landfills & the mineral mind

Virginia Woolf said a room of one’s own, but sometimes all you need it a moment of one’s own.

This is how I feel – trodden by SF’s cement, concrete hillsides.

“But the hills are where the landfills aren’t,” the locals will tell you.

Did you know the flatlands of San Francisco were built upon landfills? One local said with sand; the other local said with trash.

Well – we all fill land somehow.

My wineglass, the bar top at Scala Bistro, 6pm waning light and baroque ceilings; my glass is filled with St. Francis Cabernet Sauvignon.

“Is this seat taken?”

My monkey mind scrambles for an answer and there’s a whole new conversation to eavesdrop on, questions and answers and the male counterpart in the couple orders the same St. Francis red and I feel some sort of affinity.

How strange, the levels of familiarity that you can feel with a stranger. The lady counterpart of the couple asks, “Do you have any soup?” and again I feel oneness with this couple next to me. Oneness in the manifestation of having the same taste.

The universe creates no accidents.

What is it about sneakers stamping concrete that sends cement ripples up your spine? Avoiding cracks in sidewalks like your mother’s spine depends on it… my brain feels like a tumbled stone, smoothed by being shaken in an enclosed cylinder all day.

Unfortunately my mind is not a mineral and I have no piece to palm, no worry stone to rub my thumb over. The pressure points in my finger feel their way to pen and paper. And this is how the rippled matter of my mind smoothes over.