Galveston today – 2 January 2009

This evening I am here in Galveston, TX, working with the Steering Committee of the Houston More To Life program. It was dark when we crossed the bridge to get to the island, and once we turned right onto 61st street, we saw a boat pushed off to the side of the road. Weird sight – kind of shocking as we passed it by. After the next light, we saw another boat pushed just off the road, not as weird as the first one, but still an amazing sight. After the next light, same thing – 3rd boat on its side just off the street. OK, this is the way it is here for now. But fast food joints had lights, cars on the roads, the place is alive – not jumping, but alive.

We walked on the beach – only a sliver of a moon, and lots of cloud cover … so we couldn't see much around us. I love walking on the beach at night. Fortunately I had my hiking boots on, as I could hear and feel the crunch of things under-foot. Another weird sensation. It's the beach I know. It has undergone some changes, but it's fundamentally the same beach – I know it, and it's different and unknown.

Which made me think of people I know well. I think I know them, but do I Really know them? Do I know them as they are right now? Have they gone through internal changes of which I am unaware? Or am I operating on data from the past, interpretations from the past, through a lens that obfuscates the current reality of who they are in this moment?

PS Janet Cohen sent the picture, it's exactly what I saw.