. . . watched the Olympics

collage with several layers of texture photos, paper towel scans and my own pictures





It was moving to watch the opening ceremonies last night. If you turned off the commentators, avoided the political leaders of countries in attendance, if you kept an open mind and truly acknowledged and appreciated the differences in cultures, it was possible to believe in world peace (or as one of my favorite T-shirts says, "whirled peas.")


I seem to recall that there was a country with only one athlete representing it. There was another country whose "leader for life" hollowly promised splendor and riches to any of its athletes who won a gold medal, despite the fact that country had never won any medal of any kind. Then there were the countries who didn't allow women to participate. . . and the countries who were allowing women's participation for the first time. The colorful flags, the wonderful native costumes, the patchwork quilt of the infield when all athletes had gathered. The fact that Kobe Bryant and LaBron James and other multi-millionaire athletes respectfully participated in the opening ceremonies. Oh, yes, I was having the warm fuzzies. . .


As I watched the mostly young, mostly gorgeous men and women march into the stadium, I asked my husband if he thought there was a lot of intercontinental screwing around going on at the games. His reply was a quizzical "are you crazy" look. . . healthy, active, beautiful and young. . . of course there was. Perhaps that's the path leading to whirled peas.