The Grand Mirror

I could have been upset that I was back in Santa Barbara today, but I wasn't.  I just couldn't muster the indignation properly to get well and worked up.  The truth is I cheated; I didn't try that hard.  There is a patch along the 101 that runs right next to the beach, far out in the mists sit two islands.  I don't know their names.  What I do know, they are miles on a side, just far enough away to be hazy in the mist dancing along the top of the ocean.  Large mountains run along the spine of these fog shrouded giants, dwarfing even the cliffs that tower over my head.

In-between here and there reside six or seven mammoth oil rigs.  They remind me of bugs, twisted, hard things, walking on spindly legs.  They rest under the suns harsh glare, folded up and dark.  They seem so close in the daylight.  So peaceful, restful.  At night they glow with a yellow light, a perfect pride of walkers.  I could just imagine them skittering a few hundred yards every now and then, when no one was watching all that hard.  When everyone on the road has something better on their minds, when they look without seeing... The giant bugs scoot down to a new place, ready to drop their long mouths to uncharted depths.  Always in search of something, hungry and relentless.  But they are kind in my mind, intense and intent.  Single-minded.

But for now they are sleeping, and the sun is shinning.  The sky was so blue, so bright.  The whole sky its self was pulsing with light.  Reflecting it all was the grand mirror, so claim I could see the sky in it.  The sky and the water one and the same, the lost horizon.  It was just bright blue along the edges of my sight.  It reminded me of a picture I only ever read about, which makes its impact somehow the larger.  I wonder what it may look like, making it so easily remembered.  Would the image its self be unnoticed or forgotten?

It was a picture of the sky and the ocean, made like a map.  It displayed the world as a column of fluid, at varying pressures.  It showed how you could start on the bottom of the ocean and just keep swimming to the sky.  There is no real difference, its mostly the same stuff, just not so close together up in the sky.  There is a place at the edge of our atmosphere that is almost space, but still has some air in it.  Its a boarder that I never thought about, and I don't think many people do.  The edge of space as a place.  A real place that you could go and feel the edge, and say, "This is it, the end of life.  Out there is cold space, but right here is earth".  It was always just a thought concept, but now I could imagine going there and thinking of the enormity of that spot.  It should be no different then the other side, where the water meets rock, but it is.  Some how its so final.

But is there really a other side?  The cold water meets solid rock, again its the same thing.  Its all about the same thing, under the same pressure, just one shifts a bit and the other doesn't.  But without a disturbing presence, most of that boundary is just as still as the other, dead still.  The water lies stagnate, barely moving, while the rock lies more still.  But even the rocks are moving a little bit.  Its all the same stuff thing, under different pressure.  Just like life.

My life is like that chart, and I'm somewhere in the middle.  It could have been easy to be upset at being stuck here for hours, but its a nice place to be.  Its not what I wanted to do today, but there's no sense if fighting it.  Its a perfectly fine place to be, and I'm happy here.  Its good to just go with the flow of things, to really just be okay with what's going on.  Someone once wrote, "How do you know this is a experience that you should be having?  Because your having it."  There's always something to see, if we only open our eyes.  There's always something to hear, if we only listen.  There's always something to say, if only we'd try.  It amazes me how much of my suffering is in my own head, my little story.

My little bullshit story.  Every now and then I catch myself thinking of how wrong, because I was so sure I knew what the I was talking about.  Or how unfair something was, how I was wronged.  My sad little me story.  But then I really think about it, and I see that the facts were simple.  They just were, what ever it is, in anything, facts are neutral.  Then I added my little judgments on it all, "This is that, that is this, and this is what should be."  What am I upset about, the facts or the story?  Just the story.  So why not tell a new one?

I would rather be right then happy sometimes, its scary...  Like I would rather be at home right now, and its wrong that I'm here so I will be pissy.  What if I am here because its a beautiful day for a drive, and that was that?

It could be...

Letting go

What foolishness is this?  The worlds too beautiful a place to lay such thoughts bare.  I don’t want to mar that charming landscape with my beliefs which I was holding so strongly.  I am just as well off writing on a page and burning it.  Its all about letting go, so now its gone.  Its really gone.

Outside the snow is falling in perfect chaotic eddies, there is a chill in the air, and the birds are flying overhead.

Yesterday I was as sick as I have ever been.  Ever.  I ended up in a hospital where I got a few bags of salty goodness stuck right into my veins.  I even got to try a wonderful little drug that they give to chemotherapy patients for anti-nausea.  Still I have so much to be thankful for, the care was excellent.  Today I feel wonderful.  There are these amazing pleasures that I didn’t even know I had, every day.  Just being able to drink a full glass of warmish water is heavenly now.  I’ve never been so grateful for half a cup of cold soup.  Just walking around the room brings me joy.  They had to fetch me a wheelchair after about 6 steps yesterday.

The universe is a good place to be.  I think I’ll stay.  And maybe I wont worry so much about these silly thoughts in my head.

Spring

My thoughts are a bit scattered.  So tired.  Sitting here under the false breeze, its so warm and peaceful.  I can feel it leaking into me, slowly working its little magic trick.  Its so nice to be warm.  Inside my glass box I see the world outside washing away a years worth of dust.  Clouds, so low I could almost reach out and touch them.  So massive they don’t even fit in the imagination.  Complex shapes that slowly past float overhead, silent and comforting.  How vast the skies are.  Oddly its all the mountains that help define the skies.  They aren’t wide and endless, stretching on and on like some I’ve seen.  But how tall they feel.  The mountains dwarfed by the heights.  Most of the year the clouds pass miles and miles overhead, a whisper of a wisp.  But their time has come again, time to descend, like a fleet of crop dusters.  I can see the order in this chaos.  While elsewhere is buried under snow and ice, California is coming back to life.  The land is transformed into a lush and verdant place.  Its all the more beautiful for its transient and fleeting lifespan.

Spring.

A return to life.

In the face of such a transformation, resistance melts away.  Everywhere I look resides hope.  Every obstacle looks small and petty today.  There is so much enthusiasm surrounding me, I can’t help but get caught up in it.  Now I just am waiting for the focus for all this energy.  It will be along soon.  I can almost feel it already, its not far now.  I have my eyes fixed to the horizon.  I follow my guiding star.  You follow yours.  Were all heading somewhere, and I think it will be somewhere warm.

Oh so warm.