I keep thinking that I should grow up and get a job, a home of my own. But this desire for sitting with the enlightened ones is like a bulldog latched on to my leg. It won't let go. I keep thinking I should look for my one true love but my passion lives with those moments when I know in my bones, that I am connected to something deeper, something more powerful than what I have found in the arms of a lover, in the moments of laugher or tenderness that can surprise.
I leave Thursday for Durango. It's twenty or so hours driving out of Sacramento. It's a lot of space to experience, the lands of Nevada. The last time I did this was after my father died, coming back to California, determined to find my home and work that would sustain me. There will be a lot of remembering.
I miss my dad. Before he died, when I drove places in the US, I would call him up and tell him where I was. I could hear his smile. He would tell me when he had been in this place I was driving through and we would laugh together at the richness of life that had allowed us to see so much, experience so much, share so much. He would shake his head at my latest adventure, I know it. He would say he didn't understand what I was wanting but I wonder. A month or so before he died, I asked him what he thought happened when a person died. He told me that he hadn't given it much thought and now that he was nearing that time, it didn't seem fair to do anything about it now. Fair to whom? I wonder. I didn't have the courage to ask him. I wish I had. My sister Ann is brave like that.
I still talk to my dad. I still hear his laughter, his love in his voice when I called. I can still see his face light up when I would come home to visit. It is a sustaining vision. I don't have that with my mother, no memories of her appear but her love was so busy, always pushing me to be more, do more, meet her spoken or unspoken needs. Dad just loved.
I often hesitate to write in this potentially public place. The outward journey is so linked to the inner one. Do you want to hear this? Is it boring? Ah well, I can only hope that it touches you in some way.
