In so many iterations I cannot fathom all of the ramifications right now.
I just got home from Los Angeles.
Although technically I just got home from a late night sushi dinner at Raw on 19th and Taraval.
Which was awesome, great company, fresh sushi, fast, good price, and hello, open at 10p.m. on a Sunday, and busy at that.
I know, you’re not supposed to eat sushi on a Sunday, or so the wives’ tale goes, but we were desperate, mostly me, despite not feeling all that hungry, I had a lot of iced coffee today, for food.
I knew better than to come home and not have some dinner in my body and the only other option would have been a late night run on Safeway and then cooking at my house.
I am not in the mood to cook.
I have so much on my mind, in my heart, in my soul, smeared across the windshield with golden light and thoughts and dreams and words, the touch of a hand, the constant conversation, the incessant pressing of love against my face as the sun set in the West as we drove up from the South, watching the roiling clouds of grey teeming over the San Francisco hills.
I have not had my cell phone off for so much time in years, nor, as you, my dear reader, may have notice, my computer.
There was no wifi at the Air BnB we were staying at.
I could catch some service on my iPhone, but sorry folks, there is no way in hell I’m going to write a blog on my phone.
Nope.
So.
Days without a blog.
Although not days without writing.
I did bring my notebook and I did do writing and as I was unpacking my go bag–I am damn skippy proud of how well I packed–I pulled out my new Claire Fontaine notebook, in deep sage green, with creamy lined paper, and taped the effects of the trip in the front page of my journal.
The first class ticket on American Airlines.
Man.
First class.
Thank you friend.
It was so nice.
Even for such a short trip, to have priority at the gate, to have faster check in, to scoot right through security, I felt spoiled and princess like.
So much so and so quickly did I get through that I actually had time to grab a manicure before I boarded.
I have never paid so much for a manicure in my life, but I thought, when someone you dearly adore says, let’s celebrate, I’m flying you down first class to LA, let’s go look at the Rothkos,
(OH MY GOD THE ROTHKO’S)
And I’ll put you up with me at my Air BnB in Santa Monica, it’s ok to splurge on a six-dollar cold pressed organic iced coffee from Equator Coffee and then go sit down and have your nails done.
You are officially on a celebration weekend.
The celebrating.
It was celebratory.
I danced up and down the steps of the Walt Disney Concert Hall designed by Gehry.
I lifted my face to the sky and marveled at the scoops and swoops and the neon lights bouncing off the building.
We walked around it and marveled at the symmetry of the building and talked and talked and talked.
There was much talking.
My friend and I had so much to talk about.
We could be talking right now.
Except.
Well, mama has to get up and go to work tomorrow and he’s got work to do too and the celebration will continue in my heart as I look at the other small pieces of paper taped next to that first class place ticket.
(OH MY GOD THE ROTHKO’S)
Should I ever have a child, a little boy, I would name him Rothko.
I was that overwhelmed, awed, blown away and just enamored with the pieces I saw.
I am speaking of the first day of my two-day party to celebrate (said celebration for the receiving the graduate school scholarships that I have been awarded over the past two weeks) and the trip to the MOCA.
The Museum of Contemporary Art.
It was just intense and overwhelming and amazing.
As before mentioned the Rothko’s were astounding, the humanness of the art, the luminosity of the paint, the spectrum of emotion I felt being in that gallery surrounded by the presence of such love and glory and art.
Art, love, God.
It’s all the same isn’t it?
I got to experience so much of that this weekend, I am still reeling with the love and kindness, the compassion of my friend, the utmost generosity.
I didn’t pay for anything.
I was spoiled and treated like a princess and ate lovely food and got driven all over the city and well, I even got to do that little girl thing that I most wanted to do but was also perhaps most resistant to ask for.
I got to go to the Santa Monica Boardwalk and go for a ride on the roller coaster and the Scrambler.
And.
The ferris wheel.
To be on the top of the circle, with some one so dear to me, to be swung high into the velvet of God’s deep indigo sky with the waves rolling in under the boardwalk and the smell of funnel cake and popcorn, or the happy screams of little kids on the roller coaster and the joy, the joy of being alive, present in the moment, so amazing.
I cannot quite even begin to comprehend all the ramifications of what this weekend has wrought for me.
Next to the MOCA ticket and the first class ticket and the postcard is my Zoltar fortune.
None your business.
Some things too sacred and special to share.
Some love you want to hold against your heart.
For fear that the bottom will drop out like it did that time you were kissed on the couch and you will never be the same again.
I will never be the same again.
And that is just alright with me.
I may have stepped off the ferris wheel, giddy and giggly and wobbly with my heart bouncy and bright and my smile so large it must have lit the sky a small bright star of love on the cusp of the ocean, the edge of the sea, the beginning of a new world view shimmers into sight.
But I am still riding high.
Still celebratory in my joy and the love I was able to bear witness to and receive, in the capacity for honest communication and appreciation of life, art, the heart, opening and breaking and making more space for more feelings and more.
Yes.
More.
And more.
Love.
I’ll buy that ticket any day of the week.
It’s a ride I never want to stop and regardless of what happens next.
I know that ferris wheel in my heart will continue to revolve.
And.
Evolve.
It will go the distance.
Auntiebubba 