buffalo by the sea

i'm stuffed full of bruschetta and laying on my couch thinking about my coming week. tomorrow morning i will wake up and get ready for work. i will make coffee and hopefully motivate enough to go visit my local florist and pick up some flowers for a co-worker. although i'm looking forward to my morning routine i can't help but wish i was waking up on catalina island, specifically on a cove called campus by the sea.


it is a magical place where my parents worked when i was a child. we spent most of our time living in inner-city los angeles, but every year i spent around two months on the desert island of catalina frolicking among the jacaranda trees. it's a place where after a day your skin tastes like salt and your hair is full of eucalyptus residue. it's an island where buffalo (yes buffalo) live and come down to the shore around dawn.


the cove is a faith based conference center. there was not much quiet time in my los angeles life since my home also served as a community center. at cbs i learned to be still. i was an explorer, a pirate, an artist...it was my magical place where all the noise, crime, and injustice my child eyes witnessed daily could be processed and released. it is the place i learned the meaning of micah 6:8. it is where i learned to meditate and pray and it is where i have come after great disappointments to practice release and forgiveness.


i have a vivid memory of waking up and looking outside my cabin to see a buffalo down by the water. it was dawn and i was in love with the sea, with the buffalo, with the island...

although i am grateful to have a job to go to tomorrow i can't help but wish that i was waking up to a buffalo by the sea.