a place of love revolution

In the spring of 2020. I worked on The Garden of the World
for Recycled Art Exhibit. The piece was made out of 
international newspapers my pre-COVID globe-trotting friends
kindly hauled clear across the globe for this very purpose.
The significance and value of this project has only increased
in my eyes over the past year.

The message of love is clear.  Every citizen of the country whose native language is love understands this message without a need for an interpreter.

However, when you live on the delicate intersection of two such vastly different worlds, trying to bring them together, trying to spell out with your life this strange bi-lingual, bi-cultural, bi-continental identity, you are bound to mix things up, break some rules, make some spelling mistakes. 

I sense the Editor on the inside, squirming a bit. He can't help himself, he is so well trained in spotting the mistakes, red-penning the mix-ups, enforcing the rules.

Strangely this time, perhaps for the first time ever, he appears disarmed, stripped off his red pen and correction fluid, taken in by something infinitely greater than immaculate sentence structure, purist grammar and perfectly followed syntax rules. 

She grins. 

My heart melts. 

No small feat has been accomplished here and I think she knows it. Satisfied, she trots off, hopping from cloud to cloud, sprawled endlessly along the beach.  I eventually catch up, take her by the hand and we walk back together.  It's getting late but I have to see the epic message just one more time.

What I discover when I go for that one last look takes me completely by surprise.

When she started spelling her heart out, hers were the only broken-shell-carved words marking the pristine blank page of the sand.

But now, everywhere I look, all around me, there are countless new messages of love, scribbled in the sand by strangers, turning this glistening heaven-on-earth beach into a giant love letter!

I chuckle, because I know she has no idea that she has started a love revolution. 

I hesitate, wondering if I should point it out, draw her attention to it, but something stops me. 

It's better to leave it this way.

It will be our little secret.