Last night just for fun Mary skipped her usual west coast dance and asked if I would like to go to the Tiki Bar. The tile floor is a little hard on my knees, but the chance to dance to live music, even if it is only covers from the 60's to 90's, is hard to pass up.
The desert had warmed up to 101 in mid-afternoon, but by 7:00 it was already cooling pleasantly, especially in the breezy courtyard at Las Casuelas. We ordered Mexican beer and the band played Santana and Stevie Ray, and we danced and sweated.
Natalie is a regular at Las Cas. She's older, taught as a rope, dressed to kill in polka dots way off the shoulders. Every waitress and server drops by to say hello and she clasps each by the arm in turn, calls each by name. The band pays its respects during breaks, and plays one of her requests in each set. One of her favorite dance partners has come tonight, for the honor of taking her out on the floor, and they rumba, and swing, and cha cha, and even waltz.
And she's the queen of Las Casuelas, and life is sweet, if short.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Hallelujah (written on the return trip from PDX 5/11/09)
Half way back to SoCal and Leonard Cohen sings through my ear buds "a cold and a broken" (but nonetheless exultant) "Halleluja." Sometimes on these trips, with so many people expecting something from me and seeing me through the filter of those expectations, I start to lose touch with who I am. Maybe it's because I'm on my way home, maybe it's because I touched base with Lise today, or Aimee and Maegan last night, or my sons yesterday morning, or maybe it's Leonard's voice in my ear, but I feel the light within me rise and shine through my fingertips and I think maybe I can be who I am, at least for a little while, after all. And, maybe that's even enough.
Ironically, at this moment I see an angel. She's across the aisle and two rows in front of me, in pink pajamas with footies. She looks at me, her blue eyes to my green, her soft smooth tiny pink face to my my big old blotchy one, and she gives me a squinty smile -- no guile so she expects no guile, no judgment so she expects no judgment, no hidden recesses so she allows me none. Her mother looks around wondering to whom her infant daughter is suddenly paying such rapt attention, sees the 3-year-old in the seat in front of me and makes the natural assumption. But no, she's communing with the old grandpa another row back.
Years ago, one night in Eugene, Baba Ram Dass said that he can always see God looking out at him from any person -- the checker at the grocery store, the pedestrian he's passing on the street, even the the helmeted policeman. So, maybe it's not an angel I see, but God looking out at me. And she smiles that toothless flush-faced clear-eyed smile, clasps her hands together and pulls them in to her tiny chest in a gesture of utter wholeness and authenticity.
Halleluja.
Ironically, at this moment I see an angel. She's across the aisle and two rows in front of me, in pink pajamas with footies. She looks at me, her blue eyes to my green, her soft smooth tiny pink face to my my big old blotchy one, and she gives me a squinty smile -- no guile so she expects no guile, no judgment so she expects no judgment, no hidden recesses so she allows me none. Her mother looks around wondering to whom her infant daughter is suddenly paying such rapt attention, sees the 3-year-old in the seat in front of me and makes the natural assumption. But no, she's communing with the old grandpa another row back.
Years ago, one night in Eugene, Baba Ram Dass said that he can always see God looking out at him from any person -- the checker at the grocery store, the pedestrian he's passing on the street, even the the helmeted policeman. So, maybe it's not an angel I see, but God looking out at me. And she smiles that toothless flush-faced clear-eyed smile, clasps her hands together and pulls them in to her tiny chest in a gesture of utter wholeness and authenticity.
Halleluja.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
A Royal Tanenbaum Moment
In Portland recently, I had a Royal Tanenbaum moment. You know, the Wes Anderson film?
Royal: "These past few weeks have been the best of my life."
Narrator: "Saying this, Royal realized it was the truth."
Or, words to that effect. Anyway, at the "Dinner with Peter" party, sold at the MSB auction, I was repeatedly asked how things were going in Palm Springs, how was Mary, etc., and found myself saying:
Peter: "These past few weeks Mary and I have been happier and more in love than we have since we first married."
And the narrator inside my own head: "Saying this, Peter realized it was the truth."
It's funny, isn't it? Some times you don't know what you are going to say until it comes out, and sometimes you don't realize the truth until you say it.
Royal: "These past few weeks have been the best of my life."
Narrator: "Saying this, Royal realized it was the truth."
Or, words to that effect. Anyway, at the "Dinner with Peter" party, sold at the MSB auction, I was repeatedly asked how things were going in Palm Springs, how was Mary, etc., and found myself saying:
Peter: "These past few weeks Mary and I have been happier and more in love than we have since we first married."
And the narrator inside my own head: "Saying this, Peter realized it was the truth."
It's funny, isn't it? Some times you don't know what you are going to say until it comes out, and sometimes you don't realize the truth until you say it.
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