miracle of day-before-yesterday

miracles of the day started in june 2007. or rather not nearly to say the miracles themselves started occurring then, nor that that was the first that i acknowledged quotidien graces, but the nomenclature of such moments of the world's shine, or pizazz, or flair: that began in june 2007 in new york city, visiting with susannah-while-pregnant, walking with lauren in her neighborhood after brunch at tom's diner.
so miracles of the day are just oh!shit! moments wherein the world lays its vivid awesomeness plain. like a palm heel to the face; like a third eye rub.
the very first one remains in my memory very much like the flash of lightning it was. i had locked myself (and susannah) out of her loft by canal street, with a foolhardy, innocent-enough twist of the lock on the inside doorknob. this lock has no key.
i had been napping on babar sheets left for me; susannah was on an errand. when we met on mercer street--she was wearing an irisy light purple sundress--and shared an incredulous hug hello at our circumstances, both of being in the same geographical place and at being locked out of her house during the first hours of my visit--lightning literally struck, right above our heads in a snap onto the firescape above us; we looked up and saw a bright coin of lightning; i.e. it was a circle of lightning because it was pointed straight down at us. it was maybe more of an oh!fuck! moment, but we decided--having survived--that we were marked as beloved to each other forever.

new york teemed with miracles of the day. when i returned to san francisco, which is a balm of a place--lovely architecture in technicolor, bossy blooms in everywhere gardens, and the agreeable californian attitude + weather--i appealed to lauren: "there aren't as many miracles here as there"
there in soot brick building new york, where many girls have fallen from the sky at once...
she said, "they're not as obvious there, because it's really nice there"

so i have seen. and though the ratio of cosmic significance is much lower in san francisco than in new york city, often still is it poignant.

now this one from day-before-yesterday don't mean shit, but it stands.

alameda is a vortex of anachronism and anomaly in minature. the town ought to have an official bumper sticker (nod to denise for this) which would read: ONLY IN ALAMEDA. she and i were walking back to her truck, as it was parked near the meat & poultry safety division of the agricultural department, at crab cove, where we had just been strolling by the bay. which in alameda they like to call the beach. (is it a beach, if it's a bay? that's like a getting new jeans at bradlee's which is a little like getting new jeans at kmart: stiff, cheap)

darting down central avenue comes a man on a unicycle, balanced precariously but pedalling furiously. he was in his thirties donning a black leather jacket, and hell-bent at a pace meant for serious locomotion. he was getting it done, from here to there, completely uninterested in the circus connotations of his ride, nor the burner points he could have scored. he was wobbling with the force of his demeanor. he had no grace. he even seemed angry. he was crouched over. and he was wearing a hat with floppy ewok ears.