Le Fast Life

Theme Song: Ray of Light

Now you know how cute Frenchies are. And they have an adorable little anglicism called "Le Fast Life." As best as this francophile can tell, it refers to what maybe used to be called métro, boulot, dodo (metro, work, sleep), but all speeded up like a Madonna techno video.

So it can only be appropriate that the first time I heard Ray of Light was in May of 1998 in a Paris hotel.

It was a quasi luxury hotel not far from Charles de Gaulle -- you may know the kind: bathtub and French MTV included, but all miniaturized euro style. Well, okay, those who know know that it's not that their stuff is miniaturized. It's that our stuff is biggered Lorax style.

Yep. We're all living in one big, fat Dr. Seuss novel. Except those of us who don't. Because we won't.

Anyhoo.

This post is about time travel with a heart broke open.

So, there's Madonna, talkin' yoga on French MTV, and I thought it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. And I'm about to give Madonna way more credit than she probably deserves. I am about, in fact, to quote her in the same post as I quote the Bhagavad Gita. So please forgive this middle aged woman if you can for she knows not what she does.

Fast Forward 10 Years

Now the year is 2008 and my how things have changed. Instead of marveling at the horse meat butcher in a random airporty Parisian neighborhood with my husband, I'm a crazybeautiful single woman driving a Volvo to my yoga class listening to Ray of Light over and over again.

Why?

Because:

Zephyr in the sky at night I wonder
Do my tears of mourning sink beneath the sun
She's got herself a universe gone quickly
For the call of thunder threatens everyone

I know, some people experience divorce as death. And they are right, it is absolutely that. But it is also rebirth and returning.

And I feel like I just got home
And I feel
And I feel like I just got home
And I feel. . . .

Go Back Nine Years And Feel Like You Are In a Quentin Tarantino Movie

Yeah. Because May of 1998 was one year and one month before. Before what? Before I slammed full speed into a brick wall. Before the baby died.

She (meaning me) didn't know what was to hit her. How very true. So, you see pictures of her smiling in cafés across Europe as if everything were okay and would be forever.

Heart Broken Open

There is a kind of heartbreak we haven't talked about yet, and that is the heartbreak of success, pleasure and discovery. It is called heart breaking open. Maybe you experienced it with the birth of a child (I know I did), but there are a thousand ways to feel it.

It feels a little like nostalgia because it pierces you.

Extreme change, even the positive type, can and often is galvanizing (there goes a big word!) but it can also be just plain shocking.

In the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna says, after seeing Krishna unveiled in all his shining glory:

I lose my sense of direction and find no comfort after seeing Your mouths with fearful tusks glowing like fires of cosmic dissolution. Have mercy on me, O Lord of celestial rulers, and refuge of the universe! (B.G., 11.25)

This type of heartbreak is more of a breaking open than a breaking apart. It lets the light in liquidly -- if you know what I mean.

It was Madeline, who I met the October following my daughter, Chloe's, death at the Northern California SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) Conference, who taught me to savor a heart breaking open.

Her own daughter, Sienna, had died 8 years before and Madeline had come to the conference to give back to other parents, and that is what she did.

I asked her, "What is it like now, 8 years later?" She told me that her daughter's death had been a miracle and that the world's beauty had been revealed to her in ways she had never imagined. Now, don't let me confuse you. She would have chosen to keep her daughter if she could have, but no.

As some of you are aware, we don't choose. Sometimes, we are faster than a ray of light, just

trying to remember where it all began

Or where, for that matter, it's going.

Trebuchet: It's More Than Just a Typeface

After I separated from my husband I spent some time, not in free fall, but in transitoriness. Mmmm, it was delicious flying through the air,

She's got herself a little piece of heaven
Waiting for the time when Earth shall be as one

I knew the time was special. I knew that I was beautiful, and sad, in a way I would never be again.

It was a rich time.

From Annabelle To ANNACOLIBRI

My ex-husband, when he loved me the way I like to be loved, used to call me Annabelle. But I am no longer that woman. Now I am Anna Colibri, International Business Woman.

I've been building a technology empire for world domination (it's called ANNACOLIBRI and I would love for you to check it out if you are interested!).

Well, the learning curve has been intense

And I feel
Quicker than a ray of light
Then gone for

Which is, of course, one of the scary parts of being human.

Are we all just racing around through joy and tragedy only to disappear

Quicker than a ray of light
Quicker than a ray of light
Quicker than a ray of light

Well, yes and no.

Fast Forward Six Years To The Four RESTful Functions

Have you ever suddenly understood something you didn't even realize you cared about?

Stephen, the developer with whom I'm in love (I can say this freely because he doesn't read this blog. And, anyway, silly, it's a platonic love), and I have been trading yoga lessons for technology lessons. Ancient technology for modern technology.

He told me about the Four RESTful Functions.

They are, in case you are interested:

• Get
• Put
• Post
• Delete

Now, numbers I cannot do. They swim in my mind charcoal grey against a black background.

The Four RESTful Functions sound an awful lot like Buddhism. It's the Five Perfections, but made of zeros and ones.

Perhaps you did not know, or have forgotten, that what your reading is not words but is zeros and ones expressed by getting, putting, posting and deleting data until it looks like sentences. It all moves faster than a ray of light (being made out of electricity).

Yes, I have been waiting to see the poetry of technology and looking into Stephen's cinnamon angel eyes and listening to his kindsoft and quite knowledgeable voice (I told you I was in love), I found it.

ALL computer programs rely on these Four RESTful Functions.

The Four RESTful functions prove, once again, that all is nothing and form is emptiness.

Now, this is poetry I can get behind.

Data Moving

And I, as though visited by one of Krishna's servants, understood it. I could see the data moving in my mind's eye and it brought tears to my eyes because, yes, I found it beautiful.

And, too, it was beautiful sitting drinking green tea with gray rain all around us.

And falling a little more deeply in love.

So, it turns out, as we all would have guessed if we had kept our thinking caps on, that technology is easier to understand than love. And time is not linear. And hearts get broken open and accept the beauty of zeros and ones.

She's got herself a universe
She's got herself a universe
She's got herself a universe

And I feel
And I feel
And I feel like I just got home
And I feel

Quicker than a ray of light she's flying
Quicker than a ray of light I'm flying

It's Le Fast Life, crazybeautifulanna style.

Your Turn

Tell us about a time you hurtled through space faster than a ray of light.