Finding Things Once Lost (and other tidbits)

I sat inside a church. It was empty and the lights were dim. The church was large, not overly ornate, and the rows upon rows of benches ("pews") looked like train track rails lined up side-by-side-by-side-by-side from front to back; enough to fit hundreds of people. After a time people began to drift in. Each person seemed to know where they sat, as if they had been sitting in the same seat every Sunday at the exact hour and nothing would ever change. A woman knelt, her hands folded beneath her chin. She was in the center partway towards the front, the shining wood of the pew backs shining off around her. Her hair was long and blonde-streaked-with-grey. From where I sat in the back she looked young. Her face was full of wrinkles and signs of a long life.
When time is passing people seize it and rush to avoid being crushed by it. They began to swarm through the doors and I was struck with how much they look like ants as they filed in, one after another, along the narrow aisle-ways and towards their personally assigned seats.

I met a fellow who had the whitest set of teeth I have seen. His bottom set were braced and the braces had pale blue bands on them. His hair was what you would expect to find sported by a less suave Clark Gable (who, as you would know better than I, was a film actor from the early 1920s through the early 1960s). He had an intriguing accent and some of his words were hard to understand. Apparently he is Mexican. Mexico is in South America. His teeth were very white.

There was a man. He flew in a rocket ship. He cannot tell what ship. He cannot tell what year. He cannot tell with whom. He was fixed into an 800 pound suit and made the 18 minute fall from orbit to earth. He was badly burned due to a failed plan in the heat shield. I cannot tell you this man's last name. No one speaks of him. To him, this does not matter. He knows who he is and what he has done and what the world remembers of him and thinks of him is trivial. He is proud of all he has done. He loves his life. He regrets little or nothing. Everything has a meaning to him. Everything he has done has led him to where he is.
This is the man that defines everything Human.

Noted things of interest:
Getting along without a camera, though I really only had one that wasn't really mine for less than a year, is quite tiresome. I think I enjoyed taking photos. I should really learn to be more careful with things expensive and try hard to be less destructive.

Notes on Being Human:
People respect you more when they do not know you for who you are but for who they perceive you.
It is easier to be who you are not than to be who you truly are.