Grace

Random quote of the day:



"She did not tell them to clean up their lives or go and sin no more. She did not tell them they were blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure. She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it."

—Toni Morrison, Beloved



( Illustrated vision. )

The consolation of spring

On this morning's commute I noticed that some wild purple lupins had bloomed beside the road at Ballona wetlands, as well as a dusting of yellow oxalis. I'm sure they weren't there yesterday.

I looked up and across the fields to the raised highway embankment where every year the yellow marguerites burst forth—my personal emblem of spring. Sure enough, as if they'd all heard the same alarm, their eyes had just begun to blink open: a subtle wash of yellow. By tomorrow morning, they'll be fully awake, a blaze of gold beneath the highway.

The marguerites lining Lincoln Boulevard beyond the Los Angeles River hadn't woken yet, just ranks of green, thick and crowding. But they're always later risers than those wildflowers nearer the wetlands. Their ranks fade slower, too, those ephemeral few weeks of glory stretching on to a month, maybe more, as the last ragged partyers straggle back into the earth for the year.

With all the rain we got this winter, the wildflowers throughout Southern California promise to be especially breathtaking. Some consolation, I suppose, for those who need it.

I'll refrain from any cheesy concluding metaphor about it being springtime in America.

Things I'm glad I read wrong

I was scanning the Yahoo News headlines and I thought it said, "Bush shows off his lap dancing skills."

"Oh BARF!!!" says I. But I still clicked on the video. Wow, am I a masochist or what?

Fortunately, he was practicing the soft shoe, not the soft porn.