Stacking Rocks, Brendan Fraser and Learning to Listen Again

There's a mild chill in the air across the holler this morning. The creek is raging wildly through town, the result of the huge storms we had last night. It's the sort of morning that gets your blood pumping, simply by walking out in to the day.

I was going to tell ya'll about my Scary Hillbilly Town adventure Friday night, but I need to hold off until some ongoing drama plays itself out. I hate to tell a story without an ending. Instead, I'm going to share something a little different, at least to those of you who've recently joined the ranks of Hidden Mahala readers.

Saturday afternoon I kneeled on the floor in front of my hope(less) chest and removed the lid to my little desert-garden-terrarium-thingie. As I watered the plants, taking care not to get the cacti wet, drizzling the liquid from my china tea cup, I watched how the water hitting the rocks made them twinkle in the sunlight. In my mind's eye, an image from a television show flashed across the screen in my head. I saw a man on the beach in San Francisco, stacking rocks, creating temporary statues at the edge of the surf. In the next instant, I saw the little house here in town where the Indian guy lives, whose yard is lined with little stone stacks which seem to defy gravity.

Feeling inspired, I began to build tiny statues from the pebbles lying around in my cactus garden. I wasn't able to go very high and most of them slid off three or four times before I got it right, but it was kinda neat.. and weird. I wondered how I'd explain myself if the Amazon walked in seeing her mother 42 years old, sitting in the floor playing with rocks and dirt.

Yesterday, I was taking advantage of the Amazon being at work, sitting on the couch with my feet propped up, hogging the t.v. remote all to myself. The brain candy I'd settled on had gone off and was followed by a new Snoop Dog video, which was all retro and freaky, cracking me up. I started flipping through the movie channels.. then I stopped.

The scene was Brendan Fraser, methodically stacking rocks.

I've seen the movie before,"Still Breathing," it's what the Amazon refers to as "one of those fate movies" that I love. Sort of along the same lines as "Serendipity" or even "Dragonfly," that everything happens for a reason. I settled in and watched the whole thing again. No way am I going to ignore such an obvious sign from the Universe to pay attention.

There are a bunch of parallels in this movie to some stuff going on in my life right now, stuff I can't really go in to. I'll just say this: It's exactly what I needed to see, right when I needed to see it.

That's how the Universe works, we just have to learn to pay attention.

Ya'll have a butt kickin' Monday.