beadless wonder

I bought myself tulips. They are pink and white with long green stems and they perch happily in their glass vase that rests on my wooden table. Three tall candles sit next to them behind three seashells in a perpendicular row. I never returned after I left you last. I broke my promise. That night was too beautiful to write about, as if the writing of it would diminish its power like the telling of a secret. I wanted to keep it snug, wrapped up in the bowl of my mind, of my heart, the memories on file. In fact, I wanted to keep it until it dissipated into nothing but vague fogs of feeling and nostalgia because it was too beautiful to hold perfectly forever.

I have appointments to make, invitations to send, thank you cards to write. I have accountants to call, visits to cancel, and a grandmother to update. I have so many things to do but right now I can't stop thinking about the shooting stars and the Milky Way, and the owl that flew right above our heads. I can't stop thinking about the coyotes who howled when the world agreed nor my long white dress and the way the bright day turned black and swallowed everything whole in glittering starlit mystery. I think there were more stars in that one night than in all my 31 days in Ojai combined. I still don't feel like I'm finished with that work. It seems like I am waiting, still, for the thing to come and find me. Waiting for the egg to hatch or the acorn to open and grow into a tree. I feel like something is gestating, some dear notion knitting itself inside, one pearl at a time. I wonder if I failed.

Ojai rests obediently on the cliff's edge of my mind. It is suspended like a backdrop, there to remind me of the hills and the green places I have yet to go. To remind me of the magic and the secret questions I found in the pinkness of its mountains. Those places that call to me. What will happen to me if I get swept up into the business of making a life? What will happen to me if I get smothered by the literal and forget to breathe, to dream,  and I die wide awake? What will happen to me if I forget? It is possible, to forget, to lose one's way. I have done it many times. I told him today about the time I was 15 and left Canada to return to my father's home in New Mexico. I was worried I'd made a terrible mistake and I clung to my prayers wondering, if I have chosen wrongly, will God send a whale to swallow me up and spit me out on the shore of my destiny? I remember I was sleepless. I am not sure now what I believe about God and whales, but I do know that the choice I made was mine and mine alone and it greatly altered the course of my life. I have reaped the rewards and paid the consequences for it ever since. It's a strange thing to grow up. To see the moments pass and the experiences accumulate. To see myself walk through those things that seemed like they would never end. To see life begin again, sometimes making the same mistakes I've made before.

Part of me wishes to be alone again. The solitude. The singularity of things. The belonging to myself. The walks and the changing of the clocks. The sunsets, the roadrunner, the rattlesnakes. The photographs.

We will see what becomes of me, what I make of the moments. I know for sure that art and writing save me every time. They save me from the losses. Save me from distractions. I wonder if it matters to God what I do or what becomes of me.

If god is art - it matters.