Long Beach—Saturday Morning
Long Beach—Saturday Morning
As a tiny girl in India, my sister and I were perpetually buried by garlands of flowers. My father’s work was life saving, literally, hence his appearance on the scene of schools, hospitals, and villages generated exhilarated gestures of gratitude…and there we were, partaking of this honoring as well.
The garlands were predominantly jasmine, marigolds and roses, all threaded together and ceremoniously coronating us with such profusion that we could barely see out…and with every breath, the waft of their essence.
Here, now, 70-ish years later, somehow, mysteriously, I am told that I smell like a flower garden, and when I leave a space, it lingers. I chuckle at one more unexplained phenomena and pass it off as the flowery wafts of my childhood became me.
On a more serious note, this delightful happening is a warning to the reality and might of that which we breathe and the world that we live in.
A few days ago, news of the toxic waste from our fire, though supposedly being dealt with, flowed down our bluffs into the ocean and is now poisoning the fish and other marine life. Sea lions and shore birds are washing up on the shores of Malibu, dead, from eating the fish. The wafts in the air, and in the earth and water, as our world experiences massive global change, are real. These wafts become us, and we have yet to discover what this means.
We must not only take note, but step back from our habitual immersive concerns and extend ourselves, as in down on our knees in the mud, and become caretakers and gardeners of our earth.
“Then I step out into the garden, Where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man, is tending his children, the roses”.
And roses we will become. As will our grand children.