I was able to take a road trip up to Pismo Beach a couple of days ago. The Monarch butterflies fly through there every year from the end of October until February and make their home in a grove of trees right off of the beach. It was amazing to look up at the trees and realize that what you are seeing is not seed pods or leaves, but thousands of butterflies.

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

If I had my own world
I’d fill it with love and desire
I wanted the past you admire
And voices of kids out walking dogs,
Birds, planes, trees and cars

If I had my own world
I’d love it for all that’s inside it
There’d be no more wars, death or riots,
There’d be no more faiths, packed parking lots,
Guns, bombs sounding off,

If I had my own world
I’d build you an empire
From here to the farlands
To spread love like violence

If I had my own world
I’d build you an empire
From here to the farlands
To spread love like violence

Let me feel you, carry you higher
Watch our words spread hope like fire
Secret crowds rise up and gather
Hear your voices sing back louder

If I had my own world
I’d show you the life that’s inside it
The way that it glows when you find it
The way it survives with it’s families,
Friends or it’s enemies

Let’s make this a new world
I swear you can go if you want to
I know that you have it within you
Inventing the first clean musical,
God’s greatest miracle

If I had my own world
I’d build you an empire
From here to the farlands
To spread love like violence

If I had my own world
I’d build you an empire
From here to the farlands
To spread love like violence

Let me feel you, carry you higher
Watch our words spread hope like fire
Secret crowds rise up and gather
Hear your voices sing back louder

Let me feel you carry you higher
Watch our words spread hope like fire
Secret crowds rise up and gather
Hear your voices sing back louder

Let me feel you carry you higher
Watch our words spread hope like fire
Secret crowds rise up and gather
Hear your voices sing back louder

Let me feel you carry you higher
Watch our words spread hope like fire
Secret crowds rise up and gather
Hear your voices sing back louder

Over the weekend I got the chance to go to LA again. We happened to walk past the LA Times building where we found a long line of people. I guess they were selling souvenir plates of the front page from Wednesday’s newspaper. The line was down the street and around the corner and after talking to some people we found out that it gone clear around the building the day before. I guess everyone wanted a piece of history. The part that I found so great was how excited people were. We talked to one woman whose mother barely spoke English (Japanese), but volunteered her time for Obama’s campaign. Her mom came out of the building with her souvenirs and gave us one of the newspapers she had gotten – just because. Definitely a different time.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.
~ Barack Obama