Deep Links

The Now-Here

I write this from my living room. Dog crashed out on the couch beside me, a favorite cup of coffee on the table. The air is balmy and cool. My shoulders, back and right leg ache. I've done a lot of driving. Fragments, moments, tidbits from my journey.

Unlike past drives, I was not focused on "getting there." I invoked the power of the open road, to live it, experience it, as I desire to experience life. Consciously. With choice. As a Journey. I needed an interrupt. I needed to shift. I needed to heal. I need fresh inspiration. The open road is my best medicine.

As I live my life, the trip has not merely one purpose. Business, family and personal intentions braided creating the journey. Business colleagues, first hand research, friends, family, meetings, adventures, hikes. The crisp hot air of the Mojave. The fecund humidity of verdant Iowa fields. Hiking to my favorite Indian caves. Eating awesome Indian and Mexican in small town America. Small town America - which some day the world will re-discover. It's what we need, crave today. It's right here, in this country, in the heartland. 

I return with a pirate's booty! My heart refreshed, stronger than ever. Connections refreshed, stronger than ever. Inspired and delighted and pregnant with words. Direction clear, ready for action. Exhausted and pushed and reduced to basics: gas, water, food, shelter. Return to Iowa, Return to Los Angeles. Returns along the way. I paved no new path, I returned to my favorites, strengthening them, and in return they strengthen me. In the weaving, strengthening of these bonds, the possibility of something new emerged.

When you are the net, there is no place to fall. 

There is no place to go. You are always NOW-HERE. 

In the Now-Here.

--

The three young cowboys in the pumped up truck, I-15 south, yesterday. The caked ice was scattering across the freeway. Cute young thing was waving his hand out the window as I speed Mom's black Jaguar with the California plates. You caught up later (nice job navigating the cockblocker in the left lane) and we gave each other mutual thumbs up as you passed me. I'm sorry I had to exit to refill my tank. I would have loved to continue our anonymous speed filled conversation into Nevada. I'll dream up the conversation we'd have in the bar when we stopped and put it into one of my books.

--

Crossing over the Missouri in Omaha, I realize I am on known territory. It's surprising, this feeling - the same one I have in Los Angeles, in the Mojave... known land - this is my land. I am humbled to be welcome back so.

I drive the ribbon of highway up and down the Iowa hills - greeted with wind farms. These fields though, so green. So fecund. I can't get over how green everything is. The grass is a plush foot thick under feet and paws. I want to dive and swim in it. As I drive south, I'm the only non-Iowa license plate. I think, how strange it must be for a local to see my Black Jaguar with California plates deep in the heart of Southern Iowa. I wonder if they know I'm from here. That I'm returning? Why else would I be here? This is no place for tourists from California.

--

Bach on full blast as I drove west into the Sunset. A full moon rose from the southeast. I replayed memories in my mind. Tasting, savoring them. Soundtrack changed and in the magic hour I thought of you - of our moments. Bodies connecting, exploring, feeling, getting lost in the feeling, the emotion, the passion, the pleasure. The moments with you, and you, and you. Montage of memorable moments. Mind visiting them, licking them, breathing in their memories. Walking the full way down the fractal hallways to turn and come upon another view of our kiss, touch, deep connection of heart/soul/body/mind. Expansion. Day becomes night.

Time is an illusion, but we made some and funked until the dawn. Moments in our past, memories remain. Moments yet to come.

--

I breathe deep into my heart. Chest expanding as I speed deeper into the night. To the mountains. Humid fecund fields transition to dry mountain air and mineral infused springs. Dog is my co-pilot. My mostly silent, constant companion. He's changed too.

When we return to the Hollywood streets, we'll walk with a bounce and show more of our hearts on sleeves. Remember jumping in the tall grass, stopping to smell the lilacs, the ozone of thunderstorms - all the memories of the open road - A pirate booty indeed. 

What the Thunder said

Thunder is rumbling in the distance. There's a tornado watch. Only a few slight sprinkles - I hope for a real storm. My uncle has briefed me on where to go if a Tornado comes... my plan though is to put the dog in the basement and run outside. Why would a miss an opportunity to experience awe-some natural power?

I've spent the last few days visiting my grandmother in her assisted living home. It's a beautiful place. She is happy. She is healthy for a 93 year old woman. I come from rugged stock. Unusually, I am at a loss for words. The mundane everyday stories, chit-chat, feels .... indifferent. I want to be in the present. To take in the moment. The snapshot in time. There are no words - only embodiment. Awareness.

My eyes take in the wrinkled face of my grandmother. The brown liver spots. I feel the knots as I massage her shoulders. Her arms. Moving the blood and lymph. Knowing how good that feels. I think of her vanity. My mom's vanity. My own (that I try to pretend I do not have). I think about the entropy of the human body. In some ways my mom was lucky. She died young - 67 - no wrinkles, still in a prime. She didn't watch her hands age to 90. I've noticed my own hands aging this past year. My veins. My freckles, that were so cute to me a decade ago, now, not so much. 

I'm thinking about my life. I'm thinking about my dreams. I'm thinking about money. I'm thinking about the future. I drive farm roads. Gravel roads. Two-lane freeways. I pass classic houses. Farm houses. Barns. Grain silos. I have lunch at "the club." Filled with parents a decade younger than I. Reminded of a recipe for life I did not follow. 

At dinner with my grandmother last night I met her table mates. We had a lovely conversation. Everyone is so happy with the place - their apartments. These women, widowed. The recipe unraveling. They have lived good, satisfying lives. I know my grandmother is sad to be alone. She misses her husband of 67 years, gone at least 4. It occurs to me, I am not much unlike her, though 53 years younger, living alone...

Birth. Copulation. Death.

In the end, at the end of life, we all end up the same. Dying. Alone. Our body decaying. Disintegration. Unravelling. Part of me wants to run back to LA, to my friends. Or to the internet, to my friends. To ignore the inevitable. Instead, I sit and breath. There is nothing to do, but be present in this moment.

Driving home, through fecund fields of black soil, I think I'm more empowered than ever to follow my dreams. To live life on my terms. If the end of our lives are the same, if I'll end up a widowed (or single) woman in an assisted living home, what matters is the journey to my death.

When I am sitting around a dinner table, wrinkled face and hands, reflecting on my life. Remembering. Choked by small-talk. Will I be satisfied? Will my death by satisfied by my life? Will I have regrets? Will I have enough money to hire people (or robots) to care for me? How will my old age be different from my grandmothers?

Which leads me to reconsider my life. Am I truly, consciously living the life I desire?

 The thunder has cracked and the tornado siren gone off at least 4 times as I wrote. A moist breeze comes in the open window. The dog's ears are perked at the sound of the crashes and booms. It's really quite perfect. This moment. I'm satisfied. I am living a conscious life. I know what I want, and where I want to go. Some of that I have control over. Much though, I do not. But I swim in the cocktail of life that is life. A cocktail of love and despair, hope and fear, betrayal and passion. Of moments and memories. Of possible worlds collapsing into experience. Transitioning to memory. 

An ozone impregnated moment, released in expanding waves.

Invoking Chatwin, Thompson

I'm on the open road again. I surprised myself with this trip - deciding upon an almost 2 week road trip with no notice and no planning. Finalizing things four days before I left... 

These past months, I've had a bad case of writer's block. It's some deep emotional wounds. (And here I thought I was *done* with the deep self whatever after last year's Ph.D in grief.)  I tried powering through it for a few weeks... deadlines, self-flagellation - it didn't work. I switched to kindness, understanding, compassion for myself. A slight improvement, but not the results I crave, desire, NEED!!!!! My timeline doesn't matter. Things are happening at their own pace and I'm not in charge.

Staying home was not working.  Talking with my dad about an upcoming trip, he suggested I drive. That it might be a good change of pace. I liked that idea. The open road is my best medicine. 

I left my beloved City of Angeles yesterday. First kiss was deep in the Mojave - Pearblossom Highway. Damn, I love the Mojave. Then Barstow, Baker's Mad Greek - memories of a favorite Fantasy Novel - until I hit Las Vegas. I invoke the medicine of the open road - Bruce Chatwin, Hunter Thompson, Tim Powers. The glittering lights of Vegas - and their broken dreams - recede in my rear-view window. Deep in the night I cross through Arizona into Utah. I've retraced my roadtrip steps - with this exact car - from end of 2012. 

I awake this morning to blustery crisp morning winds. I can still smell the warmth of the Mojave desert. I'll leave her behind today as I head north to the Salt Lake. And then head east in the Heart Land.