I saw a falling star tonight. After the last of it burned out, I remembered that you�re supposed to wish on falling stars. (You are supposed to wish on them right?) And then I thought, oh, what to wish for� should I wish that Brian was a better boyfriend? Should I wish that I could just get over him once and for all? Should I wish that I had more friends, or that I didn�t feel like I was losing them right and left? Should I wish for a tumor on my pituitary gland, or for glaucoma? Before I could decide what to wish for, it seemed like minutes had passed. I felt like I had passed the statute on wishing and I hadn�t even remembered to throw in the requisite world peace.
I wake up in the morning and I wish that my optic nerve cells were like pebbles that I could count. How many did I lose yesterday? How many are left? I�m hyper aware of all that I see, wondering what I would miss seeing the most (if it comes to that). Some things are so clich�, but they are beautiful aren�t they? Like sunsets and the ocean. Mountains and flowers. I love watching babies. I love watching their eyes as they view the world. You can actually see them forming thoughts, trying to sort out the world. They can be amazed at seeing their own hand move, put them in front of a window watching moving traffic, or even a fish tank and they are transfixed.
Yesterday, I sat in a restaurant watching moving traffic. Traffic is not very interesting and it�s certainly not beautiful, but I was transfixed. Maybe it was the rhythm that traffic seemed to beat. I couldn�t hear the sound of it, but even now I can imagine it � some zinging and whooshing. I can see the cars and imagine where people are going, who they are going to see when they get there, are they happy to be going there or sad. Vision inspires imagination. It creates wonderment. It�s entertainment for me. Each thing that I see launches a thousand thoughts, a thousand dreams, a thousand wishes. It�s just that I can�t seem to think of those wishes when I see a falling star.
In Southern California, the population is so dense that it�s hard to see the stars. Much harder still to see a falling star, something transient, just a matter of luck to be looking in the right place at the right time. And now that it�s been many hours since I saw it, I know that I wish for more, more stars, more cars, more sunsets, oceans, mountains and a lot more babies smiling mesmerized by the sight of it all.
