Today (still Thursday in California) would have been my cousin Sheri's 64th birthday. Her stained glass sun, created from a sketch of mine, is next to me in the dining room window every day as I write. This afternoon South Pasadena had showers, then a thunderstorm, then pouring rain for more than half an hour. After four weeks of heat and humidity and not a drop of the oft-mentioned "monsoonal flow" through our neighborhood, it was as fitting a birthday gift as I could imagine. The LA Times this morning reported that in the past two days, New Orleans had an inch more rain than Los Angeles for its entire so-called rainy season. Living in a thinly disguised desert, I view rain as a blessing, welcome it, especially when not predicted.
On the 31st, we can all frolic beneath the
blue moon, the last until 2015. Do we make a wish, plan a ceremony, eat cupcakes as an artist friend has announced? It seems we are being called to watch the sky, even if just for a day. I tend to watch it rather more often than that. A rare summer storm may signify nothing, as may the blue moon of song and story. Regardless, both are happenings outside the ordinary which remind me how fond I am of that which falls beyond the ordinary.
