One Love - One Sky - One Family!

I cut through Muscle Beach a lot on my morning walks, and lately there have been little inspirational messages in chalk there nearly every day. This morning's message was especially lovely, because it is a BEAUTIFUL day, and this message is exactly what the whole planet needs to be hearing now ...

  
   
One Love. One Sky. One Family. We really are all one, and it gets so discouraging that so many people can't seem to grasp this concept. It's a global village. We're all in this together. Things people do affect everyone. Every day the news is downright awful, but it doesn't have to be. We can make change. The message next to the above one was a little deeper ...

"Truth is clearly visible for every individual who dismisses what they're taught to believe in." I don't know who is leaving these messages, but if they see this, thank you and I appreciate them. And you. And I think you're rubbing off on people, as I've been seeing happy little chalk posts all around town, like on this walk street heading to the beach ...

It just adds a little cheeriness to your day, and we can all use a whole lot more of that now. I gotta go. I've got some sidewalk chalk burning a hole in my hand - and I hope my message will find you well.

One Love!

Please Play!

Well, Happy Weekend! It feels like we all really need this one, right? Walking along and thinking about what I'm going to get into this weekend, I took a turn down Marco Place and saw a whole bunch of little chalk messages left over from Easter, and a hopscotch type game going all the way down the sidewalk. The very first one said, "Please Play!" next to a heart with "Love" inside of it. I'm going to take these sweet little kids' advice and play and love for sure this weekend.

As you go along, you can see that the kids were trying to write a nice message to everyone along the way. One house got the "You have a cute dog" message ...

Another lucky house got told that they were liked and nice ...

It's kind of hard to make out what several of them said, but the effort remains adorable and who doesn't like a kind compliment every now and again?

These kids know. They can think of something nice to say about everyone. We would all do well to emulate the good observations and the positive attitudes of these Venice kids that clearly spent their day making the day of others. And having fun doing it.

Yes ... Please play!!

Find People On The Same Wavelength

The waves are big again today, and it was a beautiful morning out there watching the surfers catch actual air. On my way back, I saw this big sign on one of the Boardwalk shops reading, "Find people on the same wavelength." It's an ad, of course, for some business networking app, but the sentiment is exactly why I first moved to Venice.

I was living in Beverly Hills when I first moved to California, and though I had a great roommate in a great pad on a great street, I didn't really dig it. B.H. wasn't me at all. I'd find myself coming to Venice every weekend, both to soak up the beach atmosphere, art, and fun, but also to find a place - which I ultimately did, and was so happy! For two decades.

Venice people were on my same wavelength for sure. That's why it's so sad to see the recent influx of people that are mainly about greed and self-consumption doing their best to take over our bohemian lifestyle by the beach. My brother left Venice a few years ago, and as we were looking for parking the other night for dinner, he said, "I can't stand Venice. It's all douchebags now." Ugh. Gut punch. We know he's not correct about it being ALL douchebags, but he's got a point. That's why I continue to seek out and write about those who remain on my wavelength near the waves ... and pretend like the d-bags don't exist. Kind of like we do here in our Venice bubble anyway. I know many of you in my community of similar souls are still here ... and I thank you for it. As for the rest of you ... try OUR wavelength. Present day hippies are happier.

Go Fwd!

Sometimes in life you get little messages from just paying attention, and sometimes they're perfectly timed. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I feel like a lot of times things feel real hopeless lately. Two halves of the country are fighting with each other. A new natural disaster seems to happen almost every day ... to the point where my little 8 year old friend commented on how there sure does seem to be a lot of awful things happening in the world, "like storms and stuff." And he's right.  It can all feel like an awful lot, and never mind even bringing your own stuff into it all - which can also be a lot. So, when you catch a license plate telling you to "GO FWD", you stop. You think about it ...

... and off you go. Forward. Thanks, Landrover in Venice. I will. As we all will. To better days ahead. I just know it.

It's Your Day

Sometimes you just need a little reminder ...

... And oftentimes the world gives it to you. If you're paying attention. Today IS your day. Get it.

Happy Holiday weekend, Everybody!