gold and cerulean blue

are my two favorite things together.

sky blue, whether in the sky or found in a bishop's hat in a 17th-century painting, is my very favorite color in the entire world. it is pure and instant bliss for me.

the first time i reliazed it was the first time i ever came to the old country, and specifically, to italy. i found myself looking up all the time. i had never noticed the sky like that before. i was constantly enchanted, constantly called to fall into and fall in love with the moment before me. the present moment.

with an uncanny frequency, often in the spring, walking in the very city full of streets and stone sidewalks, i receive the miraculous gift of finding a piece or a whole pale sky blue slightly greenish starling's egg shell.

this year, i had squatted down along the city's medieval wall while waiting for my friend to come out of her house to join me in looking for a hole in the stones to make our "secret mailbox" (clearly, for this reason, i cannot disclose the neighborhood) where we wanted to leave each other weekly notes. peeking through the green grass flashed this magical color. and there it was.

two years ago, walking on the totally covered-in-grey-stone piazza of the church of santa maria novella, i noticed out of the corner of my eye something kicked accidentally by my left foot while on my way to the train station. i looked down and found a whole sky blue starling's egg shell inexplicably intact. on the stones. in the middle of the piazza. with people walking by constantly, and my own foot having kicked it.

(may 2015: i was stopped, wordless, when, after pausing to help & rehydrate a little earthworm on the road, i looked over a few feet ahead while searching for a good earthworm-relocation site, and when i saw it, my first thought was, "it just has to be some kind of easter candy left over from last month. it's just....it's just impossible." a completely intact, brighest blue-sky on the asphalty side of the road, no explanation, love note.

then, a week later, sitting along a rock wall where another hand had obviously relocated it from its finding place, i walked up to find a perfectly-sized grassy bird's nest lined with the softest tufts of dogwood tree cottony fluff, and placing my nose/lips right down upon it, i felt the strongest sense of love. this has been made with such immense love. and there inside, at home, i nested/nestled in my gem of an egg.)

update spring 2017 ~chatting & walking under some cypress trees with a dear friend near a grassy field instead of on the sidewalk, i see a flash of sky blue, the tiniest 1/2 shell sits among pieces of branches and pinecones. when i squat down to pick it up gingerly on my pinky finger, as it is that small, peeking out from under another bit of tree that completely obscures it from above is the other 1/2, just millimeters from my friend's shoe and being crushed. i carry them gratefully home. my friend comments how strange it is that in all these years i keep finding them over & over, and she never has even once.

update spring 2018~ i had thought about hoping to find one this year, and a few hours before had looked for a minute or two, then given up and forgotten all about it. on my way home, i stopped to place a bright yellow dandelion flower on the ledge of a madonna icon, and walked two steps before freezing in place, gobsmacked. or better, god-smacked. there on the ground was a full sky blue egg just along the edge of the road among some sprigs of grass and fallen leaves. after a few breaths to catch myself in the wonder and gratitude of it, i stepped forward and suddenly saw peeking out another, whole, sky blue love note just a foot from the first. picking them both up tenderly, i choose to believe and receive that they come as a sign of important faith confirmation for something i've been holding in my heart for a long time.

these, to me, are small, secret messages from the sky.

little signs of love.

look for yours?

because a love letter unopened is love unreceived just knocking at the door. open!