the light is bright

paradise

i wrote a novel called what matters most, and once again i've been putting a question mark at the end of the title, asking myself the question.    i guess you'd say i'm an emotional sort, and i really want to understand what i feel. writing helps me with this.  the most wonderful things, the most painful things, all of life touches my heart, and i bring it to my desk. characters come to me, and through them i tell the stories that tear me apart and put me back together.  when i was younger i was motivated by need and desire--full-out, pedal to the metal, have to have it kind of thing.  believe me, i still have my moments, but now the feelings are tempered by, i hope, some degree of self-awareness.  that comes from writing.

my early novels told what i knew as a young woman.  as time goes on, and life hands me more experience, they reflect what i have learned--not just factually, but emotionally.  shades of marian the librarian in "the music man", sadder-but-wiser-girl that she was.  am i saying too much here?  i'm in the mood to tell you everything.

last night i took a ride along the coast with a friend.  there was moonlight on the sea.  lots of new houses had been built in the once-open space.  nature is so staggeringly beautiful, and we were saying how sometimes we don't appreciate what we've got till it's gone.  at which point i began to sing joni mitchell's big yellow taxi -- i couldn't help myself.  "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot..."  (poor friend, having to hear me sing.)

you know me well enough to know that seeing habitat destroyed and creatures killed makes me cry.  (it really does...i actually hug trees.)  but life has many metaphorical parking lots.  you can pave over relationships, too.  i know, because in the past i've done it.  such a human tendency to want resolution--i'm right, you're wrong, i'm bad, you're good.  or, maybe you're bad, i'm good.  no in between, no grey area, no room for the maybes that come with taking a more compassionate, realistic, look at life.  (see above: sadder but wiser.)

i may be falling in love--with the world as it is, not as i would have it.  to put it another way, i'm finding it easier to look at what is true than to pretend something else.  yesterday someone told me that things happen if they're supposed to--no amount of forcing or denying or hiding will change what is.   so why not practice radical acceptance, and lovingkindness for where we are right here, right now?

so what matters to me is love, family, friends, honesty, this broken paradise, moonlight on the sea and knowing it won't last forever but will come back again, gratitude for what i've been given, and the awareness that comes through living life one day at a time.

Beach Walk

it is possible,

i mean definite,

that there is nothing

better for the heart

than a beach walk.

en cuerpo y alma...

By the Sea

We've been posting videos on this website for some time now...but I'm at the beach shooting a video for The Silver Boat and can't wait for you to see it (soon!) Mike O'Gorman, my friend and video director, shot footage on the beach and by a fireplace with white tiles of dolphins, sea horses, starfish.  

I talk about characters, sisters, a few secrets from the novel.  The sea is so blue, the sun shining, and while we were shooting, a pod of dolphins swam past.  I built a sandcastle, and the waves washed it away.

Then we went swimming, because how could we not?

Endless summer

Morning walk along the beach.  Sandpipers, plovers, egrets, and surfers are the only ones here.  I set my towel by the lifeguard shack and walk into the water.Taking my swim, I watch the surfers paddle and wait, then rise up and become part of the wave. The sun ripples across the ocean.  Even with salt in my eyes, I can see Catalina.  As I start to climb out, I see a Snowy Egret standing in the hard sand, eyeing the scene.  She is a small white heron, with gleaming white feathers, long neck, black bill and legs, bright yellow feet.  Stalking prey she ruffles the sand with one foot; her bill darts and she moves on.

I step from the water and dry off, and the egret and I go our separate ways.