This Goes Way Beyond Animal House
I usually do not write about current events because I like food more than politics and I stress enough about daily family life, let alone watching the news/reading the paper to know what horrible things happen in the world and could find their way into mine.
But San Diego - which I've idealized in many of my blogs - has been in the news lately for some unfortunate reasons.
1) Fatal Great White shark attack.
2) Padres doing, um, not so well.
3) Huge drug bust in the college five minutes from me, SDSU, where my hubby went to school and my kids attended pre-school.
It seems even paradise has it's troubles.
The up-side: these things keep me grounded. Because if I could go on believeing that my calm, pristine waters do not hold potential peril, I would. If I could look at a college campus and imagine the only bad guys were Neidermeyer and Dean Wormer, I'd stay in that fictitious place. If you told me the Padres had fight in them and there would be some glory this season, I would make a conscious choice to believe you.
Notice, I said, IF. I not only live in San Diego, but in another place where reality and imagination intersect, where I believe my mind set has something to do with the best possible outcomes.
I'm not changing locations, either. My happy place has nothing to with geographical locations, and even less to do with what I know I can't control. It sure has taken me long enough to arrive here.
So when I learn that one of the SDSU busted was getting a Masters Degree in Homeland Security, I'm reminded things are not always what they seem. When I hear about a fatal shark attack in Mexico, not to mention the 16 footer off my piece of shoreline, I get a little scared about our upcoming trip to and planned beach excursion in Cabo San Lucas. And when I see in the paper again that Maddux was denied his 350th career win, I read between the lines. "There is no big picture in baseball," he said. "Everything is right now...The big picture is what you do now." He is so right.
Besides, what are the alternatives...keep my kids from attending college? Never going in the ocean again? Stop watching baseball?
That is what I find most unacceptable.
