Norton Simon Museum

I fell in love yesterday. First of all, I went to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. I have to admit that in the nearly 20 years I've lived in L.A., I had never been. Sad but true. One amazing thing was that I thought it would cost me $8 but since I have my USC student i.d., I got in for free!!!


After about a half an hour of wandering around, I was in the 14th to 16th century wing and accosted by a polite woman wearing a radio head piece who told me that my bag was oversized and that I'd have to check it with the desk and get a "museum bag" to carry my stuff in. The funny thing was that the museum bag was a book bag from the museum store and wasn't that much smaller than my LAwritersgroup.com yellow messenger bag. Go figure.

I really dug the South Asian wing which is downstairs in the museum. I wandered around that exhibit for almost an hour.

I did go out to the sculpture garden but, on a Wednesday afternoon in late June, is pretty freakin' hot and, unfortunately, you can hear the freeway that is right next to the museum but cleverly camouflaged by bamboo trees. I also got the feeling that I wasn't seeing all of the sculpture garden because one part of the path was coned off and while I was in the South Asian wing I had seen this lovely large Buddha statue out the window but then, once outside, couldn't figure out how to get to it.

Finally, I realized that I had completely missed the 20th Century wing so I wandered back inside. That's when I fell in love.

Kandinsky rules.

What the bleep!?!

I have a friend who "has a relationship with God" and speaks of that connection whenever she's getting ready to make a move in life .... Now, I'm not religious but I try to be a good person and keep my karmic nose clean and in general am more apt to give than to take. Having said all that, for years, I thought of my friend as the most spiritual person I knew. Always "trusting that God" was listening....I recently realized she also meant "and placing her in the most opportune place and time and giving her things that served her goals"....huh?

I don't know about you but that sounds less like God and more like a "universal goodie bag". It also got me thinking ... every once in awhile, I'll talk to that universal energy that I believe is swirling around and I will send my intentions and aspirations into the wind. I think it's good to say things out loud and own them. My friend, who I have loved for a very long time, has a tendency to not only say things out loud but to ask anyone who happens to be in earshot if they can help her. Now, I guess that kind of falls into the "god helps those who help themselves" if you amend the line to read "help themselves to everyone else's energy and time". See, it just suddenly hit me this week that this was her m.o. and as sweet as she is, as wonderfully talented, as amazingly driven....I just felt that I had been part of some master plan that didn't include reciprocity.

I don't want to sound bitter and I wish her well in her forward movement in life but I did just want to take a moment and ask.....is it "god" or a "universal goodie bag" that people are reaching for and if it is spiritual then why is it attached to what have you done for me lately?

The Dream

You grabbed my arm, hissed I love you then bent your body to kiss me so hard I could feel the cliff of bone holding your perfect bottom teeth. I had no choice but to fall back, open my mouth to yours and hear in that yawn of lips, myself opening, hear the full rush of the Irish Sea pounding against a shore of rock and fortress.

And – as suddenly – it was over.
I was standing upright – alone –
the water still ringing in my ears.

If Gestalt is right and every figure in our dreams is merely an extension of self, then why did my mind reach half way around the world to a shore I have seen only once? Why not the Pacific – where you, as myself, are – warm and blue? And why would I choose you, as myself, to love me, to force me into a kiss I cannot give back? And why did you, as myself, say I love you at all, without waiting for my response?

I have thought of you, as yourself, all day, wondering at your dreams, wondering if I appeared, as yourself, to take you to the Irish Sea….