The Dahlia Trail, 10/09

Home. Where is home, my old love?

I went off to play in Tacoma today. I was restless, the weather was nice, I had money in my pocket and I was a bit blue. The last part I can't deny. The Estranged One wrote me an email and broached the subject of dating and it put me into a tailspin. I don't why considering all the things that have passed between us over the last four years, but still. Not too much different than when she told me that she was filing for divorce back in February. Never happened, but still, it's in the wings. We are doing things backwards, Jane, always have. Now, instead of running away, having kids, buying a house and getting married we date, have lovers, then, when things look promising, sue for divorce. I don't know about the rest of the world, but what I do know is that the life that I am living is somewhat strange.

So instead of worrying about things that are out of my hands I took a drive. It was a gorgeous day, a knock down beautiful fall day that took no prisoners, that said to anybody and everybody who was half alive that life was out there and it had to be lived and because of that there would be no yard work done today. So I heeded the call and crossed over the bridge. For a bit there I thought I was going to walk the span over the Narrows but changed my mind. Weather? Clothing issues? No, I wanted to second hand and did it in a big way.

Afterwards I drove down to Pt Defiance Park and walked the walk that we walked oh so many years ago, part of the annual 27th of August thing that I couldn't get around to doing this year. I have to admit that the Sound was a different kind of animal today than the day we took that wee little walk back in '05. The breeze was up, the salt water moody and wild and the air was brisk. I talked to dogs and Highland Mexicans and old ladies and still I couldn't shake that business with the Estranged One. I continued my second handing, went to Grocery Outlet and bought canned goods and wine on the cheap, found a ton of movies at the pawnshop and still....still I couldn't find purchase, couldn't find soil under my feet. I ate a burger at a decent burger mill, found cookbooks at a decent price, sat in the sun and even drove a portion of the Stations of the Cross and still couldn't find that place that said to me.."everything will be okay".

Today, as I was out in the world, I truly realized that I am on my own until otherwise directed. I've known that and have been working towards some sort of resolution of my problems, but still, sometimes things become crystal clear like they were today. And that's what worries me. Life has not so much stalled but has been put into a waiting mode. I don't mind waitint but it sometimes breeds problems. I sometimes find myself with nothing to do so I sit and think and feel and look back on my times here in this house, in this wonderful part of the world that I have grown to love so much. I suppose that's why I am still here in the Kitsap house. I am still here not because of concrete things..the job is gone, the family in Idaho, you are out of my life, so I really have nothing holding me back...but more I'm still here because of memories of a life lived here and because of dreams that have been left unfulfilled.

Memories. I think of steps that need to be taken to get life moving forward again, and I know that an awful lot depends on how I want to deal with my memories, memories of my family, of my house, of the Estranged One and you. Yeah, you, you have been gone and out of my life for years and yet if you were to walk into my house right now and look around, read my writings, look at photographs scattered here and there and peek at the fitfull beginnings of that novel of mine, you might think that you are still part of my life, part of my life in a way that my kids or my friends or even The Estranged One still are.

Today I went out and about and found out that those memories, memories of Sundays in Tacoma with the family, memories of all the goofs made between me and the Estranged One, all the memories of our times, wonderful as they are are liabilities, not assets, in my life right now. All those memories are doing are keeping me in place and holding me back from living a larger life, a life based on the here and now.

Yeah, I went out and about today and found out that all I've been doing has been walking around in a field of land mines. I touch that memory or this memory and bleewy, up in my face they go. I suppose like everyone else I just want to leave the past behind, have some answers about the here and now, answers about where I am going, something solid under foot to help me move forward, to someplace fresh and new where I can feel comfortable about going back to visit those memories every now and again. I want to tell folks, yes, those old times were interesting, great, powerful, bittersweet, meaningful, all that, but they're behind me now, I'm whole again.

I have no regrets about those days, about our times. Rather I'm just frustrated, mystified about where life is headed and where home is. Memories are good for idle times, but right now life requires an action plan to get it going again. Being lost in the land of memory has no bearing right now, memories are just so much dead weight that need to be kicked off the craft in order to lighten it up, get it in the air. For the first time in my life I have no one calling the shots but me and it's just plain out wild to think that. I wake up and wonder about it all, about life, about having met you, how I lost you, about what I plan on doing for work and whether my house will sell or whether I'll be here through the spring. I wonder about where I am going and where I'll end up, all that. I just want direction, my old love. I just want to know where I am going, where home is, just so I know what kinds of trees to buy, what kind of roots I plan on sinking in. I want to know where my next set of memories will be built, feel the earth solid under my feet again.

Home. Memoires of home. I suppose, even on those mornings when I wake up safe and comfortable in my bed, that I am charting a path without a map, that I am looking for a path that will halp me to find my way home again. Help me, my old friend, my old love. Give me some navigation tools to work with. They're there in your eyes. They always were. Let me see your eyes before I go. And help me out by hauling away some of these older memories of ours. Give me newer, lighter ones to carry along with me on that long voyage home. Home, whereever the heck that is.

Your WHMB