I bought these earrings myself.  $25.  Church silent auction.  They’re butterflies – something anyone who keeps up-to-date with on this blog realizes is a favorite symbol of mine.

But despite the lack of cost (and let’s face it, almost lack of diamond), there’s something about being able to tell myself that I bought my first diamond earrings all by myself.  There’s something in that message that I’ve always found empowering.

I find many jewels beautiful, but the diamond has this reputation that’s hard to shake as being a gemstone of worth in society.  My earrings are certainly not like the baubles on the fingers of celebrities that roam this town.  And that’s fine.  I grasp not at the diamond as this visual object since obviously most people would likely not see them in my earrings without squinting (maybe), but rather how much this fraction of something could hold more worth than even the largest diamond.

Don’t get me wrong.  If someone wanted to give me the Cullinan diamond I wouldn’t necessarily say no, but my desire for that would be monetary.  I don’t love these earrings because they’re $25.  I love them because they remind me that no matter where I am in life and the future, achievements don’t have to be grand; they don’t even have to glimmer like diamonds in the sun to be worth more than even the largest diamond in the world.

Ultimately you define for your own self what it means to be successful and happy.  If it’s about getting the largest diamond in the world (or heck – the universe!), by all means go ahead, but remember the steps that took you there and enjoy every minute of the journey as if they were tiny diamonds you bought all by yourself.

-cct

Yesterday I was heading home late from work and waiting for the train.  I was listening to my music – a little Mana to haunt me since  I wasn’t able to see them when they rolled into the town the last few days.

I reluctantly paused my music when a man next to me started making small talk – let’s just call him GED teacher…if that’s what he really is.

He worked for a federal GED program teaching high school drop-outs, so we talked about education and I asked if he had heard about the LAUSD/10% homework news.  We talked about how students really need to do work outside of class and make education a priority.  He mentioned that he had his doctorate in education and how he told this story to his students to hopefully motivate them because he actually came to this country as an illegal immigrant.  He mentioned that he and his wife – they had since divorced – had made education a priority over kids so that they could both work on their education.

I suppose he didn’t think that I would notice that sometime in our conversation, he tried to switch his gold band wedding ring from his left hand to his right hand’s pinky – even though he did this in front of my face as we were talking.

It was one of those conversation that had to continue on since we were on the same train, else I would’ve been rude.  So we continued talking about education and I just asked him about the different types of students he had.  I left the train and wished him luck with his students.

I turned my iPod back on with Mana continuing to play as if I had never left the comfort of my musical world….

…except GED teacher had gotten off the train to ask me for my number.

Me: I’m sorry.  I don’t give my number out.

GED Teacher: (flustered) I’m actually a happily married man…

As he says this, he tries to do another wedding ring switch or show me his wedding ring…

GED Teacher: …and am just looking for contacts of people in education…

Me: Oh, I don’t work in education.

And I left – I left feeling really sad for the world and sad for singular stories.  There was the singular story of the woman not in the conversation, the one he’s “happily” married to and probably doesn’t know that he does this wedding band switch-a-roo.  The story of a man who may or may not even be a GED teacher, who feels that not only can he say he is divorced, but also blatantly try to both create this lie and untangle himself from the lie in front of my face.  At no time did I give any impression that I might be interested in this man, let alone for him to get himself into a crazy lie in a 10-15 minute conversation where I kept my arms crossed and myself distant.

I don’t fault people for taking chances.  I don’t think people take enough chances in this world.  But to do so at the expense of your own integrity, at the expense of a marriage – a lifelong commitment -  that you can claim is happy after you try and pretend it doesn’t exist?  That just makes me sad.

-cct

Cameras flash at Madame Tussauds – faux celebrities are almost the real thing, right?

Pass by Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, compare your footprints with them – celebrities who walked on the air of fame past and present.  How do your hands compare against theirs?  How do your feet?  If they match, is your joy because you are almost like them or that you see that they are more like us – who exist on the fringe of red carpets and lit ceremony?

Walk on the Walk of Fame pavement – remember the crowd that gathered in droves to see Michael Jackson’s star, laying to rest a fountain of flowers and gifts, mementos and memory.  See it today: one woman, feet perched on the star, one camera to capture a memory far from the moment you remember before.

How did time move forward so quickly?

A car is stopped at the light between Hollywood Boulevard and Orange, a large dark SUV.  Two blondes sit in the front, an unknown number of passengers in the back.  The blonde on the passenger side has a row of dark tattoo lettering bright across her arm; she talks to a group on the street as if she knows them.

Maybe she does?  Maybe they do.

She asks about something on one of their shirts, approving of the logo, the expression, the phrasing…  Whatever it is, does it matter? Sometimes approval is all you need in this town.

Earlier, on the same street,  a stretch limo drove by.  Think bigger.  Hummer H2 with an open back, as if it were taking its passengers on safari – into the wilds of Hollywood people-watching armed with bottle service and disco lights.

A young woman walks down Orange dressed in a purple ball gown complete with hooped skirt.  Remember Donna in 90210, the prom episode?  Except not that awkward.  Her entourage follows her tiara-crowned figure in jeans and t-shirts.  Her mother is among her people.  Is she wondering “where did my little girl go?”  or “can it be tomorrow yet?”

And I sit in the corner coffee shop, not studying.

-cct

“I was sitting out in a lawn chair – no shirt, no shoes…that’s probably too much information, but I don’t wear this robe seven days a week!  It was a wonderful summer day.  I was reading through a couple of different books in preparation for my sermon this morning, but while I was sitting there – this beautiful butterfly started flying all around me. [...] It was softly dancing in the air [...] it was lovely.  At first it landed near my feet, and then it flew off again.  And then it landed on the arm of my chair, and then it flew off yet again.  And that’s when it happened, I’m sitting in the chair, and this one beautiful, elegant butterfly [...] it landed right on my chest, right over the place of my heart.”

Sunday’s reading was on the Prodigal Son and Rev. Colglazier’s sermon focused on the art of forgiveness.  In order to forgive, we have to love.  What does this have to do with a butterfly landing on the heart?  Essentially that God is like a butterfly, looking for a place to land in our hearts, and that we just have to let God in.

There’s always something about butterflies that have made their way into a definition in my life.  I love butterflies because they transform from something else, they’re beautiful for a limited-time only, and they come-and-go as reminders that life can happen in glorious moments.  There’s something about them that evokes a bit of magic.

Perhaps the magic of the story continued on that day because the other great symbol of my life – the heart – made an appearance.  This was after a great Bach Festival rehearsal and I was walking home.  I looked down on the path and saw a perfectly heart-shaped leaf.  I looked around and saw that the plant it came from didn’t really have heart-shaped leaves.

I know the association of the girl and the love of hearts and butterflies meets a million cliches, but the heart is just this beautiful symbol to me because it represents love, which I firmly believe is something that can change the world.

So in looking back on that day of a butterfly landing and a heart-shaped leaf, I was trying to piece together what it all might mean as a whole.  I’ve decided that just as important as it is to let God and love into your heart, it’s just as equally important to trust in God in every step because you never know when love will find you like an unexpected heart on a well-worn path.

-cct

Zip It

Once upon a time my sink led me on a crazy adventure (see - La Vida de Caridad: Everything and the Kitchen Sink).  Apparently, my sink likes to be the center of attention in my life.  It likes to do things like accidentally let a bag of tea fall in and then proceed to clog for a week despite drano and a plunger.  Okay…so maybe the ‘accidentally letting a bag of tea fall in’ was my fault, but it didn’t have to go and be mean about it.

Today – while I had dough mixing in my bread machine in Christmas Eve cooking mayhem – I dashed out to the store to find something and discovered Zip-It.  It’s a flexible piece of plastic with jutting gro0ves that pick up things in the drain.  No, this isn’t some infomercial for it…it actually worked.

And it got me to thinking…

…in my previous ‘Sink’ adventure I didn’t know exactly what I needed and I went around trying a million things – creating contraptions – before it finally rested on the good ole plunger.  In this sink adventure, I knew what I needed, but didn’t know where to get it or how to describe it.  Not to mention, I was so caught up in life that I didn’t go out to get it.  It wasn’t as if the sink wasn’t working entirely…it was just working decently enough that I didn’t give myself a crazy adventure to find it.

But I did find a solution.  The only mayhem I endured was a clogged sink and last-minute holiday shoppers.

As it is, this may just have been one of my more ‘quiet’ adventures that have gotten written down.  Though it may seem odd – given the sheer amount of stories in my ‘La Vida de Caridad’ series where I am constantly spending 150% – I think I like quiet adventures more.  They might not be the craziest of stories, but they’re certainly more manageable and you can have a lot of quiet adventures that brace you for the crazy ones.

And I also think that it’s the quiet, everyday life events that mean the most in the long run because their quiet quality usually means there’s a nice resolution.  It’s a toss up when it comes to a crazy adventure.

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s a guarantee that there are more crazy La Vida de Caridad adventures to come, but just to be sure I say it at least once – the quiet is nice too.

-cct