Yesterday I drove down to Menlo park, entranced with the clouds.  They resembled images sent back from outer space.

Today is a full moon, Buddha’s birthday, and Cinco de Mayo.

From Writer’s Almanac: It’s the birthday of the man who said, “No man is lonely while eating spaghetti”. Christopher Morley, born in Haverford, Pennsylvania (1890), wrote a hundred books.

Morley said, “You can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.”

It’s a day to read, and either fast, or eat rice, guacamole, or spaghetti, or all three.

Today I was early for my dentist appointment so I strolled along the marsh.

I’ve been in Menlo Park with my three-year-old grandchild.  I’ve been living the life of exploration, discovery, and  imagination.  

Today I spent time with him in his preschool, so I was with a group of three year olds.  Because I lived in Florida and San Diego and have spent wonderful time luxuriating and playing in the sun, twice a year, pre-cancers are frozen off my body, especially my hands.  Today six children gathered around me, very concerned about my “ouchies”.  They held out their smooth young hands, hands in an array of colors and tones, and I wondered how we ever got into disagreement around skin color.  Skin is our largest organ, our exchange between in and out, and for these children, there is nothing to notice or discriminate against. Their only concern was my ouchies.

I also saw negotiation in action.  When there was a conflict, a discussion between the two children ensued, with an examination of what happened concerning hurt feelings and/or physical hurt.   When all was resolved and understood, if a hug was desired, a hug was given.  I think of all the squabbling happening these days.  Could it be resolved with discussion and a hug?  

Grandchild is ready for a bicycle, and so there has been discussion on who gets to give it, and how, and when.  That leads me tonight to the wonderful response to the letter asking whether or not there is a Santa Claus.  Yes, Virginia, there is.

Yesterday I drove down state route 35, Skyline Highway, which goes between 280 and highway 1, two routes I usually take. I stopped in two places where land is preserved for nature and sacred hikes. California is an extraordinarily beautiful state no matter which route one takes.

My son was out walking in his neighborhood in San Jose, and took this photo. I’m reminded of a book I love, Make Way for Ducklings. Abundance abounds.

Now I know a little more to the story. They were actually walking down the center of the street when my son and his two rescue greyhounds, gently nudged them to the sidewalk which was a safer place to be.

This morning during meditation I hear birds tweeting and singing as day begins to come to light. Perhaps, spring finally arrives on April Fool’s day.

The kitchen is completed to where I can bring dishes back in from the garage to the house.  Because they are so precious and delicate, my grandmother’s dishes sit in a heavy box on top of other boxes.  They are labeled “fragile”.

The box is too heavy to lift, so I take out cup after cup, and carry each one up five steps, unwrap it, and go back down for another.   I feel it as a pilgrimage, not as strenuous as walking The Camino de Santiago, but still each step mindful as I carry and cherish my grandmother’s dishes.  She passed away when I was 13, and my mother gave them to me when I was married at 21.

Now, I learn they are worthless to others, that they can’t even be given away.  The suggestion is to use them now, so they might as well go into the dishwasher, though it could risk their rims of gold. Instead I  think of the beauty and mindfulness in hand-washing them, the caress and connection between present and past, the cleansing and renewing of ancestral memory.

I wash them by hand and place them in a sacred place, cup by cup, plate by plate, breath by breath, step by step.