Between a Rock and a Kind Place

For many of us, this pandemic has brought out some latent talent (OMG, OMG, look! Those two words are anagrams!!) that we'd been neglecting during the time when the world was normal. My friend Shelly has rediscovered her affinity for painting rocks. She gifted this one to me (mostly because I made a shameless plea for her to give it to me). Truly, I love this rock as much as I love my friendship with Shelly.

So the main point of painting rocks is to mark them with words (or pictures) of kindness and then leave them in places where unsuspecting wanderers might find them. I guess at that point, the finder can either treasure the gift and keep it to remember kindness . . . or hide it again for someone else to find. Yeah, I'm just going to be selfish here and keep Shelly's rock for myself. Because I love it.

The rock is painted in shades of blue, purple, yellow and green. It features only palm trees and sun. But for me, the message is one of hope, that the world is, indeed, beautiful, whether it's a tropical paradise or a snow-covered mountain or a field of corn. It's a simple reminder to look for what is beautiful in your landscape and to worship it. My rock will now live on the nightstand next to my bed, so that every morning when I awake, I will remember to look for the beauty.

In "researching" the origins of rock-painting, I happened to find that painting and depositing rocks in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park is illegal. Really? I've been to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. There are a lot of rocks there. Lighten up, Tennessee.

In composing this blog post, I couldn't help but recall a story my son told me several years ago. He was still in college, and he and some friends hiked up a nearby mountain . . . in an altered state. He told his sister about the experience, in which he found a rock on a bench in one of those hiking shelters. The rock had his name on it. Even though he thought he was imagining it, he nonetheless put the rock in his pocket. His sister, prolific writer that she is, used the story to create a poem, which I happen to love. Here it is for your reading pleasure:

Altitude

At twenty-two you will take magic mushrooms

and ascend Mount Mansfield alone. You will

breathe deep at the summit, the very air

hallucinogenic, at the thin panting place between

the real and the fantastic, you will find a rock 

with your name etched in its surface

And this, I'll say, is when you have to choose:

paranoia, coincidence, or sign.

But you'll say the stone at the summit

is meant for your pocket, and just before

fate forces a choice, you'll take it with you

in your measured descent

ready to reveal your name or nothing

when you finally come down.

(The rock really did have his name on it.) And the rock Shelly gave me has my name on it. The name is "Peace, Love, and Understanding." (Credit: Elvis Costello)

Namaste.