November 9

I can do that.

Back in Bandon area for two weeks now and falling into my old life, or rather the life I had built up, carved out for myself for the 3 plus years of living here before I took off for this past summer.

And the old feelings come back of trying to find more of a life here.   Bandon is a beautiful coastal town, but it is very small, with not much to do, and in the past two weeks I am back in the pattern of looking for more.   I am up in Coos Bay this morning - a 25 mile drive,  north of Bandon - just to sit in the Starbucks here  with the laptop, write, and feel anonymous again, to find the small pleasure of the urban experience that I find comfort in. 

This is the first holiday time of year that my family is truly split up.   Michelle in her new life somewhere  - in California I think, Mara in Austin TX, Jana in Philadelphia PA,  and me here.      I feel like I am the only one who hungers for my family.    I understand Jana and Mara being in their 20s and in their own lives.    I was the same way at their age, and had no interest in maintaining contact with my family - ever - as I was too busy living my own life.    I understand that.      I am not sure I can ever forgive Michelle though for doing what she did, for breaking up our family.    I see movies of married couples getting older together, and I just start to cry, and can't seem to forgive her or forget the fact that we spent so much time and effort building a family  for 30+ years, and she just gave up on it, scarring the rest of us, for the rest of our lives.

The scars never really heal.     With children of divorced parents, you never forget that trauma, of not having an intact family, of your parents splitting up.     My dad did it to my mom, and I swore I would never do it to my kids, and then Michelle up and does it anyway, leaving lifetime scars for the rest of us.  What can you do.

************

Beautiful rainy and cloudy skies this morning, painted in a thousand shades of gray.   I remember reading a book somewhere, written in the first person, about a painter, and he would come across scenes and skies and his mind would always fall into how he could paint that image onto a canvas.    After a bit, and having a way forward, and maybe a partial solution, he would think Yea, I can do that.     

This is how it works when you have some proficiency in something, and is why I miss smoking sometimes.  Just for the thinking part of it.  In my technology career,   I would have problems, challenges.   Things that maybe could not be done, but I would light a cigarette, smoke it for the 5 minutes or so, and stare at the problem and fall into a deep kind of thought, until, maybe the immediate answer would not come to me, but at least a possible way forward, something to try, and all I had to move forward was a trust in that process, in myself.    I would always think that trusting the way forward got me this far, even if I didn't know where it would lead in the end.    

Like life on the road.    You wake up in the morning and have no idea where you will be that night, and it wouldn't matter.   Backpack firmly on my back.   hat flipped backward.  My thumb out.    Big smile on my face.    I asked someone once why they picked me up, and he replied "Because you looked so goofy out there".

You stand on the side of the road somewhere, it didn't matter where,  under painted gray skies like this, fresh with the clarity of the morning, and you have to trust the process, and you look up at the sky and you think Yea, I can do that.



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