Flirting with God by Pamela Francis
A light, unexpected rain
(who am I kidding, it wasn’t unexpected. I’ve been a student of astrology for 40 years and I know what moon in Taurus plus Jupiter in Scorpio divided by sun in Aquarius equals)
fell in Los Angeles and the blue sky filled up with fluffy, white cloud formations that came together and breezed away creating all kinds of shapes and peep-holes around the ever present California sun.
As I climbed the stairs at the school where I teach,
(hands full of lunch salad, bottled water, left over sushi circles from this morning’s I-can’t-wait-til-lunch-I-want-to-eat-this-now binge-fest, and treats for my high performers in 5th grade math),
I dared to look up
(instead of at my feet to make sure I made it up those stairs)
at the sky overhead
(delightfully, our school is outdoors, as are most in Cali),
and there the sky winked at me through a diamond-shaped eye of sun and cloud.
I blushed
(as though that fine, gray-bearded gentleman who owns the Italian restaurant across the street from my house had just told me I looked beautiful today again),
and looked away, making eye contact with the top of the stairs. This was the 2nd time today that the Creator and I had shared an intimate moment that left me smiling gently to myself and marvelling at my good fortune.
The first time had been at around 7:45am when I was cresting the hill at Chesley and Angeles Vista, winding my way through Windsor Hills on my way to work. The palm trees, from that height, stood in an organized and majestic huddle, their tops shrouded in morning mist. A virtual orchard of fruitless beauty. So like L.A., I murmured to myself, as I thought of all the unsold scripts, unproduced films and fallen through projects of my own breathless and promising but sub-par career.
A panoramic sweep of my gaze to the left brought downtown L.A. into focus.
Some call that a city, I giggled, as the
(10-building’d?)
skyline
(pitiable in comparison to the NYC I’d grown up in, was schooled in, played in, and shot music videos in at all hours of the morning, noon, night and dawn),
came to mind.
But still… it is 88 degrees. In late January. And on the way to work, instead of hanging on for dear life to the cold silver poles and overhead straps of public transportation… instead of trying to balance like an urban surfer on shaky footing rumbling over clackety tracks where Super Rat dodges the third rail beneath the iron horse known as the 5 train to Baychester, I find myself… in my 2016 Jeep Compass, dropping off my kiddo, flipping on my Sirius radio, gliding through the Brady Bunch-esque neighborhoods of my morning commute…
flirting with God. ; )
Tags: #best coast, #east coast transplant, #I love L.A., #I'll go back but only if I'm filthy rich like Kelly Ripa
