like 7 inches from the mid-day sun

I emailed and/or FB messaged 15 of the 18 people who’s names I have on a list on a page in a steno pad with the title “Keep these folks updated always” (underlines included) – people who have reached out to me persistently and lovingly with kindness and generosity far beyond any expectations I may have had, if I’d had any in the first place, caring about and for me as word spilled out about my wife’s request/demand for a divorce. I’ve expressed thanks and gratitude all along, every single day since the first day when I called Gavin in Oakland sobbing and he said I’d be okay and began holding me up with daily phone calls _”I’ve got you, Bro” – and others joined in, with shimmering support in all shapes and sizes. I began saying “thank you” almost all the time. My mother would be proud.

So eventually I created this list – woefully short when I think of everyone who could and ought to be on it, like Maria Flores in a Senior Services program in San Diego who emailed me day after day offering direct advice and referral information and ongoing encouragement. She’s not on the list but she should be and I can’t even think how long this list of names would bend and wind and linger and curve around corners if I got them all. Then, a couple weeks ago I thought I owed more than 50 “thank you’s” a day so I gathered this list of particular angels and wrote a thorough “update” of where I was in the world that day – yes, where physically, but more psychically and emotionally and spiritually. And this morning I listened to the 4:35 alarm in Kate’s spare room and came out and prayed for the right things and sat for 23 minutes and walked the lopsided track around the corner five times and wrote my morning pages and zoomed into one of those zoom-y meetings, this in Carlsbad on the California coast north of San Diego – just north of a town called Encinitas. And along the way I kept feeling inspired to add to today’s “To Do” list and one action added was writing and getting out there the “where I’m at of me” today, and now 15 have received it and many have got back with feedback echoing what Dick M always said to me back in ’84 – “You’re right where you’re supposed to be.”

The three names I have yet to add a check next to are my friend in Oakland, and we’re talking tonight and since we talk daily knows all the “at” stuff already; an old high school classmate who I tracked down a couple of weeks ago after not talking with for decades and while talking I realized he was one of the main characters in “The Files of Milky Dent” and it made me happy he was in there and to remember it, and I mailed him a copy of “Milky” a couple of days later. I’ll figure how to update him. The other guy I met in Provincetown, down the tip of Cape Cod, back in 2007, who I haven’t seen once since but have had a remarkable ongoing telephone relationship with – electric – until he faded a little this past year. But he’s on my list, just the other day he was trying to hook me up with a room in Malibu, CA.

I’ll share the updates I sent/am sending to the 18 today here on Couch Surfing soon. I haven’t felt the spark to do so channeling through me to this Blog space yet – though I have dropped the occasional hint. Anyway, thanks for reading. This feels less of my emotional writing self and more of my old “reporter” life. I think that’s okay once in a while.

Carlos Santana fans will recognize the title of today’s entry. The National Weather Bureau forecast for the Portland/Milwaukie metro area the next five days goes like this – Thu – 86, Fri – 95, Sat – 107, Sun – 111, Mon – 107. (Followed by 96, 94, and 94 – taking me right up to a week from this Friday.) Like the song says – “It’s a hot one.”

I bet it’s not so hot on the SoCal coast. And the title of another of my books is “Get in the Car”.

Hmmm….