So long, for awhile

The cowbirds are singing and the seagrapes are in full bloom and we've even got wild green parrots waking us up at six in the morning. A little sad to be leaving such sweet sounds and pink puffy evening clouds and fiery orange balls at sunset and mostly my dear family and friends.

Miami Beach, South Beach, North Beach, Downtown. When I return, it will be to July humidity with explosive afternoon storms that build from dark gray and purple cumulus and wall clouds and pool-like warm turquoise seas filled with colorful styrofoam bananas and rafts and sailboats and sexy south Beach sirens in tiny bikinis. When I return there will be brand new million dollar high rise condos with posh boutiques, and the summer crowd will be out there walking Lincoln Road in their choice of ugly crocs or ugly thongs, sipping raspberry smoothies to beat the relentless 90 degree temperatures that will linger through September.

On Wednesday, I will be exchanging turquoise and green for red, orange and tan for just a little while. I think that a change of climate and altitude and the sights and smells and quietness of a very different world are necessary for the soul's nourishment. If living across the street from the Atlantic Ocean is a privilege. visiting the desert and its denizens is an even greater one for me. It is a chance to make the crazy world go away for just a little bit, to forget about war and greed and pollution and to get fresh again, to learn new ways of healthier living and to be able to carry the knowledge back to help all the people who grace my life.

On Lincoln Road, outside of Starbucks Hear Music this morning, I met a young man selling pieces of colorful Florida glass that he had wrapped in silver wire. I asked him his price for wrapping since I always come home with prize desert specimens. He said that I could pay whatever I wanted as long as he covered his $5 charge for the silver wire. That his joy was making the wrappings and touching the glass and colorful stones.

He was a thin guy, wearing old jeans and a torn t-shirt. His ears were pierced as was his tongue and eyebrows and his eyes told a story of a difficult life. I opened my handbag and showed him a sampling of the jaspers and opal and quartz I find out West and his eyes fairly popped out when he saw my little orange ball filled with horn-shaped pecos diamonds. He held it in his palm, staring as if it were the Hope Diamond. I decided that he and the stone would be good for eachother, so I closed his palm around it, telling him to take care of it. As I walked away, he was saying, "Oh, my God, this is beautiful!",and I could still hear him saying that by the time I reached the end of the block.

Medicine is not necessarily something you swallow. Today, that little orange pecos diamond was medicine for both the giver and the receiver.

I will be back at this post in July. Best Wishes.