Cinco de Mayo

Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death.--Wernher von Braun.

Thought I'd share a photo of two irises in bloom outside my front door. They bloomed despite the snails gnawing their leaves to shreds. Everything is in bloom and the mockingbird is singing with crazy abandon on the telephone pole. Across the street, Angelina hangs a cage out on her front porch every morning. It holds a canary who sings his heart out all day. All the shrubs and trees are a profusion of multicolored green. Ring-neck doves fly in pairs. Finches splash in the birdbath, little balls of feathers. The cold fog comes and goes like my depression. I have to haul recycling and fill sand today, but I had to stop and write a little before I go.

Yesterday was an incredibly beautiful day. Not the weather, but the beauty of a high I felt inside. If there is a God, He or She somehow broke through my rock-hard cranium. I've been reading Anne Lamott, who is rapidly becoming one of my literary heroines. Anne writes with vast honesty and humor. She writes about small miracles in everyday life. She brings tears to my eyes and humility to my heart (I'm a Leo, after all, so this is no small accomplishment.)

This is how we make important changes--barely, poorly, slowly.

I want to write that on the back of my hand.

And then there's Kim Kim. She also brings tears to my eyes with her simple honesty and sweetness. She is who she is, and when I saw her photo I realized that I looked a lot like her when I was younger. We all have scarred hearts and are doing the best we can.

And then there's N's (my youngest) new boyfriend, J. His arms are covered with jail-black tattoos. At 13 he was beaten up so badly by gang members that he landed in the hospital for something he didn't do. When he got out of the hospital his mother ran over him with the family car. It was an accident, and she was so traumatized that she didn't drive for a year. He escaped with a broken shoulder and twisted back, both permanent damages. Other vehicles have hit him dozens of times, but he lived like a cat with nine-plus lives. He's been arrested for countless misdemeanors and stood up to bad cops and thrown his broken sunglasses at a closed-minded judge, abused by a school security guard, and seen many of his friends die young. His mother has MS and he has ulcers. He is a very old young man. He doesn't even know our family yet, but for the past two days he's shoveled soil back into the trench we dug for the sewer line just because he wanted to help us out. No expectations, no strings. He bought N a $600 necklace with his hard-earned money as a hairdresser and wants to begin his own mobile hairstyling business where he visits the elderly and disabled to cut their hair. He has no time for reading or desk work. He has lived many lives in such a short time and does kind things quietly for strangers. In the few weeks I've know him, already he has melted a good patch of my despair.

I guess we begin to see things when we're ready to see them, even though they've been in front of us all along. Yesterday, for a few fleeting moments, I saw Love in the purest sense of the word. I saw what's truly important, what's behind all the crazy drama, the agony, the sorrow, death, war, lies, greed, hatred, and ugliness. I saw what my heart's been longing to see for so long. I also know that the curtain only raises for me to glimpse it once in a great, great while. But when it does, I feel like I'm staring into infinity, if only for a brief moment. Still, I know that today is another day, and everything changes. But that small respite must have come to teach me something about Love and the part of myself I don't see much of these days.