Hi,
This is Brooks and I'm standing.
I'm standing in my dining room and I'm talking to you.
I don't know what I'm gonna talk about,
But I really like standing.
There's something so nice about it.
It's like my whole body has to work together for me to stand.
So it's like,
It's a group effort.
You know,
The body's going,
Let's see what we can do.
And then here I am standing.
That's pretty amazing.
You know,
Like I had a,
You might've heard me say this before,
But I had a double lung transplant almost nine years ago.
And after I got the transplant,
I couldn't walk because my muscles in my body had atrophied from kind of just laying in bed for a long time,
Right?
So I had to learn how to walk again.
And I realized like,
God,
It's everything has to come together to be able to just to stand,
Let alone walk.
It's pretty amazing,
Pretty incredible.
And I'm in awe of my body,
Even though sometimes it hurts or it's uncomfortable,
I really like it.
And so much goes on underneath the surface that I have no clue.
And it does it all for me.
I don't even have to ask.
My body's like,
I'm gonna do this for you.
And I'm like,
Okay,
Thank you.
That's really nice of you.
I'm looking around and the sunlight streaming in through the window and there's shadows being cast off of things.
And I love shadows,
Something about them.
I put my finger on the counter here and then I see the shadow extend off my finger.
And it's so incredible that there's this thing that it's a shape and I can even touch it,
But it doesn't have any texture,
Has no definable surface that I can feel.
And yet there it is.
And then I lift my finger off the counter and it's gone.
Like it was never there.
Like it was a dream.
I think about shadows because I think like they're there just as much as the objects are there,
But we never really look at the shadows.
Or like I should say,
I usually don't look at the shadows until I'm,
Like right now I'm noticing them.
They're always there unless it's dark,
Unless the lights are out.
But it reminds me of when I was going to art school and my painting teacher named Jeffrey Baker,
This great British older gentleman,
And he one of a kind guy.
And he said that it was important,
Like if you were looking at your hand and you're painting your hand to paint also the space in between the fingers.
He said that was just as important as the fingers.
So I'm doing that right now.
I'm looking at my hands,
The fingers outstretched.
I'm looking at the space between them and they feel alive.
I love that.
So cool.
It's like a lot of really nice stuff about life for me is like when I discover things that I didn't know.
And not like facts,
You know,
Not because facts to me are really boring because of school.
I had to memorize so many facts,
You know,
And I was like,
You could feel the emphasis of my voice when I said facts and the distaste for facts,
You know.
And,
But I like to learn stuff.
Like I like to experience new things.
So the space between my fingers or noticing the shadows and noticing how good it feels to stand and the support of my body.
Like,
Those are wonderful things.
Too bad that wasn't school,
You know,
When I was a kid.
Today we're going to look at shadows.
That's all we're gonna do all day.
Like,
Great.
And anyway,
I'm glad you're listening to this.
I have no idea who you are,
But I know,
You know,
If you're listening to this,
Then I don't know where I'm going with this.
But what I'm saying is I'm glad that you're there and you're listening to this.
In some ways it's like,
You're listening to this at the same time I'm speaking it,
But in a weird,
Different way of time.
Like it's taking time to a different dimension.
And I don't even know how to explain it,
But for somehow or some reason I can feel your presence listening to me,
Even though I'm making a recording and I haven't put it up on Insight Timer yet.
So I just want to thank you because you're just as much a part of this as I am.
Like your presence draws us out even though you're hearing this,
Not at the same time I'm speaking it.
I think you get what I'm saying.
Sometimes I have a hard time explaining myself because I know what I mean.
And I get frustrated sometimes if I can't express what I'm feeling.
I don't know if you ever had that experience,
But yeah.
So anyway,
I think we're at the end of this talk.
I'm glad that,
Thank you for listening.
And I'm gonna play a little harmonica to end it.
So here we go.
Thank you,
Bye.
