Japan

The word devastation is bandied around with little regard for its real meaning. Whether it's related to a bounced check as in, "Ooohhh, I told her not to cash that until Friday!" or, "I thought I could make it to the gas station, I can't believe I had to call Triple A to take me three blocks!" At the time, those situations truly seem devastating. But after watching Diane Sawyer on the Evening News in her neat fitting, all-weather jacket and rumpled blond hair, touch the round-faced children of Japan like Mother Teresa or Princess Diana would were they still alive, left me in a whirlwind. Taking me to a dimension string theorists have yet to discover. I was not prepared. My insides continue to scream, "What Happened?"

A record breaking earthquake which touched off a tsunami, which led to nuclear reactors melting down, leading to the evacuation of towns, causing other towns to wash away. Now the people. Alerted not to come outside, others in lines for food, their friends and neighbors in line for gas (just in case they were told to evacuate, difficult to accomplish without gas). People in yellow protective suits, others holding up worn pictures of the missing, some wearing white face masks. Rescue workers from New Zealand helping out when they were on the receiving end of relief less than a month ago.

The biggest devastation for most of us will be the realization that we are indeed one big community after all. The word world is the culprit. It makes us believe that this is all very big, and what happens over there can not possibly touch us over here. However, those age old tricky substances water and air connect us. Here in L.A., e-mails were flying, everyone worried that the wind from over there may blow over here, across that wide expanse of water, the Pacific, and the nuclear fall out would reach our shores. If not now with this disaster, can we doubt that there will be another one soon? They are coming faster than we change our sheets. Have we already forgotten about the crude oil pumped into the sea month after month last year? Why are our memories so short? Does it make it easier to focus on that bounced check and the ding-ding of the low fuel reminder? Here's a tip, Mother Earth, Gaia, may be getting a wee-bit exhausted with our hubris. Like any other tired overworked mother, she may just choose to put her slightly swollen feet up on the ottoman, shove a pair of earplugs in and go to sleep for awhile, letting the chips fall where they may. I can't say that I blame her. Sweet dreams.

Inner Beloved

My dearest,

I do so love the name Inner Beloved, I hope that this name is alright with you. I know that you are with me, I feel your pirouettes, I sense the toss of your head and am nourished by the cascade of your hair. Every now and then I catch a glimpse of you unexpectedly, your reflection is mine, but it is me when I am full and certain, when there is a song that bubbles up my throat, that passes through my lips and I allow it to unite with the air as you are united with me.

You have chosen me and have waited since my dawn. There have always been ripplings, you have accompanied me during shy and awkward moments when I didn’t fit in, when I sat alone in noisy cafeterias in new schools, before the new friend made of skin, bone and muscle would appear, you my corporeal love would emerge and hold a brilliant space of yellow, soothing light. Warm companionship that has held me through frightening diagnoses, and inevitable goodbyes of the other.

You are light on your bare feet and graceful in your long, flowing skirts. You are the one that has made it acceptable for me to wear blue jeans more times that not, yet give me the air of wearing the most feminine of frocks. Funny that this is our first written correspondence, how then have we been communicating? How is it that you have cupped and cradled me so completely all of this time with such unpredictable nourishment? You thrive as if you have been fed like Cleopatra, sustained by the choices of wine, pheasant and dates. You are the most dear to me in the time that exists between the cool, slow rush of the wind that shoots inside of me when I inhale and the warm, thoughtful air that trickles out.

Funny, you must inhabit fields of time and space that I am not meant to comprehend at this time because I have caught you out in the world as well. I hope you don’t mind me telling a few of those. You were captured more than once in the folds of Mother Teresa’s face, in Princess Diana’s hesitant smile, Jacqueline O’Nasis’s footfalls, Maya Angelou’s laugh and my grandmother’s repose. I am not jealous Inner Beloved, because you always return once more to me. You have such strong shoulders for they have held all of my fears and the weight of my wants. Finally, thank you, for the tools to allow me to whisk away with you in the interchange of black and the deepest of purple that lie behind my eyes in meditative moments, we have fun together do we not? I will leave now Inner Beloved, for the day, the outer world beckons. I hear doors open and close, muffled voices of my friends and the gnaw of responsibility taking hold. I will look for you today and when others wonder what a quiet, lazy smile is doing on my lips our secret will be revealed.