Category: Words To Live By

You can definitely say I’m one of those on this planet now who’s concerned about global warming. I wasn’t really in year’s past though, as experiencing subzero temperatures for many days and even weeks in a row, year after year, here in Toledo where I reside has a way of making one think about anything other than global warming. But, with what I’ve seen in nature in 2021, both here, and around the world, I am definitely growing more and more concerned.

After doing a little research on the internet I learned a lot about global warming. Climate change is intensifying our water cycle. This is turn is bringing about more intense rainfall and associated flooding in some areas or no rainfall whatsoever and intense drought for other areas. The sea level is rising rapidly with coastal flooding and erosion becoming far more frequent now. Extreme weather events that previously occurred here and there are now happening on a regular basis, every single year. I find it so amazing that the small global temperature increases of only a few degrees over the last century have changed so much about our weather and nature on our planet. I was shocked to learn that this cranking up of the temperature is making the oceans alone absorb the heat equivalent of five Hiroshima atomic bombs dropping into the water every second. That’s just mind boggling to ponder. The last time it was hotter than it is now is estimated to be at least 125,000 years ago. Earth’s atmosphere is now saturated with so many emissions from human activity, that the warmth it’s trapping is leading to more frequent periods of extreme heat and causing things like a billion sea creatures to die like it did in the Pacific this year alone. At this rate, it’s said that the heat will eventually push societies to the limits with such stifling humidity that will prevent sweat from evaporating and making it difficult for any of us to cool down. The same intense heat will also lead to more and more widespread wildfires, droughts, crop losses, and worse.

That being said, up until 2021, I can honestly say that although I constantly heard about global warming and saw signs of it on the news regularly in coverages of these growing climatic disasters, I never really witnessed it firsthand here at home. But this year, I finally did. Rare diseases hitting my yard and so many others around here well into October, diseases that are only based upon high humidity and heat. Maple trees all getting tarspot and losing their leaves in droves like it’s fall that started back in late June. Seeing insects that usually only have a spring to early summer cycle show up in droves all the way into late summer and early fall. Spiders have exploded in population this year around here! Perennials that normally start to go dormant by mid-September, blooming well in mid-October and even sprouting new growth. Heck, I’m still wearing shorts and t-shirts and October is already midway over. This time last year I was wearing sweatshirts and long pants almost a month earlier!

The fact is, global warming is real, but what can I do? The following is a list of the things I found online that each of us can begin to look into:

• Speak Up (This is my first step in this!)
• Power your home with renewable energy (Someday I’d really like to have a fully solar-powered home!)
• Weatherize (Our home is pretty good with this already thankfully!)
• Invest in energy-efficient appliances (An ongoing process that I have already begun a good while ago!)
• Reduce water waste (Something I struggle doing due to my long showers!)
• Eat the food you buy and make less of it meat (Thank you Mom and Dad for teaching me this long ago!)
• But better bulbs (Been doing this one for a good long while already!)
• Pull the plugs (Been doing this one for a good while too!)
• Drive a fuel-efficient vehicle (Yay! My hybrid counts!)
• Maintain your ride (Yay! I definitely do this one too with 280,000 miles and counting!)
• Rethink plants, trains, automobiles in travel (Well the pandemic definitely led to this for me!)
• Shrink your carbon profile (I need to look into this one further!)

All in all, I feel better in knowing I am already doing a good part in reducing global warming. I do hope to own a fully electric vehicle one day and I’m sure eventually all my outdoor equipment will be electric as well. Nevertheless, global warming is eventually going to kill our planet if we don’t each do something about it. I plan to keep doing my part, and hopefully you will too…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

I’m sure we all have our stories, of where we were when the first plane hit the first trade tower in New York City, now 20 years ago today. People don’t talk as much anymore about those events that unfolded on 9/11/2001, as there have been so many others to focus on in all the years since, especially lately with this ongoing pandemic and continuing losses of life from it.

Personally, 9/11/2001 hit me far harder and affected my life far deeper than this pandemic has having been from New York, having had a family member on that first plane, and having personally witnessed a part of it so close to my home back then. The fact is the events on 9/11 will most likely be ingrained upon my brain for the rest of this life for me.

I clearly still see myself standing in the café at the job I was working at back then, watching news coverage of the first tower smoking from the plane that had hit it. Seeing another plane hit the other tower, I quickly realized this was far more than an accident. Silence was all that could be heard amongst those around me after that. I went back to my desk and ate the egg sandwich I had purchased at that café. I kept trying to get onto the Internet to no avail when a co-worker suddenly yelled a plane had just crashed into the Pentagon. My heart raced, given I was living and working a mere 10 miles or so from there. My employer quickly rushed us all out the door to go be with our loved ones. I silently wondered if this was the beginning of a war.

The highways around D.C. were all gridlocked as everyone else scrambled to get home. I was quite sure they were all afraid like I was for our major metropolitan area. As F-16’s screamed overhead, the Internet still not working, and all cell phone towers down, my drive home seemed to go on forever. I found myself really worrying about my partner who had a much farther drive than I to get home. Thankfully, he was already there by the time I arrived. While he sat glued to the news on the television, I was in shock, given I was from New York, that I had just gone up those towers the year prior, and that I knew people who worked in the towers and the pentagon. At that point I didn’t know who was affected or how bad this was going to end up being, so I did the only thing I had to do, I went out and cut my grass, trying not to think about it. It didn’t work.

I think at that point I was already developing PTSD over the events unfolding, with the news continuing to show the towers collapsing repeatedly. On some level, I wanted to believe none of this was real, so I got into my car with my partner and drove to the Pentagon. Seeing the plane smoking in the side of the Pentagon made the events of 9/11 far too real. Learning shortly thereafter of the loss of one of my family members on my sister’s husband’s side, who wasn’t even meant to be on that plane that day but took an earlier flight home to surprise his wife, hit my heart hard. Having my cousin who was NYPD, call me from the scene in New York, describing what he was experiencing was even worse.

It took me a year to get over the shock of 9/11’s events, which at some point I realized I had to stop watching all news coverage of it, for it was only preventing that from happening. I was in therapy solidly for that entire time to get through the PTSD from it all, which to this day, 20 years later, I still don’t like seeing the news footage of smoking and crumbling buildings, people jumping from them, soot-covered faces, or the like.

I visited Ground Zero a few years after those tragic events to come to peace with it all and have since visited there a few more times. If there is one thing comes up each time I do, it’s the sadness I have that anyone could ever believe God would ever advocate for such a terrorist act, when in my book, God is unconditional love, and destruction and death like 9/11 is the exact opposite.

May all those who died or were tragically affected on 9/11 be at peace now.

It’s most assuredly a day that I’m sure many of us will never forget…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have you ever gone back to look at an old home you once lived in and have fond memories of? Maybe a childhood home? Or a home you built your own family around? I recently did that at 3225 Nealon Drive, Falls Church, VA, which was the address of the first and only home so far that I’ve ever purchased in this life, and it was most definitely an emotional event for me, one that initially brought me regret.

On a recent trip to Northern Virginia, I opted to head over to my old neighborhood where the home I once owned and place so much TLC into still stood. The last time I had visited the property was the summer of 2011 and much of what I had beautified the place with continued to flourish. The serene backyard and gardens were still there just like the day I had left them behind, which brought me great happiness. But, when I pulled up to the front of the same home just over a week ago now, 10 years later almost to the day, everything I had put into it was now gone. The crape myrtle I had planted in the front, the lush green backyard, the gardens around the front and side, and the Japanese maple that I had received as a gift for my 30^th birthday, were now all gone. Even the huge deck I had built in the back to overlook the creek that lay beyond was now converted into this strange makeshift sunroom. All of this brought me great sadness. Sadness because none of the love I had put into improving the home and property remained there anymore. Essentially all of me was now gone from there. As I stood there and stared at the property, even talking to one the new owners who really loved the place, I found myself experiencing regret. Regret for what the place was now worth and regret for how none of what I had given to it from my heart and soul remained. For a while after leaving, I allowed that regret to consume me.

I couldn’t believe the place was now worth well over $600K, which incidentally, was not from any improvements made to it. It’s only because of its location being inside the beltway and so close to Washington, DC, as well as a Metro transit stop. And while I had sold it for a profit back in 2003, sadly, I lost it all in a business that eventually went belly up, that I only bought into because I codependently had been trying to save a relationship back then. And then thinking about all those improvements I had made both inside and outside now being completely gone, it was just too much for my mind and ego to comprehend.

To get over that regret, it took me remembering that quite a few good things came into my life only because I had sold that home and moved on. Good things like meeting my friend Steve Furness on the island where that business was, who was the sole reason why I eventually became a writer, as he worked for two local newspapers and helped me to become a columnist for them. Good things like developing a close friendship with Christy Lynn, a person I only met because she worked for our business and helped to manage it. And then I can’t forget that my entire life in Massachusetts only arose when my life on that island ended abruptly. As in Massachusetts it’s where I’d grow closer to my sister, my twin nephews, learn 12 Step recovery, volunteer and become more selfless in life, and develop closer relationships with my dear friends Cedric and Debbie.

So, while my mind struggled completely with regret over the value of my old home and the improvements I made now all being erased, I was able to find peace in my heart and get over any of that regret by remembering that some pretty dam good things wouldn’t have happened in my life if I had chosen to remain at 3225 Nealon Drive to this day.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson