Crevice and Bougainvillea in Progress

At any one time, I have about four or five works-in-progress, playing musical chairs on the easel, walls or floor. My Sunday hiking partner saw this piece on the easel and blurted out, Vulva!, then blushed and giggled like an adolescent though he has 5 decades. I agreed that it looks like that, but it's actually a crevice in a hill on El Pescador beach in the Malibu/Zuma area with imagined blowing petals of Bougainvillea from my backyard.

Toward the end of our Sunday hike, on what was a very crowded trail at Los Leones in the Palisades, I felt a bit dizzy and couldn't climb all the way to the top, even though I had just found out that it was my Sunday hike partner's birthday. As we made our way down the hill, an unmasked girl looked up at me with big loving eyes, as did her small dog, and shortly after we passed one another, the overwhelming waves of bliss took me over again, only this time they didn't stop at the heart, then went from the crown, through the throat to the heart to my belly and all the way down to my toes. My hiking partner had to help me to his car, and once in, I marvelled at the packed beach on PCH from Sunset to the pier, only inches between people so elated to be out in the sun after so long cooped up during this pandemic. I was a noodle, my entire body flooded with love for every person, every tree, every little piece of trash we passed. Because my hiking partner lived for years in an ashram he knew exactly what I was going through, while asking for a little narration, and through some of these beautiful waves, I was clenching my teeth in resistance. My body could only be described as a noodle, limp and surrendered to these relentless waves of bliss. He got me home, and I got myself in the tub and submerged myself, after barely managing to get Alice Coltrane's Satchitananda on the stereo. I lay my entire head, face, nose, mouth back in the water. The waves continued, and well after the 45 minutes in the tub. Once they were "over" they remained very gently in the background. Monday was like a hangover/afterglow. Today, Tuesday,, I feel "normal" but also surely in the midst of some kind of transformation. Every stranger I interacted with today-- the framer, who said he would frame a print for me for free! the florist, the cafe guy who handed my sister and me the bag, the small store I bought old spotted bananas in-- everyone was kind and  generous hearted and it just felt special to be alive right now during this time in our history as humans.