It’s six a.m. on a chilly clear morning. Chilly for September in the Ozarks, that is. I’m a bit puffy-eyed and cotton-brained and slowly waking up to one of my favorite pieces of atmospheric music, Brian Eno’s Music For Airports, and am about to do a pour over to make my second cup of coffee for the morning. My companion Wendell, whom I call a cat but he believes he is superhuman, is tearing around the room, seemingly happy that I am out of bed and soon going to give him some lip-smacking wet cat food.
A few days ago I was loading some of the last boxes and miscellaneous crap from the garage at 835 W. Maplewood into the car when the mail carrier came by and handed me the last piece of mail delivered to me at the house. It was from a friend of longstanding, going back to an English literature class in my early days at Southwest Missouri State College (aka Missouri State University). It’s good medicine for the soul to receive a hand-written letter these days of e-everything.
I have moved. Again. And am going to move again in the near future. The house is sold, it closed five days ago, I found a duplex five minutes away from the house, and I have crammed most of the contents of Maplewood’s 2200 sq. ft. into Franklin’s 1000 sq. ft. Thank god for attached double car garages, for this one is totally filled to the gills. And I can’t find half the stuff I go looking for. It is laughable, temporary, and good practice in letting go.
I have done a lot of letting go and now sometimes seem so light that the bathroom scales don’t know who I am. Here we are, all of Paul’s light and dark sides still present, and preparing to embark on a great journey, both literally and figuratively. Life is good. Andrew Marvell’s lines come to me:
Had we but world enough, and time...
But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near
And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.
In a few days I will be in Spain with a Road Scholar group, walking parts of the Camino de Santiago. My power-hiking/backpacking/roughing it days are in the past, but I embrace the good fortune to find adventurous opportunities for silverhaired guys like me who love their comfort and yet still long to hit the open road and explore the landscape to the limits of their diminished energies. We land in Madrid, travel by coach to Burgos, and then hit some highlights in Ponferrada, Leon, and Santiago de Compostela. And what exploration of the Way would be complete without a visit to Cape Finisterre, in Galicia, which was in Roman times believed to be the end of the known world? I will be back in the States the last week of this month, god willing and the creeks don’t rise, as my high school biology teacher would so predictably say at the end of each week of class. And I will, no doubt, have had my fill of cathedrals, strange beds, rugged high plains and mountains, and assorted stimuli and adventure.
The plan, my plan... is to move to Kansas City area in November/December. Andrew lives there now. He is a hospice social worker in the south part of the metro area and works at a major nonprofit hospice in their palliative care unit. He has found a temporary abode in Lees Summit. We have begun the process of house-shopping and will take our time to find “the perfect place.” I say that tongue-in-cheek for their is no perfection, only the settling into the real world with as few distractions as possible and as much sanctuary as can be found. I have found a name for my species of creature and the name is “empath.” It describes me well, and is different from merely introverted, highly-sensitive, etcetera. So, I add that to my autobiography.
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| from Aldous Huxley's novel Island |
I’m in my fourth year as a grateful member of AA. The letting go of alcohol and the fellowship in AA has been a blessing for me. It has greatly helped to solidify my marriage with Andrew and has brought peace of mind and much more stability to what had seemingly become... to some people... to appear to be... bipolar behavior. Whew! As a friend in recovery said so well, "What used to be like a roller coaster has now become more like lasagna." This morning brings one of the highlights of each week: my 10:00 a.m. 11th Step prayer and meditation meeting at a nearby coffeehouse.
Stay tuned for updates on the path of the Way. I look forward to what lies ahead as the road curves and the hills rise up.
