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Sizing the Shell

A potential wedding dress arrives in the mail, and just like my dream last week, it’s at least two sizes too big.

I take a break from how to alter silk and ruffles, overcome with a compelling urge to give another try at rendering our turtle. In case, you’re new to the Archives, a painted turtle wandered into our yard last week and she has become the latest member of the family.

Her name is Zelva (the Bohemian helped with the Czech name for ‘turtle’), and on her first night with us I was artistically inspired. Never meant to be a realistic interpretation, (more fantastical, really, as I couldn’t get the Grateful Dead’s “Terrapin Station” out of my head) I played with color and lines.

But Zelva has had more to show me since that first night. There’s not much to do with a turtle except sit with it in the sunshine and watch every deliberate movement. She’s a natural mystic in perpetual meditation. And these backyard lawn sessions have given me more time to contemplate her shell.

So while the white Neiman Marcus dress hangs in the bedroom saying I’m a size four not an eight, I’m at the kitchen table trying a second take on Zelva’s little turtle body. There’s a bit of fantasy in both of these shells I’m trying to size. The wedding dress will have some kind of veil and the turtle, well, her likeness gets a little gold marker bling.

It’s summertime with turtles, wedding dresses and late night art projects. And just some mysterious thread I’m following.

Zelva, take one
Zelva, take two
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Day One in California

We sleep on the plane
off and on
in the emergency aisle
(we gave the verbal ‘yes’ that we were ‘willing, able and qualified’)
while the “Big Miracle” plays
silently
on a small screen

In LAX at 4am
we walk past the posting
‘NO RETURN BEYOND THIS POINT’

Muhammad rents us our car
and on the LA Freeway
I see the Bohemian’s face
for the first time
in new terrain
outside the Kauai bubble
where we met

he looks different
and the same
on fresh soil
or should I say
cement

It’s half price omelette
at the Omelette Parlor
with free coffee refills
and Journey
singing
‘Don’t Stop Believin’

7am and we’re walking down Venice Beach boardwalk
there’s a rising stir
of well-dressed joggers
and dingy fringe-dwellers
Starbucks restrooms are for customers only
an Alphonse Mucha painting offers tarot readings
graffiti reminds
‘the Universe is by your side’
the doors to ‘Ray’s Freak Show’ are closed
the beach bathroom has shit by the wall
and the dolphins are jumping
just off the coast in the distance

we walk down to the water’s edge
almost alone in a city of five million
we find peace
in the hush of hissing waves
settle down in sand
and take a short snooze

an hour later
and worlds away
we follow a friend
to the Shrine
sit quietly amongst
saintly turtles
endless roses
waterfalls
enlightened masters
“be still and know that I am god”

a stranger and I stand
at the ‘spiritual wishing well’
but today the well is dry
when he inquires
as to where he can make a wish
he is directed right back
to the waterless well
where the woman says
“I guess you need to seed it”
he throws in a nickel
I throw in a dime

all before 11am
Day 1 in California

photos Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

 

 

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Karate Chops, Big Rock and a Wedding

The Bohemian and I step away from domestic home routine. Pack some snacks and a beer and head to the beach to watch the sunset. Look at seaside vacation rentals and dream of wedding locations.

We look for that one house he went to – the one where they had a DJ on the deck and a dancing bride and groom. We find the big, dirt square in the lawn where the house once sat, and realize that now, it’s simply gone. Vanished.

We set out our blanket, eat our tortilla chips. Watch the family nearby practice martial arts moves on each other. Head butts that stop just short. Fake karate chops to throats. They go on like this for an hour.

We wander up the one lane road that winds along the ocean. Watch the sky turning pink. Round a corner and see one table set out on a seaside point. Eight chairs, tiki torches and photographers. Looks like a simple wedding. A small group sitting among lava rock and lapping waves. The caterer’s parked nearby with a barbecue grill on the back of her pick up truck.

Our feet trace the road. Ocean on one side, lush cliff side on the other. We find a big rock by the water and sit.

Then we hear the rumble. Look up to see the movement in the grass along the mountain. The earth shakes.

We go towards the sound and find a good size boulder has landed squarely in the road.

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

The sky is not falling, it’s the mountain that is crumbling to the sea. And we’d been walking in the fall-out zone only moments before.

Demolished houses, martial arts and rolling boulders. A wedding banquet off the back of a truck.

These are just the sights we see on one evening when we dare to shake routine, adventure out our own front door.Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved