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And the ant that I accidentally squish under my shoe.
That teeny tiny ant.
How much smaller are we in this grand universe?

My mother was visiting her mom, my Grandma Betty, at her current nursing home. Every time she visits my Grandma "Buttsy", she usually sends picture texts or videos or random quotes that my Grandma blurts.
Last week she texted me this:
"Some lady at her table just stole her drink and Mom said, “THANK YOU. AND BY THAT, I MEAN THANK YOU FROM ME.” Then she winked at her. ??? Crazy town!!"
I really appreciated my mom using the phrase "Crazy Town" in reference to her mom. For some reason, this tickled me greatly.
So I immediately replied:
“Do you think that one day I will be sending texts to my future daughter about the crazy things you are saying?”
And she texted back:
“Yes.”
This makes me happy and sad at the same time.

SOMETIMES IT IS LIKE THIS: I walk into my bathroom and peer into the mirror and am reminded of my old bathroom, the one with the brass medicine cabinet and flowered shower curtain. The tub had so many scratches and chips that no matter how hard you scrubbed it, it inevitably looked dirty. I shared that bathroom with my sister, and I would sit on the edge of the tub while she built sudsy towers and we would talk about Mom and school. The bathroom rugs were shaggy, and the wall had genuine wallpaper on it, the old kind that yellowed around the edges. With only one small window, and one dodgy lightbulb, it was always dark.
THE THING IS: This memory feels so real and I get so lost in it, that it takes a few minutes of reminiscing before I realize that we never had a bathroom that looked like that. It feels like a trick, except there is only one trickster that could pull something this ornate off.
OTHER TIMES IT CAN BE LIKE THIS: I wake up, but I do not get up, and my vision goes in and out. And then I am remembering an event so vividly it's as if it is a scene from a favorite movie I have seen dozens of times. The people are my friends, my family, but there are subtle differences. Clothing styles will be fifteen years off, and not in a retro way. We will all be interacting like normal, but I will realize that my second grade friend is talking to my college roommate. And I do not mean my friend from second grade is all grown up and in college, too. I literally mean my 8 year old buddy is conversing with someone I met ten years later. No one else appears to notice the discrepancies.

This morning I visited the “Heart of the City” Farmers' Market, located at the Civic Center near the Main Library. I have been to this market hundreds of times, pretty much weekly ever since I moved to SF four years ago. The strange thing is that in all of that time, nothing ever struck me as dirty or unhealthy. Frankly, I have always felt good about shopping local, supporting the farmers, and schlepping big bags chock full of yummy produce home.
Today was different. Today I went early, and instead of just hitting up the three or four favorite farm stands that I normally do, I sought out a section that I had never noticed before. I guess I just usually don't get there that early, and I also avoid the fishmonger end because of the smell. What I saw was a large truck surrounded by yellow crates and a line of about thirty people. The whole right side of the truck was open, and it was filled with wire cages that were squat and stacked on top of each other. They were jammed in, I am assuming to prevent toppling, and a blue tarp covered most of the cages. A person was hidden behind the tarp, at least from my angle, and was continually passing brown bags to the cashier woman. The cashier woman was kneeled in front of the truck side, and she appeared to be very efficient in taking the customers money and handing out one to two, sometimes four, bags. She would shove the brown paper bag into a plastic grocery bag, and if you could have clicked the scene on mute, it is almost as if you would not know what exactly was being sold.

On Saturday, February 27th, I left the hospital with a reluctant feeling of despair. I had been fighting the despair for so long, but for some reason I could no longer resist. I gave in to the maddening. Helplessness. Anger. My windshield wipers whipped almost as furiously as my eyes blinked back the burning tears. I had been diligently praying and waiting for a miracle, and I was sick of being denied. I cursed. I talked to myself and my God, out loud, not caring what other afternoon drivers would think if they happened to look over. Sadness wrestled with rage for dominion.
And then I saw a rainbow. And it wasn't just a sliver of a rainbow, or the beginning of a rainbow, it was a gigantic arc that crossed over the freeway. It was so big that I initially thought it was two separate rainbows entirely. I tried to capture it with my camera phone, while keeping the wheel steady and snapping in between slices of the wipers. I had to pull over. It was stunning and my camera was in the trunk. Can you imagine the hope that surged at that moment? It was a sign, and I worry that people glaze over signs in life, or miss them, or just plain forget to look for them. Suddenly I was smiling, a crazy woman standing in the rain at the side of the freeway, hoping to capture the sign before the clouds covered it or the sun burned it out. Just like that, hope was revived.
24 hours later, she was gone. I couldn't understand it. I didn't want to accept it, and I felt deceived by that beautiful trick of nature. I was misled, by either my imagination or my need for faith, I don't know. The outcome is the truth.
One week later, I look back on that afternoon and I see something else. A symbol of promise that shined above me when I was shadowed in fear and anger. A reminder of life, and love. It shined brightly on Sunday as well, so maybe it was simply a bridge for Laura to go Home. A lovely, magnificent bridge.