrenheit 9-11) is propaganda. I don't know if that was set up for this film or what, but he jumped at the chance to say that his movies are anti-propaganda and that the journalists of the country aren't doing their jobs because if they were then the American public would actually know what's going on.

He showed clips of Moore protesters who believe he's the antichrist or a lunatic or communist. He showed the kind of BLIND faith Bush supporters have for their "leader," with this quote: 'Bush prays every day for God to show him how to run the country best, so if my president follows God then I'll follow him.'

He also showed his supporters- throngs of cheering people in packed coliseums across the nation, as he passed out clean underwear and ramen noodles in exchange for a promise to vote. He showed the musicians who came to back him up by playing a song for his crowds; mostly woodstock-reminiscent peace rally types of political songs. (REM, Joan Baez, Rage against the machine...)

So in this sense Slacker Uprising was like a music video with some talking thrown in. Maybe he did that to get the slackers to actually watch it?

My son is not yet three years old. Since I have older teen step-sons in the house, he hears them call me Jessica, and he also hears them ask to borrow my car countless times a month. That's why it struck me as so funny that he would put on a baseball cap backwards, stick his hands in his pockets, and ask me,

"Jessica, Jessica, can I borrow the car? Where are the keys!"
I went along with him and asked, "Are you pretending to be your brother?"
"Yes."
"Give me the keys. Open the door," (I have a childproof door handle on the front door so he always has to ask me if he wants to leave the house.)

He's never called me Jessica before today. He pronounced it JEH-SKA.

These precious memories get lost in the shuffle.

Then there are the other kind of precious memories; when he breaks things! Since husband is in construction there always seem to be screws on the floor, as they come out of his pockets when he reaches for his wallet to give the older teens money! I can't clean them up fast enough. Last month my little one took one of these screws, and walked over to my giant exercise ball and jammed it in with all his strength just to see what would happen. The air started hissing and I yelped and put my finger on the hole. Then the pressure built up in the ball and it exploded in my hands. It ripped into three pieces.

To keep from yelling, I sat on the couch, behind my husband, who never uses the ball and so remained calm. I, however, was wimpering at the loss of my favorite bouncy chair.

"You broke my ball." I repeated sternly to my bewildered 'big boy', not yet three. He said nothing. He remained quiet about it all night long, refusing to say sorry.

The next morning, he woke up, came to me and asked, "Remember that? I broke your ball?"

Our children internalize absolutely everything, that's why working on our reactions to what they do is the best way to improve our parenting. I'm so happy I didn't spank or scream at him that night. I said wooo-saaaa to myself a bit, but I let it pass. I wish I could have done that years ago with his older brother! I'm a work in progress.

My emotions are intimately intertwined with my body. My fear or anger is seen on my facial expressions, and is transmuted into pain in between my scapulas. My joy is also seen on my face and posture.

Our emotions shape our bodies and faces so much that many studies have been done to validate the effects. Men with excess anger end up with compromised lung functioning. Stress and depression increase disease progression.

Scientifically determining how emotions influence health. Health Emotions Research Institute.

Good attitude is one of the top five conditions of long life and good health.

I have a page devoted to emotions and your health in the news at my own web site, Live on Purpose. I list out five or six news articles that highlight the relationship between, you guessed it, emotions and your health.

One fibromyalgia web site FibromyalgiaHelp4us said it best:

One needs to realize that all of the physical pain and other symptoms are connected to your emotional & mental state.  NO - I'm not saying it's all in your head!  I know better - but I do know that when I am in pain or tired, I am depressed or at least irritable and when I'm not happy, the pain gets worse.  It is a vicious cycle that can seem never-ending.  I will go more into that on the Emotional & Mental Health page of this website. 

Earlier this week I watched a PBS special about fractals while I was recovering from working while under-the-weather. It explained the Mandelbrot set, which is a fractal named after the scientist who started all the rage about fractals.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this show.

It explained that fractals are really math in visual form. The Mandelbrot set is formed by iterations of a certain formula, wherein the answer is fed back into the beginning of the formula ad nauseum, then the resulting numbers are plotted into the visual depiction of a fractal.

Fractals are the mathematician's way of describing the organic world; they can describe the roughness of mountain ranges, the length of a coastline, they mimic the cardiograph (heart rate), and perhaps even the EEG (brain waves). They describe the structure of a tree, and how it relates closely to the structure of the forest. Fractals help cell phone companies to configure their antennaes to be ultra small but get a wider range of reception.

And so if it is that "as above, so below," then I can also conclude that the fractal can help describe not only one person's heart rate, vein structure, and brain waves, then it can also help describe our own vision of the world: our personal individual development.

If the fractal can describe one person's development over time, it can also describe societal development, and then also global development.

And since many fractals are visually depicted as spiral-like, then also the spiral theory of development is a perfect fractal model.

I'm going somewhere with this, but I need more study to develop it fully. I like to think that within a subset of sameness, there is infinite variety, as in the Mandelbrot set. They say that the set has a boundary that is infinitely long. Imagine a sweater: you see the form of the sweater easily, but when you unravel it, the yarn is extremely long.

And that's my life. My long series of everyday moments will never be exactly repeated. It is the same, but varied within that sameness. I drive to work all the time, but when do I experience THIS MOMENT a second time during the drive?

A border collie scratches its' ear while a flock of birds alight and the horses graze.

A falcon watches from a streetlight while bulldozer construction vehicles await the next day of service.

A three car fenderbender where the lady in the red middle car walked up to the man in the last car and I could read her lips, "what the f___?" She had an eyebrow piercing.

Two men under a pine tree. One sits up and one reclines on his skateboard as a pillow while looking at his cell phone.

A man on the roof inspecting his swamp cooler.

The pumpkins are out on display at the local garden center.

Tufts of plant seeds floating thick in the air outside my office.

These small everyday moments are so beautiful to me, and so intriguing. They are the swirls and spiral variations on the very edge of this image of the Mandelbrot set, infinitely repeating in endless variations of sameness.

Redundant though I am, I want to put my finger on it...I want to see the bigger picture. It's almost as if PURPOSE is wrapped up into that intriguing shape, with its coastline so intricately wrapped that you can't even measure it. It's like the essence of God is there, calming us with near symmetrical sameness, but pushing us onward with subtle variations that cause eureka moments.