watercolor

LOVE

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 We were in Barcelona, so we were going out to dinner at nine. We finished around 10:30 and then we walked down to Barceloneta because it was the feast day of Saint John in late June and there were bonfires on the beach. The bonfires would burn all night long. None of us were going home before sunrise.

I was looking for a special someone. I had been single about six months and was still furious that my last boyfriend had broken up with me. What made me most angry was he didn’t have much of a reason. When I thought about it truthfully I didn’t have much of a reason for getting together with him in the first place. 

My girlfriends and I were drinking sangria on the beach and with each glass we got louder. Some people had a beach ball and we began throwing it back-and-forth. Someone made a makeshift fence and we were playing pretend volleyball. A person started drumming on an upside down plastic bucket and someone else started to sing.

It was a joyful scene but I was sad inside. I was so sad that I walked towards the water’s edge and then I walked along the waters edge. It was around midnight and there were so many people on the beach. I felt like I was in a crowded bar even though I was outside. 

I looked around and then I saw him. He was standing in a clearing all by himself looking up at the moon. I recognized him. I recognized in him what was in me. It was like I was looking at the other half of myself. It was strange.

Just as I was thinking that, he turned to me and smiled. At that instant, all of the anger within me drained out the bottoms of my bare feet into the sand. I felt like the stars we’re inside me pulsating new hope home. With that tingly feeling throughout my body, listening to the sound of the sea, moving back-and-forth along the shore, I started to walk towards him with more certainty than I had ever felt before.

He stared at me with a serene presence, and I could hear a voice inside my head that said, “I know you.”  I wasn’t sure who was talking to who.

Heaven

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Watercolor by Dana Zed

I am on the plane looking at the clouds. I needed to get a Lyft at3:30 AM to make this flight. The window view is more beautiful than usual. It is dawn. I always get the aisle seat if I can cuz truth is I can still see out the window

i am looking at these celestial clouds and remembering when I flew after my sister Sally died young leaving three small children. I was in the airport talking to a person dressed in an air attendants outfit that I didn’t recognize.

Suddenly someone alerted everyone to get ready and others stand back. I was told to stand back, out of the way. I didn’t know what was going on. I obeyed.

Then low and behold, Steve Martin appeared. All the people I thought were waiting passengers and airline ticket counter people and attendants, were actors in a movie. Steve began arguing ridiculously with the ticket counter lady.

The experience left me with a strong impression that our real lives are not our real lives. Somehow I felt this had something to do with Sally. Like all our lives were plays and we were actors and it was her time to get off the set

After this experience I was on the plane. Wanting Sally to appear to me in the sky. Much like as a child I wanted God to come down from the ceiling. And do what ? Give a blessing? No. I think I wanted just to connect. I never got farther than God coming down because God never did. Or maybe God did.

Today in the airport cafe, I heard a concerned young lady asking her partner and wondering whether the cafe had hot chocolate because it was not on the menu. I looked hard at the menu and saw mocha this and mocha that. I said to them, “I think they do, just ask” and I went on my way.

Several minutes later I ran into them and asked

“Did they have it?” “Yes, they did!” She said. “Oh good, I’m happy for you”. I said. We all smiled.

And there you have it, God. Simple ordinary love here and there.

“Oh good, I’m happy for you”.

The Moat

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Without the moat, hundreds can die unnecessarily. That little bit of water tells those smart ants that the honey is inaccessible. If I forget the moat or leave the honey out unprotected on a cold rainy night, I wake up to a kitchen full of enormously industrious ants going to and from. They communicating about it all., as well. I think it’s amazing how when two of them meet from opposite directions, they stop to check in with each other. What do they say?
Weeks before my teacher died he said if he and an ant were the only two beings left living on earth, how glad they would be to see each other and how he would try his hardest to make friends with the ant. How can you make friends with an ant?! Well, by not killing him for starters.
After thinking about befriending an ant, I can no longer massacre them so when my carelessness leaves me with a kitchen counter full of busy ants, I remove the honey. It is mind blogging how fast those very smart ants clear out.

To feel better…

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Because of you I got on my bike later today. I rode and I felt better in the saturated light of dinnertime September. The golden yellow of uncut dried grass made me pretend for a moment that I was in southern California where, if I took a left, I’d go into the desert and drive and drive, roadkill cafes and all, until I came to a creek amidst the boulders in somewhere, say Arizona, and unroll my bag and go to sleep under zillions of stars waking up the next morning not reading email.

Instead I contented myself with curving my bike  into Temescal Lake Park where a lone mother and child were ending the day slowly.

It was enough just to get on my bike.
Just enough because you suggested the obvious thing I’d been missing.
To feel better you have to do things that make you feel better.