March. . .Again

Last year where were you? In Garden Grove at the Fish Market for me. Five minutes from another life. It was my home for a couple of years. Fish tacos, rice, and an Iced tea. Home was some local hotel. Got comped when I didn't feel like driving home. That more often than not. Attended one of Kaprece’s meets when I stopped by the Grove. San Diego meet,I think.  Last Saturday, I was at the Blue Pyramid of Cal State Long Beach for another. In many ways, I hope it never ends. Going to meets. If an when she stops going, it will mean she is growing up. 

Time flies so fast. We think we have more time, but we don't. Two more days and we would have completed a quarter of the year. Ninety days gone. Gone never to come back. Like holding onto sand at the beach.

Been keeping a journal for some time now. Easier some days, harder others. Remembering what happened during. . . Recalling past events, planning future ones. There tends to be certain monotony, a malaise to these days. We do things over and over again, in hopes of accomplishing some task, reaching some goal. Discovering some truth we already know.

Are you happy where you are now? Why do I ask? Because its going to end. It is no longer to be the way you had wished it. Events change. Your feelings will change about certain tasks. Or events around it will cause the events you are doing obsolete. Jobs, locations, schools, workplaces will no longer hold the same wonderment as before. In time, a new love be discovered. It won't be like your first. It will never will. It shouldn't be. Its just different.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate it. I welcome it. Our empties, but it is refilled.  It forces us to realize the importance of right now. Time demands to us pay attention to her. To cherish what is in front of us. It forces to let us leave the baggage of long ago. It hardens feelings and it makes us realize some things needs to be let go.  We can hold on tight, but the sands of just slips away and forces us to grow and die at the same time.

Every day a new dawn begins. Every day the sunsets. Whether we accepts us this or not, it is hard to learn some things are true whether believe them or not. 

Last year, where was I? Posted a few pics, March of last year. Giving a high school friend a ride to the airport. Having lunch at Farmers Market, her first time. Taking a trail in the desert that used to be a grade school oasis. Climbing rocks and finding an Easter surprise.  Attaining a level of Reiki-dom, touching the fabled SR-71, doing Zuma, and walking in middle of Hollywood Blvd for the Marathon.  Joined a book club and had lunch with Dana. These were the things I did last year at this time.

I no longer do some things with regularity. I am paying the price for that now.(Loving it) Other activities have taken over. Others things are more important. Others have faded. Going to God’s house strong since last year. It's become important to me. I’ve found solace. I found silence. I have found purpose and meaning here.  There is certain fullness I feel when visiting a Mission or attending St Mary Mass. There is a certain-ness. There is a knowing a revealing, a continuity.

Not sure where all this came from, but is as if hearing music sings for the very first time. It is the rhythm. It slows enough for the message to be heard and understood. Where sound of music fill in places that are lacking.  Can’t say that visit to Mission or churches will have the same effect as it does me. It is listening to the radio. 

Changing the station. Shuffling through some static. No Satellite, Nothing pre-programmed. Just adjusting to the frequency of the universe until it says this is the station I should listen to. We grow up with a certain sound. We enjoy rock, hip hop, country. We listen to what feels like home. Then we change. We hear techno, house, blues, acid, speed rock, reggae. We discover that there is so much more. We discover. Where have you been all my life? Its that first kiss. We get to a rhythm, and a at times, we discover we are in cacophony of noises. It changes subtlety. A wondrous harmony transforms to something strange, unfamiliar, dulling. Then some how, another changes the station for us. Maybe its the Big Smile, maybe its a newborn. Maybe it renewed, a rediscovered love that gets us in tune again.

Our body, our soul. Our hearts beat with a different rhythm filling us with much needed sustenance. Oxgyenating our muscles, removing toxins, attuning us in ways that brings back to our beat. We need that turning point. we need that drama, that resolution. we need that first kiss again. And again.And again.

Alas, this song must end. Time for a new one to come in. Its calling and I am drawn.

Dharma

Three funerals this week. Went to first one yesterday. It was of a man that had lived a good life. He was refugee. Escaped the Vietnam during time of war time evacuation. Traveled to Oklahoma via the PI. Became a pharmacist. His passing left many people feeling empty. I know. Saw it in their eyes. It was a the Heart yesterday morning. Never attended a Vietnamese  funeral. Catholics they were. Hearing them speak in the guttural cadence that is uniquely Vietnamese. I understood the format, the cadence of the service. It was morning mass for those attending.  There was communion, singing, sadness, cries. It was unusual. There was videographer, a photographer and the attendees. It was unusual for me to see to this. Guess, it’s the noveaux thing. Weddings I understand. We want to remember the celebration of a glorious time. But the videotaping of someone’s passing? I don’t know.  Guess, this is the way.

Last funeral , less than a month ago, one of the pallbearer was using his Iphone to record the event. It was his son, though. When he spoke about his father’s passing at the church lectern, there was deep sadness and anger there.  Guess, he had certain license to speak his heart, troubling as that may be. It was hard to watch. Hard to be witness to, but in these moments one realizes one’s own impact he has on others. Little things we do and don’t do. Things that are bigger than bigger than what we realize. It is like a stream that veers to the left instead of the right. It seems so small and inconsequential. It is how one turns left instead of right. One great river becomes two. A destiny branches from one possibility to another.

One so hurt by the accidental. One so troubled by the rivers changed. One so fraught. Can’t say the torrents of life is not without its whitewater. It is not without its calm moments. It is not without its many, many wonders and dangers. So many possibilities have these secondary, and tertiary effects that can never predicted or explained. That momentary brush of the lips. That unyielding eyes that says, “No.” That realization that it is better to go without than become someone you were not supposed to be.

No one could know what tomorrow brings. It is perhaps better this way. To know apocalypse is tomorrow or the next day. Sure prophecies speak of a life destined to be. But how can one really be free if the future is foretold. How can we be allowed to make choices to be or not to be? How can the decision tree be decided if it was all preplanned, preordained, predicted? Sure there is a certainty to how life effects us, changes us, it molds us.

Rivers diverge, changes course, turns a different corner. So many roads to . . .are paved with good intentions. We cannot or should not dismiss the mysteries of the world. It is vital to examine our life, our course, and listen to heart. There is a plan. There is free will. There is a destiny. It is how we decide to face to be. We can be so much more. So much less. So much. Decisions must be made. In the end, does it matter? Of course, it does.

I’ll be attending another two funerals this week. One for a family friend’s father. Another for a high school friend’s father. Emptiness will fill this week. Crying, singing, remembering.  People dressed in black. A procession, a march of the casket. Flowers being tossed on top. White headbands. Dark glasses, and many people’s head bowed down in respect and sadness.  Friends of long ago. Relative’s unknown. Fathers’ friends of yesteryear will appear and disappear like pebbles in a torrent.  Their lives going the way their river takes them.

It’s a remarkable things these funerals. People dressed in black, coming to remember, to share, to pay homage to someone that has affected their lives. Sometimes hard feelings are found. Sometimes, truth is revealed. Sometimes a show is put on by those less than. People look at life differently, their filters are skewed. They seek energy by acting the drama queen. They play games of mystery and aloofness. Its how people do things. Walking through roles, playing parts that brings them comfort. It gets them through the day, until the time comes to shed their mortal coils.

Started this blog with a death. It was the passing of my neighbor’s son.  Four in car died because of reasons I don’t remember. My neighbor has moved, moved on. Physically and spiritually. In their absence, there home is being used for some church events, I think. Cars still park up front, Music and dancing still occur and people of all ages seem to go away happy. Not sure I understand what all these means.  Its nice to know in Andre’s absence, a new spiritualness thrives. In places,  energies are attract. Like waterfalls and mountain tops. May never understand the feng shui, but that is the fun part. It’s the discovery and experience. It when all things become revealed. The dharma of karma. Drama R Us.  Life is fun. Let’s live it.  It’s the mystery of it all that fills us. It is discovering and uncovering the meaning of things. Its learning the beauty of life and realizing that there is so much more, so much more, so much more.

When we meet these people again, we will learn the meaning of it all. Until then embrace, enjoy, and take it all in. The universe leaves us clues all around. Link to death of neighbor's son