seeing

When I first glanced at this picture high up on a wall in a Mexican burrito shop in the North Park neighborhood of San Diego late Saturday afternoon I saw a woman’s face. There were many paintings and other pictures on the shop’s walls, almost all faces with some distortion in the most interesting way. This just one more face in the crowd. But, I came back to this particular picture three or four times before I saw what I see so easily right now – a pair of dancing dragons.

Maybe you saw them right away, and the fact is it’s a bit easier close up, on eye level. Still – if you follow along on my often nutty posts here in Couch Surfing at 70, you know that I’ve had a thing for dragons lately, say the last few months. Dragons have found a way into this Blog, into poems I’ve written, into conversations I get to have with strangers sometimes. It’s pretty much a Zen thing, all the dragons, so you’d think I’d notice a couple right away, but, then, the details of my slip-sliding mind aren’t the point here. There may be no point at all. Feels more about what I see, and how long I have to look to really see. Which sort of takes the wind out of me saying to someone explaining something to me – “Ya, I see.” Perhaps there’s a more truthful response – “Yeah, I’ll see what your saying a few minutes from now. Or hours.” Actually, the trickster in me thinks that would be a very cool way to respond to anything anyone says to me anytime from right now this moment into the distant decades.

Possibly you noticed I slipped in the adjective “dancing” when describing this fun-loving couple. Maybe you see “fighting”, though I’ll feel sad for you if you do. Or, the yummy phrase “making out” shows up in your wide-open mind before anything else. Lucky.

I see dancing, now that I’ve seen the dance partners. Oh yeah – slow dancing.

How cool is that!!