Looking for a Sign

Venus and Jupiter are converging. The moon is almost full. The night sky so full of wonder, I don't know which way to look.


As I put some things in my hatch this morning after a Goodwill shopping spree, I heard a song that Dan liked wafting into the parking lot from somewhere. Just as I recognized the song, I saw that someone had scrawled a message in the dust on my car. "I heart u love." The confluence of those two things brought me to tears. The world seems full of messages right now. I'm watching and listening.

I know, of course, that it was probably one of my grandchildren that wrote the message.
Every message needs a messenger.

Whether you're looking for the messiah or love, there will be a sign.

Signs, Proof, and the Buddha Makes Lemonade

This is proof.

That this happened this weekend.

And this.

But I have no proof of what I saw this evening when I went for a walk around the block. Looking in my patio window, I saw my mother reaching behind my cookbooks where I stash my unfinished bottle of wine. Her martini glass had been drained just minutes before, and I mistakenly thought that her body had forgotten the sea of alcohol that it had been afloat in for so long. Of late she's been congenial about her two-ounce martini. She might have seen me. But maybe not. The bottle of wine was tightly sealed with one of those vacuum corks, and when I returned (just minutes later,) it was still sealed. "That sure was a short walk," she said. "It was," I said.

And this novel I'm reading, "The Debt to Pleasure," by John Lanchester---SPOILER ALERT---overwhelmed me with its darkness this afternoon. I have no proof, but there are signs that our narrator is a psychopath who has murdered his parents and caused the death of  perhaps two household employees. The book is a feast of language and wit and actual recipes. Not to mention a banquet of arcana that regularly sends me on a Google tangent. BUT. Either I've figured out on page 111 where this story is going or my prediction of where it all will end is a sign of my own darkness. 

And I'm not sure what's going on here in my iPhoto as it interfaces with Blogger, but for the second time in recent months, a photo that I have not selected--a photo from months ago--has appeared in this post. It's a photo from Dan's memorial. I'm going to call it a sign. 

My Life as Expressed by Signs

My brain reads this sign as "stark reality." While there are some parts of life that do feel rather stark currently--today, well, not so much.

The man who loves me is here, and we visited the local farmers market where we saw a turquoise ling cod.

The fish was for sale, but was whole so we purchased a regularly pigmented ling cod that was already filleted. The fisherman swore that the meat of the turquoise fish is actually turquoise.

We had a cup of coffee in a neighborhood where there appears to be a guerilla crochet artist on the loose.

We prowled the Ventura swap meet where, for a brief moment, I wondered if Margaritaville might need a kitchen appliance called the Margarator.

But tomorrow I will call my attorney, think of a certain Someone, and as I ponder the recent goings on, I'm likely to share a certain sentiment expressed by a Chinese restaurant that the man who loves me visited recently. Now there's a stark reality for you.