Today our toilet was blowing steam from beneath the closed lid, the tank having mysteriously filled with hot hot hot water and sending out burnt vapor. It sounded and looked like a hell mouth opening up!
It gave me a chance to remember that we are all connected in this building: us tenants, our contractor landlord and his errant knight plumber, and the downstairs ceramic artists who alchemize out of earth, water, air, and fire. We take for granted that most of the time healthy veins and arteries keep things moving in our dear 1870's building.
Recently an oil tanker ran into the Bay Bridge, causing a nasty spill into San Francisco Bay and our coastal waters. People came out in droves to rescue oiled birds and clean up beaches they love so much. Feeling spurred people to action.
Hillary Clinton notably showed great emotion in New Hampshire the other day. For someone so controlled and often sharp edged, she revealed her human frailty by speaking from the heart and nearly crying. That has been the demise of other politicians, but letting people see her real, unscripted self won her some votes.
And here winter rainstorms and high winds have conspired to uproot our trees, wash away embankments, and keep some of us in the dark while PG & E wires us up again. What are we taking for granted in our fast lives? For some, candle light means we talk close and get enough sleep. For others, it's a reminder that technology is one thing, forces of nature another.
Thanks to the water for teaching me about the flow of emotion, how it needs to be released at regular intervals.
