time circles

The Son in Santa Monica

| Flower Roberts

One of the happiest parts of my childhood was spent in Santa Monica, California. My father was sent there for some training, so we went with him. We lived in a magical place, the Embassy Hotel and Apartments. It is now called the Palihouse. This complex is Spanish colonial revival style with stucco walls and a red tile roof.

My sis and me in front of the Embassy.

The courtyard was full of exotic plants. We loved walking through this space that felt like a jungle. Our apartment was on the second floor with a balcony facing the ocean.

Our balcony is just above the wishing well.

My son went back there today. He stood on the steps where my sister and I stood over fifty years ago. He and his friend walked along that same path to the front door.

Time circle.
Same steps, different generation

I always dreamed of returning there, but having my son there seems even more thrilling. My heart is full of gratitude that both he and I got to be in this same magical space at different times. That is what time does. It circles back to what was loved most.

Son in Santa Monica

What a wonderful thing!

https://smconservancy.org/property/embassy-hotel-apartments/

FLOWER

Epiphanies in the Dark

| Flower Roberts

My brain wakes me up to tell me things. It has happened again tonight.


Something that I have been pondering on morphs into something else like a shape-shifting bucky ball.


I wake up seeing the obvious connections that were hidden. I finally see the trees in the forest. It is embarrasing what my awake mind misses when my asleep mind points it out.

Family tragedies that I thought of as linear and separate linked in my mind as ONE. I have mentioned these in a previous post, but instead of them following each in a linear, chronological fashion; they folded back on each other, like a time circle.

Great grandma’s husband was killed by a train on her farm.

Gran’s father was killed by a train on the family farm.

Ethel’s brother was killed by a train on the Pearson farm.

The same tragedy from three perspectives. Three interconnected women losing a piece of their lives.
Three dots connected by one man and disconnected by one tragedy.

Great grandma P: the widow

Reconnected by the responsibility in caring for the widow of a farmer hit by a train.
Tranferring the care of the farm to family men and the widow to family women.
The shape-shifting of a family due to a tragedy.

This 2D story finally became 3D in the middle of the night. Maybe this time-circle-trio will take form after all!


I am slow, but I do get there…in my sleep.

FLOW