In March as I was leaving California, driving to Louisiana, I had a small package to mail. My time consumed by packing and moving, I didn’t get to a post office but was sure I’d find one somewhere along the way. And I did, right in the middle of Yosemite National Park.

It was a wonderful post office from another era, with polished wood interior. When I came forward, a dispirited postal clerk read aloud the street name as he weighed the package. "'Lovejoy.' I could use some of that."

The man behind me in line swept his arm toward the open door to the mountains, the snow, the conifers, the ecstatic air. "Lovejoy is all around you!" And man, it was true.

The postman said, "That wasn’t what I had in mind."

He turned his back to the open door, and tossed the package into a bin.
===

Yesterday morning, I drove across the Atchafalaya Basin to Baton Rouge. The light came off the water like off a medieval hammered metal mirror.

Last night, I couldn’t write. I fell asleep still dressed in my clothes, and woke up around 2 AM. I still hadn’t written for nomadicfishes. I had no ideas, everything blocked, my sleepy brain like Jello, so I browsed my computer files of pics. I picked a file unimaginatively titled 'October 2007'.

There was a picture of light on water I’d forgotten (a forgettable shot) taken as I rode with my dad across the Atchafalaya in October to New Orleans for his naval ROTC reunion. Light on the basin in October just like yesterday in December. And there below it was the only picture I'd taken from a table of artifacts at his reunion.

I'd seen a photo of a remarkably similar Buddha just the other day when I’d received some material to edit. And before I fell asleep in my clothes last night, I’d googled the name of that Buddha, ‘Amida, Buddha of Infinite Light’, curious. And here was an unrecognized Amida in my own file. And the light off the Atchafalaya came to mind. And the light at Yosemite.

I struggled to post something, anything, even just two of the photos. I gave up the wrestling and went to sleep around 4. Woke up after 7, could barely move, so tired, the yard was covered with frost. No no, I wasn’t going to practice boh. But then a teacher’s voice came to me that when you’re having difficulty is not the time to avoid keiko. That’s when it’s most important to show up.

So. I did. And here are the photos and all these words.

lovejoy

Sometimes we're the dam to our own river.

The flow is what matters.

I learned little in my brief google research last night. I did find an LSU rugby team. And I found bits and pieces about Amida, also known as the Buddha of Infinite Life.

Buddha of Unhindered Light.