A few of my ponderings from the weekend:

1) Airports are great places for people watching. I can observe the businessman rushing with his leather bag and cell phone firmly attached to ear, the woman on the phone with her boss about an interview, the family with stroller and two small children dragging bags as big as they are (thank heaven for rolling suitcases, huh?!), the lettered athletes with gym bags on the way to a tournament, those running for flights in an attempt not to be left behind. I can sit and imagine the conversation I could have with the army private in the corner, with the older woman crocheting across from me, with the four year who's convinced he could fly the plane as well as any pilot. I am reminded of the city in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities- the one where all the airports start to look like the same city so that you can never escape, and it becomes one huge nightmare. Except that the people in the airport are never the same, so you can have an infinite number of imagined conversations about the various departures and destinations of each and every traveler. It's a small world until you start thinking of the intricacies of each and every one of those in this huge airport, and I am impressed by the bigness of this earth,and intrigued by thinkning of the very different lives each person leads. So amongst the crowd of faces I only know in my head, I smile and swerve around the people waiting in line for Starbucks to try to make it to my terminal on time.

2) What is is about nature that makes people so contemplative? We drove to Santa Barbara one day with the mountains on our right and the beach directly to our left, and I loved it! To be in between both was so amazing! The ideal of strength on one side, and the icon of fluidity and movement on the other. It could have been dangerously overwhelming, but thankfully we were too busy trying to think of how many cities start with the letter "E" to be in too much danger. And while at the beach house, I liked nothing better than to just sit on the rock wall and listen to the waves and the gulls and feel the wind. It was so nice and relaxing and rejuvenating. How wind can stir up one's soul as much as it disturbs one's hair will always be beyond me. Makes you wonder how connected we really are to creation. If we can't feel emotionally moved without some sort of sensual (meanin from the senses, not from sex) inspiration, what about those physical things can be so spiritual? I don't even know, but at least I know it works.