I had a very cool day of odd happenings yesterday. I am reticent to share. What I think and perceive, and put in to words, does not always come across as I have meant to the reader.
This is both beautiful and curious. Also the reason I hated taking poetry classes in college. I did not want to dissect any poems, to get to what the author had intended. I wanted to keep the feelings the poem mean to me. How I descry the poem, how it relates to me. (side note, this is also why I hate music videos, I do not want to think of a video when I hear a song, I want my own mental musical video of memories to come to me. Exception: I do know the Thriller dance.)
Since I live much of my life through the transparency of the written word, the reader has only to take what I say. The rest is up to the reader to fill in the blanks.
Often these blank spots are incorrect. I let it slide. Let the reader think what they want about me, but take my words and make them your own. That is always what I hope for. Even when I am just telling a story, or parable.
Take the following as a parable:
Yesterday morning I decided, with some encouragement, to go to the lake. I have not been all summer and it was a beautiful day. I would venture alone. Spontaneous decision.
On my way, about a mile from my house, and ten from the lake I sat at a red light, windows down, no music playing.
A homeless man on the corner yelled to me to get my attention.
"Hey! You have not forgotten about me have you?"
I looked at him and did not recognize him. I talk to enough homeless people to know this was not one of my regulars. I engage with homeless people near my house, and on almost every corner. Usually they never ask me for anything but the ears I have to listen for the amount of time a red light can run.
I smiled and yelled, "How could I forget about you?" Even though I am certain we have never met.
He smiled and said "It has been a while since I have seen you, I just wanted to make sure!"
I asked him how he was, and he said he had no complaints, hesitated lifted his cardboard sign and said he could complain but he wont. I replied with a lame, "Well it is a beautiful day!"
He looked right at me and said, "You should go to the lake! Yeah, that's what I think you need to do, go to the lake!"
The light turned and he yelled, "Don't forget about me!"
I had nothing obvious in my car saying HEY I AM GOING TO LAKE EVERYONE! No bathing suit on, no towel on the front seat, and he could not see into my car from his distance anyway.
I laughed and said out loud, "Hey God, are you talking to me through homeless people again? Because if you are I think that is kind of ironic, and not ironic at the same time. Okay not talking to you because I do not believe in you."
I drove the rest of the way in silence.
When I arrived I noticed no one else was there, just as I like it. Took my towel, my floatie, and headed out to the dock I love the most.
After baptizing myself in the water (dunking three times) I climbed the ladder to lay down and listen to the sounds around me.
After a while I heard a woman's voice gently saying, "Excuse me?" as she walked closer to me.
I sat up and said hi.
"Im sorry I do not mean to interrupt you, I just wanted to thank you."
"Thank me for what?" I asked completely confused.
"You have inspired me to come here alone. I have lived here almost my entire life and I have never come to the lake alone, seeing you made me think I could do it."
She appeared to be slightly older than I am, and I went on about the virtues of coming to the lake alone, especially during the week. I even dared to say she was allowed to lay out topless, as it is permitted.
That lead to a humorous conversation about age, gravity and breasts.
She wandered back to her family and I resumed gathering sun rays. I looked at the water just in time to see a man emerging in full scuba attire.
I said the most logical thing I could think of.
"Looking for dead bodies?"
He laughed awkwardly and said "No." Then he lifted up an under water metal detector. He began to tell me about all the things he had found. I suggested he look on the other side of the dock where the bottom is not covered in mesh.
My new female friend with permission to come to lake alone came over to join the conversation.
The scuba diver held out his findings, bottle caps, pennies, sunglasses. He also had a penny that had been through one of those machines that smooshes it and marks where it was from. Later he gave me this penny to keep.
The penny was smooshed in Hawaii. I like to think it was someone's good luck coin, that now can be my good luck coin.
I kept an eye on the time during the conversation as my time there was only going to be for one hour.
The woman and I exchanged names and emails. I imagine I will write to her with encouraging lake going words and she can find some independence through my permission. I know it is strange, but she needs my permission, or inspiration. Why else would she come up to me in the first place?
Before I left the woman said, "I found this, I think it belongs to you, or that you need it, it's a necklace."
The scuba man said, "Oh yeah, I found that earlier and put it on the dock, means nothing to me."
I stood up and reached for the necklace, the woman saying, "I think it is something spiritual, that's why it belongs to you."
I took the gentle string and beads and immediately saw that it was a rosary. Not one mass produced. This one was lovingly hand made, each bead chosen, even the cross was beaded in a way that I could not figure out.
I laughed. "I collect rosaries, how funny you found it!"
"I knew it was something spiritual."
Scuba man wished me a farewell as I gathered my things and said maybe we would meet again. He explained he does not live here and he and his buddy (who I never saw) only came down for the day.
I wished him well on his huntings. I hugged my new friend promising to email soon, slipped the rosary on my neck and left.
I was smiling like a fool. Everything seemed to connect and I have no idea why. I thought again about the cosmos, and how it has taken me looking out further to find connection like my fellow monk Giordano Bruno.
He looked at the cosmos, I have also looked. And yet a lucky penny and a gentle rosary came to me from the depths of a lake that I love.
Everything connects.
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