Navel Gazing

I have done plenty of that so far this year. I love it when it feels like I've been hit over the head with something that has been under my nose all along. Most of you probably know the Queen of Arts, a.k.a. The Rock Fairy, and the bags of rocks she produces for sale. She chooses rocks from the Maine or New Hampshire beach and then lives with them for a while before painting and labelling them with words. I have both bought her bags of rocks and been gifted them. I love leaving them around, offering them up to people I know with a blithe, "here take one" as I hold open the bag. They produce a giddy kind of feeling, anticipation and always, so far, followed by a meaningful aura of "oh, I needed that". Imagine my surprise when yesterday, as I was placing one of these rocks down at the water near where I live, when it dawned on me that these rocks I pick and choose to leave aren't necessarily messages for those who find them, but messages I need to hear too. Oh my goodness. BOING! CLONK! Here is the rock that started this revelation yesterday:

I usually leave the rocks in a fairly obvious spot and am puzzled when I pass days later and see them still there. This time I decided to be cagey and make it not obvious. I suspended it about six feet off the ground on the top of a sculpture. It would take looking UP to find it.

This morning Riley and I took our granola bars and our dog down to the water, we had each chosen a rock to leave from our own stashes (The Rock Fairy had given Riley his own bag of rocks when she visited us last week). Neither of us knew what the other had chosen but see how well they go together.

We left them on a park bench, in plain sight. Wouldn't it be fun to watch the reaction of the people who pick them up?