Parrots

Went up to the Getty today.  Which is always kind of the best place.  The grounds, for one, but there’s that one room.  That’s what gets me.  And there was a new Degas. It was so peaceful looking at that, and I felt all of the things I hope to feel.  

Like about all of life and how these things happen and mean so much.  Seeing one of my very best childhood friends the other week and just getting to sit with her, and when we’re together it’s like my life is with me, and something really deeply understanding, and it makes sense, and how Bethany came over to Venice to visit me at work the other day and we went to Gjelina for lunch which is the place to go and it’s no wonder, that was just too good, like how do you make cauliflower make me melt and food nourishes the soul type of good.  Even though I always feel a little bit like I’m-in-sixth-grade-and-not-quite-cool-enough-because-there’s-something-I-don’t-know-but-I-can’t-figure-out-what whenever I go anywhere in Venice.  

And it was just good to go out and eat with Bethany again.  Explorer friend.  

Sometimes, I think, we just don’t have enough time for all of this.  Like, practically speaking, maybe eight times of ten, eighty years.  And then, so, we’re very young until ten.  That’s the first part.  Just being very young.  And that’s the best time.  Pretty much.  Well, for me, because you’re just not thinking about it all so much.  Running around in the yard and trips to Illinois on the train to my grandparents' with that funny basement with a pool table and stationary bike and some big dead fish on the wall with a really sharp pointy long nose sword thing.  Maybe a swordfish?  And the summers in Corona del Mar, beaches and relatives and mom laughing and boardwalks and dancing to jazz with dad.  And ice cream bars melting and falling in love with running around. 

And then the next ten. They go to twenty.  All of the ten to twenty years that are probably the most confusing (you think. Oh lord, but you don’t know.) and pretty beautiful and activity and trees and snow and summers and falls and winters and jumping in the rivers and dancing and birthday parties on the hillside and books and tears and parents and falling asleep by the fireplace and wondering about everything (like stars) and middle school and high school and pizza and running around still and college and stuff.  And thinking you know, somewhere toward the end of it.

And then twenty to thirty.  Thinking you know by now and not knowing anything still, really.  And love.  And everything.  Then just everything.  And questions and sadness and loss and beauty, still beauty, maybe more, because it means more, because you recognize it.  Beauty just to live.  Chomping at all of these things and work and gathering living and I don’t know.

And then it”s cloudy and the little green parrots are chirping in the trees. 

Then it’s another morning and it’s one more day behind me and it’s I get scared again at how fast it's going.