Tomorrow

Today I had a chance to go out of town again. Not far though, only 45 minutes from where I live. On the way back, I took these pictures of the beautiful Wyoming. The first two were the snow-covered pine trees, and the third was the beautiful mountains that I could see from a far.







Suddenly I was reminded that it might be the last winter I spent in Wyoming. Who knows what I'll be doing and where I'll end up the next winter (or maybe, rainy season)? I clearly don't know about tomorrow, and thinking about tomorrow brings a million of questions - let me say, all the Ws (Who, What, When, Which, Where,Whose, Why, etc) + H (How) questions :)- that I cannot answer. In the car, I thought about my "tomorrow."

I could never plan anything in detail. I didn't plan when (and with whom..lol) I would get married, when I would have children, where I would work, where I would study, etc. At the age of 3-something :), I'm still at school, I don't have (permanent) job yet, I don't have children yet, and I live places to places. My parents were the ones who often got worried about me. They always asked, so what would you do after this? A question which I could never give a perfect answer to. They tried to help me "settling down soon" by suggesting, well, maybe you could go back here and apply to become a civil servant (which means steady income, permanent job - because a civil servant is very unlikely, if impossible, to be fired, life-long health insurance for self, spouse, and children, and pension benefit).
I definitely thought about that. I might, one day, become a civil servant (as long as they don't ask me to bribe 100 million rupiahs to get accepted, as some people did). When would that be? I could not answer either.

Anyway, talking about tomorrow, for me, is always talking about one step at a time. Step of faith, really. Seeing the word "tomorrow" is almost like seeing the word "to morrow." And I just googled the meaning of the word "morrow." It means "the next day." So then, I can possibly say that to morrow means to do something for next day. Well, the next day, means, the next day, of course. A day ahead. So should we be consumed by thinking about days far ahead of us and what we will be? I don't think we should. We surely should think about days far ahead, but I don't think we should be consumed by the thinking that we can no longer enjoy, think, and reflect on what happens now, and the next day.

Also, I just found out that the archaic meaning of morrow is "morning." That is a really nice meaning. Every tomorrow shall be started with a new morning, a fresh start, a new beginning. A tomorrow always carries with it something brand new. Thinking about this makes me looking forward to a fresh beginning that happens literally every single day! So when people talk about January 1, 2010 as the "new beginning," a perfect time to start (or re-start?) all things, I found out that every "tomorrow" is an opportunity to start fresh. That is lovely.

Ending today's reflection, I remember my mother again. When I was a little child, our house was not as strong as it is today because my parents built it little by little, depending on the extra money they got from work. If it rained really hard, my mother was often afraid, and then she would tie a long scarf on the horizontal bar above the door (I don't know what the bar is called). I often asked her why she tied that scarf and she would answer: that was what your grandmother told me to do :)
After the scarf business was done, she would take the church hymn book and start singing while praying and hoping that the heavy rain would stop. She loved several songs, and this one song stayed with me. It's called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow.* The song has been staying with me when it rains hard outside, when there was a tornado warning in Wyoming a year ago, or simply, when I think about tomorrow.

* This version from YouTube is not the greatest version ever, but it reminded me a lot of the way my mother would sing it: simple, old school, and yet full of a statement of hope.