Strangely Beautiful

Today I went into Santa Barbara for an appointment. It was my first trip there on my own since the Before Time. The streets were oddly empty, many businesses were closed, and what few people I saw all seemed to be moving in slow motion. But I found so much beauty in shadow patterns, little corners of color, and bird song...conspicuous bird song even here. It’s true I had a sense of loneliness and sadness, but the mountains looming above the rooftops and steeples seemed to possess a magisterial consciousness...wise and superior, holding out some kind of truth we had long overlooked. I walked past a flower garden in front of a small blue house, and the man who tends it happened to step out, and I smiled beneath my mask and said hello. I wanted to thank him for the pleasure his garden brings, but he went about his chores in silence and didn’t acknowledge me. I peered down narrow passageways graced with bougainvillea, passed café tables at the curb, awaiting their patrons, reflected on reflections in the windows of vacant stores. Painted doors faded in bright sunlight, and a church bell marked the hour, but no one was going anywhere.