Through Kathy's eyes
The air is dry; the sun impossibly bright. I feel that disoriented, floaty feeling that comes from being a transient sort of person. A person who often finds myself a flight away from home. Family and friends are impossibly far away. No one in this town knows me.
And I have a little too much free time on this particular day. So I wander around.
It’s a perfect little town for wandering. Shops full of trinkets, independent bookstores, pet shops with locally made dog treats, sweet local cafes and ice cream parlors and bakeries at every turn. I walk into one store, and out again…into the next one, and out…and again…
On and on I go, my mind wandering as much as my feet. I wander into a crystal shop. Enormous. Pristine. White walls, white shelves, one wall of exposed brick. Pops of color and sparkle with each carefully placed item.
The store is cared for by a woman, maybe 65 years old, tattoo-laden biceps peeking out from under her short-sleeved black dress, a blondish-grayish bob dusting her shoulders. Our eyes meet and we smile at each other when I first walk in.
The only customer in the store, I make my way around. I stop to admire each display; to pick up one crystal after another, feeling their rough edges, watching them catch the light, mesmerized by the prisms bouncing around the room.
I pause at a table of jewelry next to the cash register. I finally speak. “Wow. Everything here is so beautiful.”
The shopkeeper smiles and says, “Thank you. Is there something in particular you’re looking for?”
“Not at all,” I reply. “I’m just wandering around sort of aimlessly! I’m visiting from New York City.”
“Oh!” she says, brightening. “How long are you here for?”
We continue to chat. I learn her name is Kathy.
Kathy and I talk for awhile. Easy conversation that feels like it had been waiting for us.
Her eyes sparkle and her voice gets more and more excited as she tells me about all the things I should do while I’m in town.
Suddenly, she practically interrupts herself as she remembers something.
“Oh!!!” she exclaims. “You must visit my favorite meditation garden!”
“Oh yeah?” I ask. “Tell me more!”
“Oh, yes, you can walk there from here, it’s so close by,” she gushes, as she continues on, giving me directions.
“And bring a date,” she adds with a mischievous grin. “This place will tell you if they’re right for you. Because anybody who doesn’t love this meditation garden? Dump ‘em. That’s how you’ll weed ‘em out.”
I laugh. I am so genuinely tickled. I love that she assumes that I’m dating. I love that she assumes that I’m dating as a visitor in another town that’s not my own. I love that she imagines me stepping right into her world, making room for someone else beside me, in a hidden, special gem of a meditation garden. A meditation garden that they better like, or they’re outta here.
Eventually, I continue on my way, thanking Kathy for the lovely chat.
“Don’t forget to visit that garden!” she says as I walk toward the door.
“I’m heading there right now!” I respond. “Thank you so much!”
“Come back and see me again. Let me know how much you love it!”
I nearly walk all the way through the meditation garden before I realize I’m actually in it.
I laugh out loud. It’s a laugh of such pure enjoyment. It’s too good.
Kathy’s meditation garden is little more than a small patch of greenery (brownery, really) along a sidewalk on the back side of an industrial park.
It’s the bench that tells me. When I stumble upon it, I think, what a strange place for a bench.
That’s what makes me pause, look around, and realize, this is it. This is Kathy’s meditation garden.
The longer I stand there, the more it reveals itself as I look past the dumpsters and the trash cans and the cigarette butts and the cars parked right up against it and the nondescript office building that could be easily plucked out of Anytown, USA. None of it fits the charm of the town I had just spent half the day wandering. Nothing is manicured or carefully pruned. It’s a tangle of maybe-intention and definitely-accident. The kind of thing that happens when no one is trying too hard. The uneven concrete path under my feet snakes gently between pockets of greenery that feel like they planted themselves into the gravel on a dare. Wildflowers crowd together, chaos-gardened on either side of the path; some waist-high, and others barely above the grass. A bee or two wobbles lazily from bloom to bloom.
I sit on the bench. The sun cuts across my lap as I imagine bringing my “date” to Kathy’s meditation garden. Imagining them saying, “Why did you bring me to this parking lot?”
Imagining Kathy’s voice in my head: Dump ‘em. Weed ‘em out.
I smile as I close my eyes, tilting my face toward the sun, feeling its warmth.
My thoughts begin to wander again. Wondering what time it is. Wondering whether the crystal shop is still open. Whether Kathy really brings people here, or just comes by herself for a quiet moment.
Without any particular intention, I fall into something quieter. Something still. My breath slows down. The air smells like dry grass and coffee. I hear a bird call, once, and then again, and then forget to keep listening.
It sneaks up on me; the bench, the sunlight, the wildflowers. All holding out their hands and saying, Rest. We’ve got you.
The moments stretch long enough for the sun to have moved and the world to have quieted around me.
Then suddenly: the cough of an engine behind me, a delivery truck grumbling to life. A door slams. Laughter. The hiss of a lighter and the smell of cigarette smoke.
The spell breaks, gently but surely.
I blink my eyes open.
I stand up, ready to wander on my way. Looking back at the bench, I imagine Kathy bringing her lunch here. Bringing her dates here. Sitting…closing her eyes…taking breaths.
I promise myself I’ll go back to the crystal shop and let Kathy know I visited her beloved spot. As I walk away, I say a quiet thank you to her, for inviting me to see beauty as she sees it.
Because some things are curated under perfect conditions, on display and objectively beautiful. And others show up chaotic and unkempt, hiding behind office buildings, daring you to find them beautiful anyway.
And anybody who dares to find Kathy’s meditation garden anything other than beautiful?
Dump ‘em.
Love this piece! Thanks for sharing it.
beautiful! Thanks! Maybe the meditation garden looks better in June?