Meet Me at Waffle House

At 2:30 a.m., I couldn’t sleep any longer.  Cruised into the Waffle House.  All told, six other customers and 2 employees.  The juke box was blissfully quiet.  This usually means everyone is sober.

The dancers from Southern X-posure are sitting there eating and laughing and carrying on like the young girls they are.  Their heavy makeup and false eyelashes still perfect after what must have been a long night.  Me, basically, in my pajamas.  There are two old guys in the back booth behind me.  I’m getting hard of hearing which is starting to annoy me and interfere with my people watching.  I think they were talking about Vietnam, but I couldn’t be sure enough to join the conversation.  Yesterday, March 29, was the Vietnam War Day of Remembrance.

I am sitting in a booth eating my usual: two eggs over easy, wheat toast well done and well buttered, hashbrowns with extra onion, and sausage.  Coffee.  Of course, coffee

The old guys leave first. Sure enough one is wearing a hat emblazoned with Army Veteran.

My waitress, a stunningly beautiful African American woman, offers to pour me more coffee. She is soft-spoken and seems shy. She too is wearing false eyelashes.  Is this a thing now?  Last year it was eyebrows, so I bought an eyebrow pencil.  I think I draw the line at false eyelashes. 

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Call to Prayer

On the wings of a snow white dove, let your heart soar and glide through life like water over rocks filling a lagoon of blue tranquil peace and serendipity. Take a moment to pick up the universal phone and call in your order of good wishes and a bright future. Embrace it all.

Photo by Javardh on Unsplash

Life is good.

Let the sun shine warm on your back as you cross the rocks to step into the azure water where coral wafts and waves, colorful fish weave infinity in the shallows, and the Creator gleams in pride at all that emerged from the primordial nothing of the Zen mind.

On the wings of a snow white dove, spread love and joy. We are not broken, we are perfect and whole — in tune with the frog percussion. and the trill of songbirds in the canopy of majestic trees – the ancient beings.

Love west to the mountains, east to the ocean, north to the colorful lights and south to the equator. Revel in all you’ve been given.

On our deathbed, we will all long to do it again. Everyone has. Everyone does. Everyone will.

It’s a potluck, a smorgasbord, a feast of such intensity that we can be blinded by it. Don’t. Keep your eyes open, put on the rose-colored glasses, and sally forth in harmony with your neighbor, with your enemy, with that person you don’t know. Love one another as I have loved you.

The desiderata – you are a child of the universe – oh, yes, I am. Born of stardust and the creative energy of millennia. I am. I will.

It’s what makes us human but long for creature comforts. We are sentient, but we are also just one of many life forms. Let us all live together as we forage our way as hunters and gathers of love to our inevitable transformation back to stardust and creative energy.

On the wings of a snow white dove, let us inspire those who come after us to fix the damage we cause and to enjoy the perfection of life in balance.

Oh Lord, hear my prayer.

My name is. . .

Hello.

My name is Connie Kinsey.

Enough with bitchin’ and moanin’.

Prepare to laugh.

I am often funny without intending to be.  However, with that said, I do have a goofy streak and I’d much rather laugh than the alternative.  I have always infused humor into everything I do – it’s my interface with the world, but I’ve noticed something the past few years:  I have been whining far too much.  I blame the Great Pandemic of 2020 and COVID.  Things have been bad.  And then they got worse.  And then they got dire.

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Twenty-nine Palms

I expected to love the desert.

I was born in Twenty-nine Palms, California which is part of the Joshua Tree National Forest. 

Robert Plant wrote a song titled 29 Palms. 

I feel the heat of your desert heart
(Feel the heat of your desert heart)
Leading me back down the road that leads back to you
.

We left that part of California when I was very small.  I have no memory of the place.  We did drive through the Painted Desert on our way back from Hawaii, but it was night and didn’t leave much of an impression.

Thus, I hadn’t seen my birthplace since a year or so after my birth. 

I had the opportunity nine years ago to go there and I did.  I have a photo of me at what was basically the Visitors Center for Twenty-nine Palms.  For some reason, they had a metal sculpture of Cinderella’s pumpkin coach. 

I am not making this up.

I have a photo.

The Cinderella Coach was the highlight.  Well, it tied with the small oasis. 

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