Love Me Tender

Tomorrow is April 1st. My, how time does move and change. Since my last post I spent a weekend in Memphis with my Mom and Aunt and Uncle. The air travel was happily uneventful, except for expected events, which included short delays because of fog and thunderstorms in Atlanta that started a ripple effect of delays during the day. The AirTran crew (one lively woman in particular) was delightfully enjoying herself, and very funny as she announced her expected announcements re: safety, electronic equipment, time, and more. I really appreciate those personalities.

Atlanta was a hubbub of activity, as always. What a great way to help yourself become conscious of "energy is real" - being in a busy airport and slowing yourself down, including your heartbeat, taking in the whole scene if only for a moment. The scope and layers and rhythms, smells, sounds, and sights are an amazing tapestry, motion picture, silent picture, wall hanging - any image you want to choose. An art gallery in the making all the time. One very young woman sat next to me on a connecting flight. She had her ipod and headphones, focused intently on her own music. Part of the time her plug wasn't plugged all the way, or some connection wasn't completely sealed, because I could hear the "white noise" of her music, the louder songs louder, like a blur of static in the energy fields we shared. When it stopped, the silence was magnetic. I listened to both, tuning in and out, occasionally looking at her face, which was slightly hidden by a mass of tight curls. She had pretty brown eyes. I had the aisle seat, she had the middle. On her right was a teenage boy, quiet, calm, and an intense thinker. He had a very deliberate way of moving, using his body.

Between flights I got a bite to eat in a very busy place in the Atlanta airport. What a whirlwind that was. One of the waiters I've noticed before when I've traveled and stopped there for a while. He is an older man, been there a long time and has good experience in "taking care of people." He is a fast-moving body of calm in the midst of the cacophony of transients with much on their minds.

As I made the quick trip, I felt I had been through a time warp. I thought about this feeling, and of all the sensations I was conscious of - as I traveled, as I walked through the airport, as I talked with different people. With my Mom, I watched her blue eyes with their deepening beautiful grey shine, and her hair growing back with those soft curls. As a helper and I went through Dad's clothes and gave them to a friend who could use them, I remembered him in flashes as he wore some of those things - the belt, the shoes, the sweater, asking Mom if this one looked alright. I cried a little as I remembered some of these images, as I felt his presence, his hand patting me on the shoulder as he used to do, smiling a little - that quiet comfort which was his natural way of being and expression. We had a few good laughs, too, as we remembered.