Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

I’m a simple one at heart, a traveler looking for the turnoff. I took a bus downtown to catch the train. The ferry stops near where I rested in the doorways years ago, Day after day, looking for the way out, trying to trace out patterns for my days. It’s cold and not a ghost in sight, my ghosts have fled the graveyards; those plotted remnants of my scattered heritage. There are Carolina trails and hollows, Colorado mountain highs The flatland cities, Western Plains, and Arizona deserts, Then there’s County Cork and County Mayo, Venice to be sure. A dusty Southern California town. I’m a California girl at heart: Sunlit, past-less, without a root to stand on. What do I care where I came from? What do I care when I die? But when this dim mirage of days begins to lose its ecstasy I gather up my ghostly entourage and I hold it close to me. SuperBowl Sunday on the Staten Island Ferry

It's early morning, and I fear that I am finally trapped within this newly wet and treacherous snow.  Lost  for hours amid the drifts and following fresh ski tracks, I am circling round and round the frozen reservoir.  There are no signposts to indicate an exit, and my situation is becoming perilous.  Nary a compass, nor a sextant nor a wet and smeary map have I.  I have no instruments at all save my memories from another time, another season, a warm and happy land free of finger-slicing frost and voracious, freezing snow.  Where is the turnoff? Must I rotate forever in this deadly hinterland, etching circle after circle in this endless reservoir rim?   Help!  Help! I have lost my way! Wait!  Is that a shiny, glinting something catching the dim emerging sun?  Is that a hidden beacon made of  tiny coppery orbs?  Did some ancient being take the time to mark the turn-off trail with a friendly frozen  cairn?

Ship shape and able, I set out upon the waters of spring to earn my living as a lover of life; happy eyed and full of tumbled joy.    Life and golden days ensued with nary a drop of sooty rain.  May came in with blood red tulips and new love, oh what a May. The June days swept by long and lovely, July waded in with thick air and a promise. August had that pushy frankfurter smell, and squeaky hot carouselous days. September walked on stage with a serious note and a book. October was almost too cavernous to bear with its skeletal revealings and its eaten leaves with frayed stems.  November is a waiting month, things dim, and nothing seems to happen. Now, it is December with that false glee and artificial lightness born from dark closed-in evenings with blue reflections and sometimes a warm fire with a mate, ending with a weary ribbon. I remember those Januaries past with their stark colorless streets and brown lacy weeded edges in the countryside, hopelessly shortened days hunting for

We are delighted to report that a beautiful tomato has reached maturity and remained unharmed on its vine until time to fall into the hands of the patient and undauntable Urban Volunteers. 1. Tomato is carefully washed and admired 2. Tomato undergoes exquisite and fastidious Preparation 3. Tomato is displayed on an ideal and elegant serving something 4. Innocent Guest is lured in by cheery Sunflower 5. Tomato is served with candles and pretty napkins to Urban Volunteer and Innocent Guest .

I've hijacked a few rides in my day along the highways and truck stops, through the fields of winter wheat and sugar beets. I've hooked into the next idea to soothe a restless mind, slogging through the netherworld of iso-pragmeroticism. A new galaxy is just the trick I thought, and hitched my wagon to a star. Oh, what fresh galactic air! There is no substitute, but the time did come, as it so often does. I had a hard time by the tail then, for a year or so, but when the climate changed,  I climbed aboard a magic carpet heading East. Oh, what exhilarating, spicy clangy saffron nights among the weavy symbolism. And still I cannot resist a fetching invitation to a far off land, for look what I have found among the ticket stubs and scrapbook fodder. India:  Ramana Athreya Confirms a New  Bird Species   Liocichla Bugunorum 2006 (Reuters)

Sometimes the light dims, even in the bright days of August, and what we need is an Under Sea Adventure. Tank (X) Camera (X) Flippers & mask (X) Regulator, weight belt, wetsuit (X) Waterproof watch good for 40 fathoms. (Who is going down to 40 fathoms? With a Timex? That’s ridiculous.) The colors begin to filter out anyway: one by one, fathom by fathom. OK.  Let's go! Red, two fathoms (gurgle); orange, 4 fathoms; yellow, 7 fathoms (gurgle);   wow, did you see that?  What was it?   (gurgle); green, 12 fathoms; blue. ….gurgle, gurgle…. Blue, green, gurgle, yellow, orange, gurgle, red. Full spectrum daylight! What a trip!   What shall we do with all this equipment? Let's leave it here, someone will pick it up and sell it on Craig’s list. 

It was a quiet afternoon with nothing untoward going on, except for the foot. It was plainly visible near the stoop of a stately home. Not only was it clearly detached, but there was no trace of the rest of the anatomy, and it is a very Big Foot. This was no ordinary Law and Order foot. First of all, it’s close to 6 feet (well, six ordinary feet) long and just as high, and made of concrete! Was it born here in a stately sculpting orgy? Was it brought home from a disastrous nineteenth century trudge around the lesser known world? It is impossible to construe the purpose or meaning of such a discovery, and therefore it seems clear there is none, no matter how hard we stir. Sometimes a Big Foot is simply that.

I look up and there are nothing but trees. I cant find the forest anywhere.   Help!!