Green Ball

I look for inspiration in writing almost daily. I rarely write when I don’t have a strong, overwhelming NEED to write. I felt that pang to write today. I initially was going to write about something as small as a molecule.  Yup, a molecule. Something so small that looks like a whole other galaxy under a microscope. With all the memes and Facebook videos streaming through our lives, one in particular has stuck in my head. It depicts a giant green ball being led by a rope that appears to be walking it, as if it were a family pet. The title of the video was “This is happiness”. I’ve included it as the photo for my blog. So freaking cute. A myosin protein dragging an endorphin along a filament to the inner part of the brain's parietal cortex which creates happiness. Who knew that a protein is so adorable. I initially was going to write about all the myosin proteins swirling around in our bodies during Valentine’s Day and what not. I initially was going to go into depth into my myocin thresholds yada yada yada. Not today. And please hold that thought about the protein while I go off on another tangent.

I watch the Olympics for the sport of it, of course. I love to see people pushing their limits and living their dreams.; however, it’s more than that to me. I like to watch the ‘aftermath’. After the runs, the twirls, the racing, etc….I like to see who the athletes run to. I like to see a semi-god of an athlete, an epitome of determination and focus, …become a real person. One who searches the crowd of photographers and fans to find their ‘happiness’; their ‘love’; their ‘reasons’. The 17 year old Gold medalist who finishes her half pipe and whips off her snowboard boots and her helmet and says “where’s my mom”.  And as tears of joy run down their faces, which minutes prior were steadfast and focused, I always think that I want to collect their tears. WTF Amy (I can hear you saying that now). I want to take a little vial and collect the tears of these athletes when they are at the pinnacle of their lives. I wonder if their tears, much like the myosin protein, look different then the tears of perhaps someone who is sad, or scared, or reflective. Do their tears have a zillion tiny proteins on leashes walking around in them? Freaking happy protein parade? Do sad people have different looking proteins walking in their tears?

Watching the news this morning we are reminded of the school shootings happening in our lives. They flashed to the Sandy Hook attack. A photograph showed children being led out of the school after the massacre. One little girl’s face in that photo promoted this blog post. Utter fear and terror was on her face. But within her grimacing look I could see that it wasn’t so much what had just occurred within her peaceful little school, but it was a look saying, “I need my mom/dad”. You could actually see that expression. And her tears were steaming down her face and landing on her once dry rainbow t-shirt. That innate NEED for someone or something. I thought of her tears, too! What a contrast there would be if we could see them under the light of a microscope against those in a completely opposite tearful moment. All the events that are occurring inside of us that we don’t even know are happening. I hope that little girl and all these young people have those happy molecule walks that will far outweigh any of the bad stuff.

The shooter…a troubled boy…lived with some family friends, ‘since the death of his mother’ as stated on the news. Perhaps when his body was at it’s lowest point and he couldn’t feel that happiness microscopically running through his body he was also looking for his reason out in the crowd; perhaps that was his mother that was no longer there. And in all the pain and hatred and anger that this horrible, horrible person did to his former classmates, you see how people, whether the gold medalist athlete or the worst possible person imaginable, to the innocent child or the guilty adult; that there is one thing that we all have in common. It can’t be seen but we feel it ever day. It can’t be seen but we show it daily. It can’t be seen but it drives us in both positive and perhaps negative ways. It’s that damn little protein on a leash looking for all the other little protein friends in this big beautiful body of ours. It’s the happiness we feel when we know we are loved and we know we can love that person back, whether we are on the top of a mountain going for the gold or in the darkest depths at the bottom of your hill and see no way out.

My wish for you is to always search for your ‘faces in the crowd’…the ones who make your happiness walk around in your body a million miles over…and never lose faith that rainbows after the rain will dry up someday and you can be at the top of your mountains once again.