Monthly Archives: June 2019

Grateful for You (13)

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It is early June, and I stand in my Palm Springs courtyard breathing in the sight of my Mexican petunia. Each time I see it I think of you, my dear friends, who gave it to me. On this day it is even more exquisite than usual, and I stand counting every delicate purple blossom. I count because there are so many, and because I have a funny little thing about numbers, a lifelong love affair, really. On this day there are 77, magic number, filled with possibility. I laugh at myself while I count because I know it is impossible, of course, to know I am counting each one, or not counting one twice, and because after I am done I see one unopened blossom I didn’t count (the rest were all open), but I don’t change my tally. (Do unopened blossoms count?) I stand in the courtyard breathing in these short-lived blooms. I miss the two of you, gone north for the summer like the my white crowned sparrows, and facing challenges of your own. Then all at once I know your love for me is alive here in all these blossoms. Today, now past the middle of June, I am 120 miles away. I sit in the back yard here beneath the yellow umbrella, beside tiny succulents with sweet magenta blooms. I miss you, and the Mexican petunia, too. I went home for an hour to refill bird feeders, get the mail, and she is still thriving in the messy courtyard. I’ve been gone for a week that feels like three months, taking care of my mom. She’s been sick, but is getting better little by little. Today I touch down to my bedrock for a moment, 120 miles away from my home, from my own flowers, 500 miles away from the two of you. I let that day in my courtyard arrive again in me, let your love for me in all those blooms fill me up, make me cry. The vital presence of your love bolsters me, over and over again.

Quiet (12)

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I am early for sangha, for sitting practice and sharing, so I choose one of my favorite benches outside the dog park. It’s hot, 110 degrees, but I am shaded by a trio of young, beautiful trees, three small still-blooming palo verdes. I eat my little meal slowly, savor the crisp cabbage with guacamole, the sharp radishes with salt, the small cup of macadamias, walnuts, pistachios. It’s good to do things slowly when it’s 110 degrees, and I seem to be learning this. Small moment by small moment, I notice there is no one in the dog park, and even the birds are missing, hiding out from the heat. No one is here except me and one small verdin in the tree to my left. His presence comforts me. “Just the two of us,” I say. He moves from tree to tree within this triangle, nibbling on the tiny leaves, I think. Or maybe he is finding tiny bugs. When he flies away, I miss him. It’s just me now. But I am still content, take in the trees, the quiet, the peace. I don’t remember things going quite so still in the afternoon. I wonder if I wasn’t paying attention. The delight is our summer was delayed this year. Maybe it’s taking everyone by surprise, shocking us all into silence.

Ballast (10)

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I’m lucky. I get the Los Angeles Times. I remember how I felt when I first subscribed, the relief and pleasure to be reading beautiful writing and “real” journalism. Years later, I still feel the same way. And in our political climate, I’m so glad I get the latest from the White House by reading it. I have the luxury of monitoring myself, stopping at my tipping point, first glimmers of nausea or fury. But my luck in this, my gratitude, blooms beyond this gift. When I allow myself to meander, I am fed the antidotes. I get to read about the good things like the two men, a gay couple in Berkeley, who’ve begun Café Ohlone. They are “reviving both food and language” and “preserving the deepest parts of Ohlone culture.” Or the two young women in high school, both immigrants (one from El Salvador, one from Egypt) who’ve been best friends since eighth grade. I get to read about the biologist Peter Sharpe who has dedicated his career “to reviving the once-endangered bald eagle,” one of the “great American wildlife comeback stories,” who climbs up into their nests to examine and tag the eaglets. And I get to read about the “New Arrivals Supper Club” where “recently settled refugees bond over the food and memories of the lives they left behind.” Wages are provided for the immigrant chef and the proceeds go to the family and to Miry’s List. Each time I let myself sink into one of these stories, I feel my heart soften. Hope strikes, warms. Gratitude spills over for all these human beings doing good, important work, for being the light against the dark, and for the paper who honors them. Thank you all.