Sunday, February 25, 2007

Just give me peace....


We used to toss pennies and nickels and the occasional dime in the Park Avenue fountain. Plop! We’d roll up our jeans and dangle our bare feet in the often green water, making swirly twirl currents with our toes. We’d stretch and piddly wink someone else’s wish with a big toe, send it plunking across the dirty fountain floor. There! We wished for you again! Feel the love. Your dime, our time….

Sometimes, if we were really desperate, we’d borrow a wish or two, you know, gathering loose change for a pack of Salems. But we’d always come back. Toss a random penny, a cherished quarter, over the shoulder, kiss the sky, and send a stranger’s secret wish back where it belonged.

Mama’s in velveteen jogging suits pushing velveteen strollers would scurry past. Shielding their velveteen babies from catching a glimpse of the hippies wading in the fountain. Men in three piece suits with James Bond Attaché’ cases would stride by, their long legs skipping steps, (“Don’t want to break my mother’s back”) approaching fast and sprinting out of sight. Their eyes always straight ahead. A beer-riddled bum, hair matted to one side, curled embrio-onically on the bench. Always. His feet pigeoned under him, his spine weeping forward, his smile stuck to his apricot-seed face with kindergarten glue. He watched us. He never borrowed from the wishing pond.

And then we got cars. We rarely traipsed to the haughty-taughty garden anymore. Bothering their world with ours. But we still wished. We wished on one-eyed cars and first stars. Turkey bones. Pennies in the street. Yellow butterflies and ladybugs. Red birds out the kitchen window. Blue skies. Red skies. Hummingbirds. Blooms on the Bird of Paradise. Sunrises. Sunsets. Full Moons, new moons, martini moons…..

I found a driftwood wish bone yesterday. It’s gray barnacle covered skin old, and worn. It weighed nothing. And in a second , between my salty fingers, the knotted driftwood Y was limp, snapped, broken. It’s sandy soul scattered in the wind.

I found this yesterday too. Buried. Deep under the coquina at the waters edge. Deep. Where the sand is cold and the earth is wet. Where pieces of ships and dreams and conch shells and reefs and coral are churned into confetti….

Silly heart shaped rock.

“I wish I may, I wish I might……”


To be continued….

10 comments:

skinnylittleblonde said...

Awww...she's so cute, well worn and soft around the edges!
For like a week now, I have been wanting to do a post on all of my 'rocks.' LOL.
You are my sister & gawd, do I love you!

Spadoman said...

A new Grandfather. What do you do with it? How do you hold it? Is it in your pocket? Is it with others in a pile? Do you hold it and hear it talk to you? If not, do you wait for it to do so? Do you ever feel like someone else might need this particular rock? If so, have you given them away? Did you get a strong thought or idea since you took possesion of this rock?

It's more than a rock. It has a spirit. It has been around through all of time. It has wisdom and teachings to give its holder if youask for it then let it.

Put it on a sunny windowsill for just a day or two. Let it see if it wants the energy from you.

singleton said...

SLB...and I think I remember you climbing out of the all day-into the night drive and piling out of the car door into my gravel driveway and....
tiddly winking a heart shaped rock! Ahhh, the stories you're little marbles, rocks, shells, could tell...ILYSVVM...

Sweet Spado... In the windowsill. Mother Nature doing what she does. Cleansing. Feeding. Kneading. Rejuvenating. Breathing... Paigey holds my last two heart shaped rocks, one she kicked by accident in the driveway and one I carried a long time, it's silky patina worn another 1000 years by my fingertips....this one is an old one, he fell from the cold coquina tunnel, into my hands, smooth and warm, ready to be found...Just before he tumbled there I scraped a beautiful periwinkle colored stone from the tunnel wall, plucked it out, and rolled it in my palm. Still a shell. It's ridges faintly visible. It's edges slightly rough. I tucked her quietly back into her wet blanket....Not ready to be found yet, still tumbling in the sacred sea....And I smiled....for the soul who whould find her when the time was right....

Spadoman said...

Yep, you get it.

singleton said...

sweetspado...ILYFSSVM

Baron Ectar said...

You never cease to amaze me with your post. I am so glad to have found you. I actually see and feel what you write about!

Angela Marie said...

Oh Singleton... sigh. I want to breathe in your words and keep them inside me, not wanting to exhale. You have such a way with them.

The memories you have of your sister are so sweet. I would love just to hang out with the both of you!

love to you my sweet soul friend ~

Fuzzylogic said...

Singleton,this post rushed back so many memories of my childhood where I would stroll around the beaches looking for those shells and rocks that would speak to me:)You have such a beautiful way of expressing what you feel.The heart shaped little one is so cute.I still toss a coin into the fountains and still wish on the shooting stars,maybe cause I never let go of that child in me:)
Thanks for creating magic with your words!I'm so glad to know you and skinny!

M@ said...

I love the ocean. This year, I'm definately buying an ocean kayak and getting out to the bay here more. Screw the Potomac.

singleton said...

Baron...and I'm glad, too! Hey cowboy, have a great vacation!

Angela Marie....I think you and I are just mermaid girls! And this new friendship, the blessing of the tides!

fuzzylogic...somehow I knew you still did that! LOL! I wish more folks could understand the language such wild and random gifts, tossed at our fingertips, speak.....

Matt....you go, boy!