Good to be Home

I spent the last few days in our nation's capital. I couldn't help thinking as I spied the Pentagon out the taxicab window that I was passing the real Temple of Doom. I am definitely disconnected from this large, uncontainable Empire. If Keats is correct, "truth is beauty," and "beauty is truth," I know there's no beauty or truth to be found in our temples of power. Here, today, the sun is shining, the birds are singing. Here is where the beauty and truth resides. It's good to be home.

Yes, It's True

A portly, grizzled old guy, wearing a dusty old t-shirt, long, curly grey hair sprouting out from under a dirty old baseball cap, playing chess at a bench in Laguna Beach, says to another portly character, sitting on the other side of the table: "That's why you just shouldn't judge a person on how they look, you know, like first impression... they might just surprise you..."

The Looking

I was driving down the Coast Highway (east or west, I don't rightly remember), listening to the Smiths, thinking about all that I've missed..."time is a freight train, it moves too fast," (as per Mr. Dylan), life seems to be a process of remembering and forgetting. I know I lived through the 80's, (plus the 90's and the 00's), but so much is a blur, some key events sort of stand out, but so much, the day to day process of living, is buried deep. You figure it's been recorded somewhere, but most of the time, it's just not available. For some reason, the west coast brings me back to a previous version of myself, when I was 19, I hitchhiked from Chicago to San Diego. I don't know what I was looking for, I was just on the move, when I got to the ocean, I basically just turned back, but, it looms as some kind of significant time of my life. Going back there now, many years later, kind of re-connects me with that confused kid, wandering the highways and byways. I'm still confused, kind of in awe of the world around me, but I'm wearing a few more lines and scars. Again, I basically just turned back, returned to the heartland, sort of changed, sort of the same. I sit here thinking there was some kind of rebirth. Maybe I reconnected some kind of fuse, something I lost along the way. I can't really pinpoint it, but listening to the Smiths now, sort of leads me back to another part of myself that's been in the shadows. I don't know what I'm looking for...maybe I'm just here to do the looking...

No Shadows

To be human is to be a social animal. We live in a hierarchical society. We are brothers and sisters to each other and to the other sentinent beings on the planet. At the same time, we live inside our heads alone with our own set of thoughts, hopes, dreams, desires, worries, etc. It can be a strange and lonely place locked inside your own head. There are times, inner and outer life seem to be integrated and whole, (not often), and there are times when they are completely seperate and in conflict (more often). I lived on the periphery of the action yesterday, watching the passing scene, lost inside my head, sort of like a lone wolf, observing from the shadows (eventhough, on Laguna Beach there were no shadows). The only people I spoke to were the ones I paid, (the waitress, the counter clerk, the coffee server). I was the observer and the customer. This was comfortable mode of being for me. I floated along, not grasping, taking it all in. I watched the sun set over the water, a long, slow descent. The day done and gone.

The Church of the Sky and Sand

Dear Reader, where have you been? No really, where have I been? I haven't been here, in this space, I've been on hiatus, or no, it really was a death, a long sleepy death since January. But for some reason, I have been reborn, rebirthed. I woke up Sunny today, on the Left Coast, a block from the Pacific Ocean. Yesterday I sat on the beach and attended a service at the Church of the Sky and Surf. A group of dolphins came swimming just off the shore, they were riding inside these big waves, leaping and twisting like beautiful, spooky, ballerinas with fins. For a few minutes the bustling beach life - volleyball players, beautiful women in bikinis, lovers, mothers and fathers, all stopped to watch these strange, magical creatures, frolicking in the water. I sat on a bench, in the late afternoon sun, sat in hushed silence, watching too. Well, I must say dear reader, I wept. I can't really tell you why, (something about the insubstantiality of life, the fleeting moments rushing out beyond our fingertips, the sad and beautiful changing world), the tears just kind of rolled down my grizzled cheeks, just another crazy old guy on a bench, but I guess it was the silence, the hushedness of the moment, that kind of caught me in it's snare. All these people, beach people, knew that something strange and beautiul was happening, (these people were in awe and wonder, about dolphins in the water!), it was a moment to watch and savor, because it would soon be gone. And then it was, the dolphins headed back out into the deep, and beach life came back to normalcy, everyone went back to their own private little worlds. I went back to my own private musings. Yes, I was reborn in the Church of Sky and Sand. There ain't no creed preached at this humble little church, only the sights and sounds of life resound in this chamber. There's beauty and mystery all around. All you have to do is open your eyes and see.