"There never seemed to be to her much difference between joy and pain, or between sad and pleasant things. They were all equally welcome to her, as if in her heart she knew them to be the same." ("The Dreamers" by Isak Dinesen)

While some might argue that the character Pellegrina is tragic, or even crazy...there is a profoundness to her character such that she lingers along with you long after you have closed the last page on her story. People like to categorize experiences as good or bad, positive or negative--every one neatly in its box in line with how we think it has affected our lives. I, however, must agree with Pellegrina on this one--there really isn't any difference between joy and pain. Each experience adds something to our lives, makes us think, makes us reevaluate, change paths, reinforce a path, teaches something..."If you could go back and change one thing, what would it be?" Such a classic question. It receives a resounding "nothing" from me! There is no way to untangle valuable lessons learned from past experience, no way to know what seemingly negative experience was truly a positive in the long run, no possible way of knowing what was worse around the corner not taken. Polarized thinking seems so strongly entrenched in the Western mind set, everything is either/or, black/white, bad/good, positive/negative...there is no room left for the notion that things aren't just either/or, but sometimes both, or something smack in the middle of the two, or sometimes simply unclassifiable. One day at a time, one experience at a time...arms wide open, like Pellegrina who faced life and death with arms wide.