Blue eyes

Yesterday I saw a friend I hadn't seen in 6 years.  Today in a  quiet moment, I recall how we take things for granted when we're with people who we call 'friends'.   Friends because we like being with them, there's an ease, friends because it becomes a habit of calling back and forth and eating b'fast on the weekend days during grad school, friends becasue not only do we bump into each other in the hallways and classrooms but because we spend hours talking about what art we can't stand or what we love and tease in between, friends who collaborate, collaborators who become friends.  I remember one of the first nights out with this friend, we were in the Saugus Cafe, rickety authentic side of the road cafe on the way to Saugus.  Cracked booth seats, jukebox contraptions on the table, coffee in those small thick mugs that gets cold fast, greasy potatoes that I love.  Andrew is a vegetarian and so was I at the time so we made fun of the menu and of roger, who squeezed into the booth with us and rolled his eyes.  Oklahomo.  Or wait, was he making fun of us?  Groaning cuz he was going go have to endure our persnicky diets?  We all became very good friends in grad school.  Out of school, we still maintained our connections but it wasn't daily.  We didn't bump into each other anymore.  Efforts had to be made.  Visiting him in Hollywood required parking the car and that was a pain in the ass.  Slowly those plans got eroded and then Andrew was gone, got a job in Indiana, moving up and out into 'academia' while I opted for yoga immersion, escape hatch out of 'swimming upstream in the art world.'  

Yesterday I picked up Andrew at Union Station.  I saw a guy sitting on a bench with shorts on.  Ever youthful, even into his early 40s now.  Same.  He hopped in my car and teased me about almost running over pedestrians that I didn't notice because i was looking for him.  The gal on the bench next to him noticed however and was like, 'why's she honking like that?'  I wasn't honking at the pedestrians I didn't see, I was honking at Andrew, on the bench.  When we got to my studio, we both took off our sunglasses and I felt a little self-conscious.  Would he notice all my wrinkles now?  We're here at that point.  And I looked at him, really looked at him, and was fascinated by the blue of his eyes.  Those eyes that I didn't really see years ago.  We were too busy instead looking into our own thoughts, our ideas, our plans,  but not into each other.  Not like this.  It's more relaxed now, but more poignant.  He's just visiting.  And somehow, I'm coming upon the fact that we're all just visiting all the time.  And how the only thing I can really do about this or want to do about this ...is sit and look and deeply admire.

The Garden of Hope

When I first moved into this bungalow on Hyperion, there was an longish oval shaped patch of yellow weeds and sick looking dirt, hard, cracked, greying, spanning the length of my door to my neighbor's.  My friend urged me not to move into this 'dump'.  But boy was it cheap.  So I thought I'd first set up to beautify the exterior with a garden.  Quite excited was I because growing up, we had gardeners and I never lifted a finger.  But I'd watch my dad out back after work or on weekends toiling to plant some nursery item he'd just bought.  So I figured, now's my time to figure out green thumbing.    Well with one push of a shovel into the dirt, I knew this was not going to be something for the single lady.   So I persuaded my friend Josh  (Josh now is an organic farmer in Hawaii..) to come over one afternoon and we began to amend the soil...in August ...in LA.   It was so cement like and 'disturbed' that we probably should have used jackhammers.   It was like we were stilt walking on our shovels most of the time but finally the 'dirt' started turning a deep shade of brown.   I then went on a shopping spree at the nursery to make an herb and vegetable box and chose sun light friendly flowers.   For a while I weeded and plucked up what yellow brittle grass would continue to arise - apparently this ugly patch had been a green lawn at some point in the past.  I would puff up a bit with pride but then enter a slump as I saw my lovely flowers, my gardenia plant, my purple and blue and white tulip-y flowers shrivel up in the LA summer and eventually the neighborhood cats (mine included) turned my herb box into a litter box.  And my neighbor Eddie turned his corner of the 'garden' into an ashtray to which I responded by regularly piling up the cigarette butts and putting them on his front porch with a little love note as to how he should just buy a proper ashtray.  

But now years later, this garden grows itself.  I'm kind of amazed.  I hardly do a thing.  I got smarter and got succulents and cactii, roses and rosemary and it just sustains itself year after year.  In a meditation session, it flashed....  You amend the 'soil', sweat it out, jump all over it, get a few plants and seeds and for a while, you beat back the invaders and trim the shrubs.  You even give up as you see some things shrivel and die and then figure out another way.  Then, eventually however, you let it be and it just is there, in a kind of almost dare I say lazy glory!  This garden gives me hope.

With a little help from a friend

I'm restarting this blog because of Trish.  I discovered her blog (http://blog.trishdeitch.com/) and it pulled the kind of punch I can only begin to verbalize.  I met Trish only once at a Buddhist teaching.  I sat in front of her and a few times almost fell back into her lap.  We were packed tightly in this ballroom, sitting on the floor.  I thought she probably hated me.  It's not pleasant feeling squished, knees bent for hours.  A constant negotiation, can you just move up a little please?  Thank you.  Now, a few years later, I'm falling into the blog lap.   Why not?  I have no idea where this will lead and hopefully my sharp tongue that likes to lascerate with text will restrain itself.  Or maybe I should move beyond hope and fear?

It's late and I still have yet to go ponder impermanence but the fierce wind of distraction caught me here.  Then there's iPhone Backgammon, a newish guilty pleasure.  It's endless.  Mind being the sewer of distraction.

Like Trish said in her debut entry, may this be of benefit.  Thanks Trish.