Hints of Heaven in Sleepytown California
October 10, 2024
Despite the tourists, it’s a quiet life in this sleepy town of Monterey, California; where nothing opens until just shy of noon, and the average resident has long since retired. Peace abounds in this little villa that my hostess calls home, inspired by the Belgian roots of its late owner. I sit upon a patio that connects its five tenants in an opportunity for friendship. Church bells and chattering birds sing of an older time—a simpler time. Linen-laced turquoise windowpanes framed in wooden panels embellish the terracotta cottage walls of the commune. One is left open to let in the clean October air, and let out the intimate sound of neighbors happily musing if they ought to make another latte. My own still lingers on my tongue. Their voices are carried on the breeze that brushes the hair from my sun-warmed face, and invites tree limbs to dance. Before it reaches my grateful lungs, the wind is purified by the thriving plant life that blooms in sprays of fuschia and seafoam out of clay pots and wine barrels that frame the patio. Beneath a family of burgundy-tipped lime-green succulents sleeps a pair of well-loved sandals upon a woven doormat. My own shoes rest at my feet beneath the picnic table at which I sit, rough against my palms. Its surface is a Van Gogh painting of sunbleached wood and lichen, reminiscent of the sea, which looms just beyond the layers of roofs and treetops that stand between me and the horizon, where ocean blue morphs seamlessly into hazy sky. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord; how perfect your designs. I put down my toil and set aside the labor assigned to this blink of a life to gaze at what you’ve made: hints of heaven to come.
