LA is a mecca where brutal reality collides with dream quests and just about everyone is trying to hold themselves together one way or another. In between traffic and auditions and rejections and the fear of aging and financial tensions, the city provides a smattering of exquisite havens to slide off into closed eyes and quiet minds with, to re-vitalize the ever fragile inner balance.
On Saturday, Luciana and I cruised up PCH, past surfers and sea gulls, to Sunset Boulevard where we entered the gates of the Self Realization Gardens. We were officially on a swan quest, as, with great excitement, we had been discussing The Ugly Duckling, and I wanted to show her, in person, the giant white ducks with long graceful necks. This was our mission, and, I thought, I can shower her sponging brain with a few more flower names…begonias and lobelia just for starters! Yes, Mom, I can’t help myself! You live on in so many ways!
The moment we set feet on the path that leads to the lake where the swans were supposed to be, we, together fell under the spell of quiet. Without being told, Luciana whispered, ‘A path. Luciana will find the Gruffalo’, and she headed off, practically on tiptoes. We passed by little sets of stairs that led to enclaves of benches occupied by people meditating and then we happened on three empty benches, on the shore of the lake, with fish and swan mosaics inlaid. Luciana was enchanted and studied each one, telling quiet stories, oblivious of me, of the fishes having meetings and the swans not having to be gray and fuzzy any more. And then she looked up and way across the lake, spied two swans sitting in the grasses. I can only think, that had we been anywhere else, as a two year old, she would have jumped up and down or begged for bread crumbs or s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g. But the spell of divine stillness was everywhere, she walked to the edge of the lake, stood and watched. The swans lifted their heads, looked right at us, slipped into the water and swam towards us. Luciana said, under her breath, ‘They’re coming’. And they did.