the faith

I had a vision yesterday of how this particular post would look, sound, and read. But that’s all gone. The idea of living life one day at a time had never been more vivid and tangible for me, ever, 72 years worth and (thankfully) still counting. So I (thank you Great Spirit) wake up today and the big eraser in the sky wipes clean the blackboard of my mind and now it’s quarter past 11, late morning and I’m nearly seven hours into this day and I come here with as much anticipation as any other reader of what’s coming next. News at 11.

A week, give a day or two, after the word “Divorce” hung in the air between my wife and myself, on a morning like so many since, too numbed to actually read a book, sitting with two cups of coffee in the old, beat-up pink recliner, meditation (call it) over, three steno pads and one larger notebook on the coffee table before me, I felt something like a presence – I cannot think of a better description – come into the living room. I didn’t hear a voice, I did’t have a vision. It was just an idea into my head, and I know into my soul as well. It was this – go to San Diego.

A smidge of relevant background is my wife (papers may be signed, I don’t know, maybe ex-wife) grew up in San Diego, about 12 miles east from downtown, and I began with her visiting her parents beginning in 2010 – once or twice a year, I think maybe three times one year. Down to San Diego every year. And her parents had an old Corolla in great shape and their daughter was allowed its use, and I got to see and experience and really know San Diego. The beach at Ocean Beach, the pier at OB, the Saturday farmers market downtown in Little Italy, into and out of Lindbergh Airport a zillion times, Balboa Park, the art museum, seaport village. I went three times to Petco Park, the first time by myself, the next two with the father-in-law. We drove up the coast to Encinitas twice. Up the coast to La Jolla, to Pacific Beach, out to the tip of Point Loma. Walked the neighborhoods of Golden Hill and South Park, had coffee all over the city. I fell in love with the place. And it wasn’t raining.

Begging would be an accurate description of my pleadings with the wife to please, pretty please, can we move there, over the last five years. Nope, not a chance. And then there was this word “Divorce” shimmering in the air and then I was in the recliner with coffee and a presence announced itself with go to San Diego. And as it dawned on me that come June 30 (after a month at a bartered-with-art spare room with a friend) I was going to be an old white guy without an address. Which was, even for gypsy me, scary but also, for sure, a window being thrown open. Crawl through here, Brah. Follow this path, Bro. Get in the car, kid. And it may have been that day or the next day or a couple of days later, whatever day it was, that’s what I decided to do – go to San Diego.

First it was getting my son Spenser safe and sound – and loved – and I have done that with the help of angels and he’s already vacationing in Idaho, likely trying to remember some old guy named Pops. And beyond taking care of Spenser, and the truly physically and emotionally and psychically being beaten up with the move and the moving out and away for good, I’ve summoned nearly all the strength of attention I’ve gathered these last 72 years and aimed it down the 5 to San Diego, and I’ve posted a hundred Craigslist posts looking for rooms and I’ve applied for part-time jobs to help with wicked high costs and I attended maybe a thousand Zoom meetings I tend to attend and made connections and put it out there and asked for help, and here it is three weeks before there is no address and nothing much is doing, sort of, and I’m doing what they all told me to do in the 60’s and “Keeping the faith, Baby” and the adventure already – just in the searching – has been magical and mystical and attracted nearly indescribable generosity and kindness.

Those don’t-drink-just-one-day people have a saying which is “the Joy is in the Journey”.

Ain’t it the truth.