Unexpected Moments

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/3215/1691/1600/497705/olg_full.jpg”img style=”float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/3215/1691/320/788562/olg_full.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” //abr /Today is the Feast Day of the a href=”http://www.sancta.org/intro.html”Virgin of Guadalupe/a. This day always reminds me how turning a corner, whether in life or in writing, can lead us to unexpected moments. br /br /Several years ago, my friend Anne and I were out in downtown Los Angeles on a night mission to buy her two Christmas trees. Anne always had a small “crystal tree” with glass decorations in the nook room and a huge Christmas tree complete with a neon topper in the dining room. This particular night, December 12, the tree lot was closed.br /br /Disappointed, Anne and I went to get dinner at a href=”http://www.philippes.com/”Philippe’s/a, near Union Station. After dinner, we wanted to walk and talk, so off to a href=”http://www.olvera-street.com/”Olvera Street/a we went, hoping to wander around the shops and maybe buy a churro.br /br /Neither of us had any clue it was the Feast Day of the Virgin. We both just thought it was a busy night during the Christmas shopping season until we turned a corner and saw thea href=”http://www.laplacita.org/english.htm” La Placita Church/a. They can also block indications of low blood sugar (like a wouroud.com viagra no prescription racing pulse) in diabetics. Impotence has only reason of absence buying levitra from canada in of blood in reproductive area. Another reason why erection is not firm enough while making love with your sildenafil professional partner. There a number of benefits of getting kamagra medications viagra samples via online. We could tell there was a festival going on and had to look.br /br /Hundreds of people filled the grounds. Stalls with Virgin of Guadalupe statuary and candles shared space with photo booths where for $5 you could get a polaroid of yourself standing next to a Virgin of Guadalupe backdrop. There were food vendors and religious card vendors and kids dressed up as Juan Diego, the man to whom the Virgin appeared in Tepayac, near Mexico City.br /br /But the most beautiful sight was the candles, hundreds of lighted prayer candles, some with the Virgin image, others in plain and colored glass holders. A sea of blue and white shining orbs, with patches of red, were arranged around an old wooden cross that had been covered with a plexiglass shell — the oldest cross in Los Angeles.br /br /I’m not Catholic, neither was Anne. But there was something so stunning, so beautiful, so amazing about that moment when we saw the lights that both of us had to stop and silently pray. We had gone out on one of our weekly jaunts and had ended somewhere neither of us expected to be. It’s the sort of thing that stays with you.br /br /It’s also one of the things I love about writing — those unexpected moments when you turn a corner and find that the words you poured out on to the page have taken you some place you didn’t plan to go.