Jackson lies on the warm summer grass under a thin ornamental tree with his face covered by a baseball cap. The hope was to lapse into a 10 minute nap during lunch break. For the past four hours we hauled 50-pound packs of asphalt shingles up a 30-foot ladder.
“People in the city are afraid of people in the country,” Jackson states through the cotton of his hat. “People in the country are afraid of people in the city.”
Annah and I moved to an old farm house in the country from an apartment in town. In the night’s breeze limbs of an old sugar maple rub against the wood siding. This sound is someone trying to break in, steal all our belongings, and then tie us up and shoot us. This is the scenario going through my head at 3 am during a strong wind. I saw a movie once, heard a news report, or maybe it was something that happened to a friend of a friend when they were younger.
In 2010 there were 569 homicides in the state of Ohio. The FBI says 79% of all these murders are committed by friends, family, or acquaintances.
In the same year, in the state of Ohio, 26,164 people died of heart disease, 25,083 of cancer, 6,717 from Chronic lower respiratory diseases, 5,124 from “accidents,” 3,470 of diabetes, 1,975 from influenza, 1,911 from drug-induced causes, 1,439 from suicide, 1,252 from motor vehicle accidents, 1,244 from chronic liver disease, and 1,220 from hypertension.

Me: The guy said you couldn’t come to the event.
Saudi Friend: Why?
Me: No Saudis are allowed.
Saudi Friend: Why? Are they afraid of me getting drunk and making a fool of myself?
Me: No. They are afraid of you being a terrorist and blowing the place up.
Saudi Friend: (laughs hysterically) Are you serious? They must not sleep very well with such fears.

More “still lives” from Saudi Arabia

What are my influences? What makes me who I am? What makes me believe what I believe?
I fear water thanks to a movie I watched when I was eight. I lack trust in relationships because of a few gone wrong. I believe the creation of something that cannot naturally be uncreated is fundamentally immoral. Why?
Why is it that I can’t cry?
Why is it that I fear armed robbery?
We look to Thomas Edison as if he were the one who lit the first light and then look for what it were that would influence such a mind. If we can reflect on his brilliance, it should only be that we admire his grasp on the times. The creation of light came well before the patent. He fashioned modern methodology into a convenient version. It’s like celebrating the Edmund Hillarys of the world without a recognition of the Tenzing Norgay.
We strive for an individualism in the face of an overwhelming manifestation of the collective thought. I’m humbled to think I am but a slight murmur in the orchestra of sound emanating from the edges of a galaxy.
“It has been a long road…From a mountain coolie, a bearer of loads, to a wearer of a coat with rows of medals who is carried about in planes and worries about income tax.”—Tenzing Norgay