As the sun peers over the horizon it paints a pink blush with its dismay. It’s discovered the first monsoon rain playing shamelessly over the land, racing unfettered with the wind. It dances and leaps in sheets ringing with joyful laughter as it patters over stones and guffaws out of rain pipes. Celebrating temporary dominion over the relentless dust of summer, it calls the sleeping from their beds to enjoy its cool perfumed kiss.
This is a form of mindful writing called a “small stone”. You can learn about it and read my other Small Stones here.
The barks of a mother overhead announce the dropping of gloves left behind like thunder precludes the rain. Two small boys stand in the guilt and dust as tiny red gloves flutters to the ground from a fourth-floor balcony. Dressed in little gentleman suits and already-crooked ties, their usual enthusiasm is neatly bridled. Neither tries to catch them. The gloves land on the ground with a puff as more mother-barks hammer down like hail. The now-not-so-red gloves are snatched up and quickly stuffed into a pocket to be forgotten again. History, as they say, inevitably repeats itself.
Clouds shuffle their cottony feet along the sky, leaving wispy footprints as they go. Vapors disrupt in white puffs of watery sky-dust plumes. They go trudging along, oblivious to where they step.
Morning comes shyly wrapped in a pastel gossamer gown. Like buttery silk she flows across the eyes. Lavender, gray and subtlest robin egg blue; a misty, smokey, mysterious woman is she. Serene, she’s still pale-star-dusted from her late night dalliance; the barest blush still in her cheeks. Softest wisps of silver-cloud-curls drift as she floats on a temple tapestry of flute, lost in her devotion, off to meet the afternoon.
Watching traffic buzz along like aimless bees, I hear “slap, slap, slap” coming up behind me. I pause a moment before I turn, wondering what this mystery sound could be. “Slap, slap, slap.” My mind frolics with possibilities. “Slap, slap, slap.” Whimsical rainbow fish falling from the sky? “Slap, slap, slap.” A walrus in a hurry? “Slap, slap, slap.” A bear on a bicycle with a flat tire? “Slap, slap, slap.” I turn. A little brown man in a dust-colored sweater, hunched against the cold is hurrying. The sun reflects from his bald dome atop a white ring of hair like an egg. He smiles a toothless smile as he passes. “Slap, slap, slap,” go his slippers as he scurries home. Much better than a walrus in a hurry.
Convened in gentle morning sunlight, the committee’s called to order. Each participant is at its post and eager to begin. Poised and alert. Focused. Third-floor clothes line, second floor balcony, fifth-floor brick jutting from the façade. The straggler waits on the rock wall across the lot. A shrill “pee-deep!” rings out; seconded. A third barks to disagree. Heated squeaking debate rings out. Bushy tails flailing; throes of squirrely conviction, argued. The loudest will prevail; until tomorrow.
Droning tones of call to prayer drift ghostly in unpopulated fog. Eerie specters to the ears roam from home to home. They’re peering in windows, creeping through doors, searching for believers. The cold predawn defies the rule holding people in their beds, but it relinquishes them reluctantly. Duties must be fulfilled.
Steaming teacup promises chill-chasing inside smiles. Black pepper burn, ginger tang and cinnamon kiss dance in milky abandon. Rising from the cup, aromatic bliss teases the nose. Taste buds reach in gleeful anticipation of a spicy hot bath.
