So...I'm driving into work today, listening to Pandora (I freaking LOVE my I-phone, ya'll!). Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" was on and it set me to thinking of MJs need to reach out to others with his music. Say what you want about his personal life (because it was hard to understand and outside of established social perameters), his music was brilliant and changed lives. The beats draw you in but the lyrics...the lyrics can (and sometimes do) make you take a deeper look at who you are and at the world you choose to see. This, my friends, is art at its best.

Anyway, I've discovered something remarkable in my musings: my whole life, I've wanted to be one of those people who wasn't afraid of anyone. I wanted to know that I was open minded enough to accept all races, creed, colors, orientations and cultures...even those I didn't understand. This is not an easy goal in our country. Quite frankly, Americans take nationalism to a level previously only established by Bismark and Hitler. We are fanatical about being Americans (go to Texas...you'll understand) and our media supports this. And, after 9/11, it took all of my higher intellect not to join the fervor of the morons who decided to forever after block all things Muslim and Middle Eastern from thier consciousness. Or worse...harm them.

I am not proud of this part of my being. And because I don't like it, I've tried very hard to change it. I've had wonderful help along the way. My dear friend Elena, who has spent sooo much time in the Middle Eastern countries and has adopted the Muslim religion as her own, Mary, who is deeply connected to the Muslim world through her dear friends, the Nazirs and Marina, who lets me see the world, every day, through the eyes of someon who didn't grow up here but spans two cultures beautifully, effortlessly and with intelligence, wisdom and humor. I am deeply lucky in my friends and I'm grateful, every day, for helps they probably aren't even aware that they give.

And Grey has given me one more. You see...it struck me as I was driving in, today, that the connections I'm looking for between myself and others who live lives that are not like mine is nestled in my tummy. Become a mother and you will know what it is to have a connection with every other woman on the planet. Feel your child move for the first time and then think about the fact that on the other side of the planet, there's a woman your age who is feeling the same thing...with the same wonder and awe and joy. Because, statistically, it's true. Somewhere in a culture I don't understand, in a country being run by madmen, there's a young woman who only wants her child to be happy and safe and loved. And under her Burka or Sari or beret is a heart that cares only for the ten tiny toes and ten precious fingers she's helping to create. As her stomach swells all that will occupy her mind will be her hopes and fears for that child. As my hopes and fears for Grey are all that occupy mine.

We are as different at can be...and yet not different at all. Because we are also connected to something so much more primal and powerful and so much...bigger...than politics and borders and all of the other things that the men on this world find important. And because our greatest power doesn't have physical force behind it, we have to be far stronger for far longer than those who do have force at thier disposal. And we are. We heal wounds, mend hearts and sicknesses, we send out countless prayers to various Gods. We are constant, faithful, loving and steady. And yet...we'd rip the still beating heart out of the chest of any person who hurt our children.

We are mothers.

We are amazing.

And we are exactly the same, all over the world.

Breathtaking, isn't it?