Crazy

Sometimes I think I’m going crazy. Like today, for example, as I stood on the pier waiting for the ferry, sipping a blended iced mocha from Peats, and found myself counting, very quickly, in my head, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10… then starting over. I won’t say it felt idiot savantish, just idiotish. And I wondered how long I’d been doing that until I became fully conscious of it.

Or as I later boarded the ferry, only one of the two ramps was lowered and I imagined myself walking right up and off the raised ramp. And mostly I wondered what stopped me from doing this. What part of brain stopped me? Though my legs leadened as I reached the fork, momentarily. It’s not that any great harm would have befallen me had I walked up on the raised ramp – maybe a thirty foot fall at most, likely less, into the bay. Divers propel themselves from heights beyond this, nothing would have happened. Maybe I would have been banged up a bit by something on the fall, but it wouldn’t have been a mortal wound.

This morning there were black birds on the roof, trying to crack walnuts or something open with their beaks. Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock. Peck, knock, peck. I walked outside and surveyed the roof. “Hey you,” I conveyed to the birds in an agitated tone without raising my voice too much, “hey you, knock that off. Stop it.”

Growing Up

I’m watching the paraffin bubbles rise in the lava lamp. The best phase of a lava lamp is when everything starts to melt and rise like a reverse drip sand castle or whatever those stalagmite thingies are you see when you’re spelunking.

Opening Your Eyes and Breathing

Secret is curled on the sofa in a pink afghan knit by my grandmother’s hands. Her white paws stretch against the air like a cat’s while she sleeps. I’m left with memories of sea lions playing in the surf, towering Eucalyptus trees with their peeling green bark and the damp mossy smell of Redwoods in Samuel P Taylor Park.

This is home. It’s a peaceful place where the outside meets the inside with seamless boundaries. The beauty is so effortless. It’s as though the environment itself conspires that one sees what is bountiful and delectable in everything. It takes no great imagination, no hours of meditation, no creative genius – it’s as easy as opening your eyes and breathing. It’s all here and there’s nothing to want for – not today, not right now.