the green staircase

Beautiful isn't it? That's the staircase in my friend's 15th St. 12.5 foot-wide row house. She lives there with her husband and their 4 children, and their house is one of the coziest most inviting places I've ever been. One day she tolerated me combing through it with my camera, shooting one still life after another, as if I could fill myself up with the warmth and character I find in her house, warmth and character and beauty that belong to her.

I can count on one hand people who have simply blown me away with their kindness and sensitivity. They are few and far between, like my fingers. I'm sure she wishes she could turn it off sometimes, she's so tuned in to some wavelengths of support and appreciation that I can't even hear with my mere mortal ears. It takes quite a lot to get on her bad side. She's cheerful and upbeat long after I would have lost my composure. That's because, all in all, she's well composed.

The green staircase reminds me of knowing people like her, whose depth of tenderness causes some sleeping thing in my heart to reawaken. The green of the wall is the healing power of love, how it causes things to grow, how it covers this world's struggling beings with protection and warmth and support as necessary as the rain is to plants. The white steps lead somewhere beyond my powers of imagination, to a level of purity, peace, resolution and beauty unrecognizable to our worldly eyes. Heaven I guess. This is a climb I whole-heartedly want to make, which I've been attempting with great awkwardness all my life but with slightly more success over the last year. It's not my fault I've been such a pill, we all absorb poisons and beliefs that we then spew onto others in the form of competitiveness, elitism, aggression, greed, desperation, arrogance, fear...

So nice to be reminded that there's another way. Here's a handful of bitch coupons, Lalaleeloo, for your birthday, to redeem at your leisure on my time. So I can feel a little better about myself.

Happy Birthday!