Garden is open, Canon 300D

My friend Susan talks about “miracle walks” in her fabulous books. These are walks you take with no particular destination, in search of beauty, goodness, a little surprise. The amazing thing about them is that just by declaring them a “miracle walk” you always find something special along the way.

Sometimes you end up meeting a friendly dog, sometimes you strike up a conversation with an old man selling oranges, sometimes you see something so beautiful, right in your neighborhood, that you wonder, “Has this been here all along?”

Keri Smith posted an entry recently that spoke of seeing things (and later drawing them) in her neighborhood that others didn’t notice. Maybe she didn’t call it a miracle walk, but I am convinced her eyes (and heart) were open to see the goodness, and that’s what emerged. Like magic.

This garden entrance is only two blocks from my house. I never saw it until yesterday.

2 O’clock Tittie, Canon 300D

Because my husband grew up in San Francisco, he can often tell me the lore of various places we pass by on the street. It is never your usual docent tour of the city. It is mostly told from the perspective of a 10 year old (which I prefer).

“That’s the house we thought was haunted!” or “This hill was called Red Rail, (because of the red railing) and we used to ride our skateboards down it at breakneck speeds.”

There is a church on Gough street that I have always been curious about. To me, it looks like the inside of a washing machine, others refer to it as the “big, ugly one on Gough St.”

But folks in the know, (ie. my husband and other ten year olds in the city) know that it’s really called “2 o’clock tittie”. He confides that at exactly 2:00pm, the church casts a shadow of a female breast.

I happened to be driving past today at exactly 2pm. There it was. The mythic tittie, bare for all eyes to see.

The Mexican Bus, San Francisco, Canon 300D

The famous Mexican Bus once again.

purple flowers, Davis, Canon 300D

Went to our friend Larry’s farm this weekend and soaked up the sun, rode bicycles around town, pet horses, met a goat named Abby, sat in walnut groves, ate popsicles, and got chased by a dog. My friend Susan even got zapped by an electric fence. Oops. (I was about a centimeter away from it at that moment, my camera between the wires, clueless, trying to get a donkey to grin at me.)

I am always amazed to leave the city and discover that the air smells different in the country. It was so fragrant, damp and smoky out there and by night, the stars were like wild bulbs in the sky. (We don’t get to see stars very often.)

The best part was riding in Larry’s tractor at dusk out to the rope swing and pond. The sunset was so pink and luminous and the water so still, that the pond created a perfect mirror. I’m sure the sunset was admiring itself that night.

Teacup Chihuahua, Neiman Marcus, Digital Rebel

This dog was resting in the arms of a sweet man at Neiman Marcus yesterday (shopping with Mom) Apparently he is 3 months old and won’t get any bigger than this, no bigger than a teacup! or maybe a latte mug…

His face was so tender and vulnerable. Why do we find vulnerable things so beautiful?