so much beauty it can make you cry

I was voraciously reading food not lawns the book by Heather Flores on the bus when the driver said, "Oh, I'm so sick of rain." This was surprising, because it hasn't been all that rainy here lately. The other guy on the bus agreed. I guess I had some kind of telling look on my face because he swung his mirror around to where he could see me and said, "You look pretty happy about it." I said I was, because I had a garden, and it could surely use the rain. "A flower garden, or a real big garden?" asked the driver. I answered that it was indeed a real big garden, and that I had flowers growing also. The driver told me how I was saving money by doing that. "Yeah," I said, "saving money, and eating food that actually has nutrition, and that tastes good." The other bus passenger chimed in and said, "Nothing tastes better than a real garden tomato. Can't buy that taste in a store, anywhere." Well, it might as well have been a revival meeting at that point, with the amens and uh-Huhs, even though it was just us three.

The driver said he was thinking about planting a food garden, because it was less to mow, and with gas getting more expensive all the time...well, he thought he might have to get one of those old-time push mowers. I mentioned that I have one of those, that it isn't that much harder to push than our old mower. Our old one was stolen, and what was the point of getting another one? He asked me, "Are you going green or something?" I wasn't sure exactly what he was talking about, and he said, "You know, riding the bus, growing your own food, using a push mower..." I wasn't sure about that, but told him it might be more of a consequence of being poor. But it does take less natural resources, uh-Huh.

Walking home in the gentle rain, I think about these conversations, connections with human beings that aren't on a screen. It's all good, as Dorothy says, Dorothy being the almost-elderly woman who rides my bus all the time on her way to work at McD's. It's all good. It is. It's so beautiful, connections with FEELING with human beings and plants and everything in between and outside of and inside of all of it. It's indescribable, undeniable. I think the dirt has given my soul a new religion, one without words or feelings of right and wrong, just pure joy, pure appreciation of this world given to us without blemish, in perfect order (being chaos).

Exquisite poverty doesn't exactly describe it, as it focuses on the lack of money in the old perception of life. More an exquisite abundance, of community and life and joy. I'm so blessed. There is so much beauty it does indeed make me cry.

I am so blessed.

sharqi