Morning Pages

"These are the days that must happen to you." Walt Whitman

The French playwright, Jean Genet, wished to be a Zen monk that went out every morning with his empty bowl in his hands and accepted whatever was placed in the bowl that day as his nourishment. What a beautiful, stirring thought. Whatever fills our bowl up for the day can be treated with full attention and love and as simply enough.

I'm making some additions to The { j } List today...
46. Wander aimlessly 47. Buy a chicken taco for a homeless person. 48. Park 3 blocks from where you intend to go and acquaint yourself with the undiscovered neighborhoods that fall between...

I'm learning to get lost a little more, take a back corridor, wait for the serendipitous encounter, see the offroad views even of my home country that I previously thought I was so familar with. I had a destination in mind last night when Matt and I headed to downtown Riverside. But we ended up stumbling across a small local oldies car show on the way to the Mission Inn. So I hit the brakes and we meandered through the cars and mingled with laughing, hard-working families. I actually felt at home in this strange neighborhood. The restored baby-blue Buicks, a '72 Chevy Malibu, lots of homestyle family jokes over the microphone, ball caps, a shiny Hemi 472, and camping chairs. I felt like I had walked home into a Moore family reunion.

Thoughts for this weekend: I'm going to stock my beach bag full of licorice, ginger candy, wasabi rice crackers, my watercolors, some Julie Cameron, and ride the Surfline to Balboa Beach. Really quite excited about the public transportation thing because (a) it brings back sweet memories of Europe, (b) I can read my book and not watch the road, and (c) no headaches about where to park when I arrive.