The Intersection

Every morning, rain or shine (hah! it hasn't rained in this desert even once since we moved here), Matt and I sit on our itsy-bitsy patio. He reads the paper. I move as the mood strikes: read a devotional, stalk my friends on Facebook, grade papers, text with Juan, fold laundry, update my calendar, plan lessons, clip coupons, catch up on email ...

Meanwhile, Matt reads the paper. Every morning, rain or shine. And there are two gifts I receive from his consistency: my busy, what-should-I-do-next self calms down. There's a scene in The Last Samurai in which the main actor dude (the tall Asian guy) gazes at a cherry tree and says, "Some men spend their whole lives in search of the perfect cherry blossom." He pauses for a moment and then turns his gaze to Tom Cruise, and says, "Such a life would not be a waste."

That's the sensation I get when I watch Matt read the paper. Suddenly, nothing is as important as sitting very still.

The other super cool thing about Matt's daily dive into the papers is that he discovers unexpectedly sweet things to do. Yesterday was such a day. We were within minutes of walking to our Tai Chi lesson when he pointed to a little article and said, "We should go see that." What 'that' turned out to be was an intricate sand painting on display at the same museum where we take our lessons. A handful of Tibetan monks spent the last several days painstakingly creating what looks like a huge, beaded medallion out of brightly-colored, fine sand. Today, as soon as they are finished, they will sweep their art away. And although the action of sweeping it away is a comment on the Buddhist belief in the transience of beauty, I prefer to think the beauty is swept out into the universe where it will join other moments of beauty. (I know -- the sand will actually end up in a Hefty bag in a dumpster behind the Asian Pacific Museum, but let me have the dream.)

So after Tai Chi, we watched the monks don their prayer robes and then listened to them pray and chant for over 30 minutes to prepare themselves for the offering of their work. (What might our world look like if we all started our day in such a way as this?) And then, they "painted" by pouring minute amounts of sand into long, gold tubes and then breathing each particle into place.

As we walked back to our apartment, we ran into a friend from church, which was a huge gift. This was the first time we've run into anyone we know in this big, noisy city. The meeting occurred, of course, at a big, noisy intersection ... but we were so grateful for the unexpectedness of it. And for the gift of the Tibetan monks and their art.

I like to think this is the beauty of life -- spending day after day patiently engaging in each and every moment.  Then one day, in the midst of it all, there it is:

The perfect cherry blossom.