The Adjustment Phase

This is me on Jet Blue flying over the Grand Canyon. It doesn’t look like it did three years ago on our Spring Break camping trip. It’s magnificent in a different, far-off way. To  really appreciate the Canyon’s vast glory, you have to had actually been there, standing along the treacherous edge, breathing the warm blanket air. That’s it, isn’t it? Being there. 

Well I’m not. In New York. Any more. I’m here. Southern California. Sitting at my kitchen table, windows open, admiring the translucent blue sky and that non-producing plum tree that I intended to chop down two months ago, that is now laced with miniature Christmas bulb plums etched in the promise of summer.

So much needs my attention: The weeds. The cobwebs. The grand boys’ dusty play kitchen. Piles of dog hair framing every room. The junk I thought would disappear–old bills, piles of fallen leaves, the Tower of Babel garage. The roommate, who fell into a deep and dark depression while I was gone. My pups, who survived, albeit in desperate need of baths and walks to the beach. Which I did this morning. Check.

We walked along the blue ocean that was hushed in the rising sun. A few masked and mask-less runners. A grandpa shuffling with a cane. Doggies and their parents. The absence of that homeless man who sleeps at the side of the Elks Club. Veteran Park’s  glorious green, untouched, trash-less carpet grass. The ghost town playground and more surfers than I’ve ever seen along the breakwall less than a mile from where I live.

I wondered if the people I passed were aware that they lived in such beauty? Were they thrilled to stretch their legs, feel the salty breeze and sink their toes in the CLEAN sand and warmish sea? I expected to hear emerging giggles, like my granddaughter’s, and applause, like New Yorkers do for health care workers every evening at 7 p.m. Yeh for Nature! Yeh for us!

I picked up a barnacled muscle shell which, in ordinary times, is ordinary. But to me, the blueish shell reminded me of my own version of a divining rod, that fork stick determiner of Source, which consists of burrowing into familiar sounds, smells and that Tribe I mentioned a couple of blog posts ago.

It is clear from my absence, I was missed. And now, I need to do what I must do: Get the place in order. Help a pour soul outsource his debilitating depression. Open the curtains. Scrub away the bath ring. And be open to the Great Next. A new chapter: The Shift.

Disclaimer: I’m sorry, but I won’t be posting baby photos for a while. It’s just like viewing the Grand Canyon from afar; with no caked-on baby vomit on the shoulder and appreciator of Gma’s off-key Disney musical to muse about, it’s just not the same. It’s missing the narrative.  

But I am figuring things out that I will continue to share with you, with your indulgence.

When I descended the staircase to the beach this morning, I thought about the history our shoreline has endured: Fear of possible Japanese attacks during World War II. The old hotel and bathhouse bulldozed due to neglect and disinterest. Food lines that wrapped around distribution centers during the height of the Great Depression. The tall ships that lined the Pier and carried redwood lumber, the bones of Craftsmen bungalows like mine. A little girl in braids and a seersucker bathing suit charging into the waves and into her daddy’s arms while her bundled up, L&M-smoking mom waved adoringly at her chubby, rubber-capped daughter. It is here, at this beach in this exact spot, where love was born. The ghosts are keenly present this new morn of California beach openings. All the worry. All the fretting. Gone. The waves still break and the sun still rises and falls every day.

We are going through all this turmoil for a reason. Maybe it’s so we can all get closer, be real, let go of the crap, and exchange the non-essential for the essential. Hold tight to the core.

Somehow, I don’t know about you, but I got off track. I need to get back to daily prayer and meditation. Stretching. Breathing. Dancing and singing Broadway tunes for no reason other than–it’s fun. I have to stop eating unhealthy stuff and read more. And create art.

Anne Morrow Lindberg’s “Gift From the Sea”, a book that’s inspired me at key points throughout my life, is a beautiful reminder of the importance of stepping off the beaten path to re-discover one’s self. She writes, “When we start at the center of ourselves, we discover something worthwhile extending toward the periphery of the circle. We find again some of the joy in the now, some of the peace in the here, some of the love in me and thee which go to make up the kingdom of heaven on earth. The waves echo behind me…this is only the beginning.”

I am in an adjustment phase. Not good. Not bad. I miss…but not going there. It’s time to light the fire pit, schedule a social distancing wine tasting and celebrate What IZ.