Change

Yesterday, I had the privilege to celebrate the life of a woman who had traveled an extraordinary path.  A woman who had overcome adversity and addiction on her road to discovering the healing powers of universal love and mystic spirituality.   I was so intensely overwhelmed by the experience that I knew I had to retell it as soon as I had a few free minutes.  I just felt compelled to do it.  And I had to do it soon.  Today was going to be that day. 

Then today, I went to work, and had one of the most disturbing days I have had in a very long time.  It wasn’t just one thing.  It was the culmination of many things.  By the time I got in the car as soon as I possibly could.  I looked down at the clock on the dash board that read 3:32.  That was the earliest I remembered leaving in quiet some time.  I picked up Radley from school and drove home, as fast as that little Jetta S would get us there.  After everything I had seen today, I knew that I needed to write about it.  I had to find a way to make sense of the senseless. 

As I do, so often, on days that make my head spin,  I sat in the car and watched Radley fumble out, no shoes, one sock and dragging his backpack all the way to the door.  I was getting more and more discouraged.  I closed my eyes and shook my head.  “WHY CAN’T THIS KID JUST KEEP HIS SHOES ON AND CARRY THE GODDAMNED BACKPACK????”  I sat in the car, alone, a little longer than usual today.  Then, I remembered yesterday.  I found myself staring down two different roads.  I wasn’t at a crossroad, I was at a fork in the road.  I was at the place where I had to decide if writing a character assassination about people who assassinate characters would make me feel better than sharing my post-mortem experience about a woman who would never participate in a character assassination. 

That’s a tough place to be in when you are emotional.  Trying to decide between discussing the brilliant and the ugly.  Trying to find an outlet that will better satisfy your emotions.  Do you choose anger or do you choose love?  Anger is an easy emotion to express.  It is relatable, familiar and controversial.  But love…Love sometimes is less relatable than anger.  So, there I sat in the car, sunglasses on, eyed closed, head back, screaming at myself:  “WHAT ROAD ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE?””  Finally, I made a choice.  And this is it. 

June 15 of this year was a Sunday.  My dad usually calls me on Saturday while he’s running errands.  The problem with Saturday calls during errands is that usually I am running errands, too.  So, I called my dad back on the following Sunday.  It just happened to be Father’s day.  On Saturday’s I will call my dad on his cell phone.  On Sunday’s, I always call to the home phone.  When made the call to the Wainiha Valley on Sunday afternoon, Kathy answered.  She usually does when I call the house.  As we exchanged pleasantries, she described their morning trip to the beach.  Then she said, “We got a call earlier today that my sister passed this morning.”  Kathy paused.  I was silent.  “Christina?”  I asked.  She confirmed.  I still didn’t understand, so I mumbled something along the line of begging her to let me know when Christina’s memorial service would be. 

My dad and Kathy have been together for more than 14 years.  When I barely knew Kathy, my dad was visiting the mainland without her.  He was staying in Mill Valley with Kathy’s sister.  Christina invited me to her home for dinner so that I could spend some time with my dad.  I remember being very intimidated driving over the San Rafael Bridge from Alameda.  When I got off at the exit to Stan and Christina’s home, and ascended the narrow road to their home overlooking the Marin Coast, I remember thinking “I don’t belong here.”  But I knew I had to finish my journey.  I parked my little blue Saturn on the side of the hill, walked up their driveway, and knocked with trepidation, on the front door.  First, I saw my dad’s face.  Then I saw a tall, slender woman push him out of the way.  She opened the door and hugged me.  Before I could ever extend a hand to her, I found myself in her embrace. 

The rest of the evening was very similar.  We all sat and talked; bantered.  This place that I was so intimidated to go visit my dad at, became a very comfortable setting for discussing the world’s affairs.  Mid-term elections.  An uncomfortable war in a region of the world we were all unfamiliar with.  The heart’s desires.  After dinner and a few drinks, I felt like I was part of the family.  Even though, a few hours earlier,  I didn’t know the family I was feeling connected to.

I encountered Christina and her family several times.  Of course, because my dad was a part of their family now.  But every time after that, I would see them at my very worst.  Divorce.  Neglect.  Abandonment.   Christina, Stan, and her children would always hug me and talk to me like I was a human being.  The last time I saw Christina was at my Uncle Bill’s.  We were having a magnificent lunch at Random Ridge.  She asked me how I was doing.  It’s hard to lie when you aren’t doing well.  I walked outside to have a cigarette.  She followed me.  We didn’t say anything for a few minutes.  But as all smokers know, you feel judged by nonsmokers.  I finally said “I don’t want to get the smoke in your face.”  Christina walked away, respecting my wishes to be alone. 

Then, there was yesterday.  My dad flew into town the night before.  He got to my house after Radley and I were fast asleep.  When I got up to go to work in the morning, he hugged me and Radley and then reported that I was snoring by the time he walked in the house.  I don’t do 6:AM very well.  So I gave him a squeeze and told him I was recovering from Ebola and that a little known symptom of Ebola was snoring. I walked out the door smiling and rolling my eyes at the same time. Dads do that to you. 

Two hours later, I was back at the house to pick him up for Christina’s memorial service.  As we hit the road, I just assumed that the day would take us to the very uncomfortable places that death and family usually take people.  But as we made our way out of town, on to the back roads of coastal Marin, we only talked when there was something to be said.  It was all meaningful though.  When we finally turned South on Sir Francis Drake, we were at a place that we didn’t need words.  We could just appreciate each other for who we were and the experience we had committed to, together. 

As we pulled into Spirit Rock, I found it funny to see signs adorn the parking lot that cast reminders to lock your cars.  Really?  Where people go to worship, they should lock their cars first?  A place where people go to free their souls requires keys?  I looked at my dad and winked.  I knew I was in for something unexpected.  In the words of every lame article that has ever gone viral:  “What happened next blew me away.”  Or “Mind Blown.”  Or “Amazing.” 

We were early.  I hate being early.  That means that you have to look people in the face.  You have to act interested through awkward introductions.  You have to hug people and act like you know what to say.  I don’t do that.  But as I watched my dad walk to people, talk and hug.  I suddenly felt much removed from his life.  Instinctively, that made me want to remove myself from the picture.  I was so involved with faces and hands and hugs at that point, I couldn’t leave.  Before I knew it, I had hugged all of Christina’s nearest and dearest.  I’m a lover and a hugger and even I couldn’t understand what had just happened.   Finally, I saw Christina’s daughter.  I hugged her and said “Thank you so much for letting me be a part of this day.  It means so much.”  She just hugged me tighter and whispered in my ear “You are family.” 

I was ready to walk into that service expecting for the unexpected.  Turns out, the unexpected happened to me before I even took off my shoes in the temple.  Then I sat, for two hours, and listened as the three people most important to Christina paid tribute to her.  They talked about her journey, her escape, her spirituality, her love.  Not one of them made light of her life experiences.  But they all made weight of her character.  They all made note of the way she showed her love for people through food.  They all made note of the way her words, while she was separated from them, kept them connected.  They all addressed how her mystic spirituality gave her the love that reached so many. 

I spent two hours barefoot, absorbing all of the love and positive emotion before it became too much.  I gathered my shoes and walked outside.  I looked down from the hills of West Marin.  I looked to the grey sky above and decided to walk down the hill.  I told my dad that I had to go…the people were just too much.  He understood, and went in to hug Sarah and Peggy and Stan and Than.  Then he followed me down the hill. 

We got back in the car and made the intentional right back up the coast.  I didn’t tell him about the very intimate, very spiritual experience that I had that morning.  I think something similar had happened to him.  He asked me if I wanted to go for lunch.  I did, but I felt this compulsion that made me feel obligated to go back to work.  Go back to work. Go back to work.  GO BACK TO WORK!!!.  That’s all I heard in my head.  Until I finally blocked it out.  We stopped at the intersection that gave the opportunity to go back to Petaluma or go the other direction to Pt. Reyes.  I choose Pt. Reyes. 

We parked outside of town, and walked the city streets.  Both of us were taking in the day and the experience.  When we got to the end of town, we walked back and my dad said “how about there?”  There it was.  We had a marvelous lunch at the Station House.  He had a burger, I enjoyed the grilled mushroom sandwich.  It could have been the morning we had.  It could have been the food we were eating.  It could have been the fact that we finally understood each other.  But I have never had a more delicious sandwich.   In my life.  Ever. 

It was over that lunch In Point Reyes that I made a decision.  It was there, after an amazing morning, and a guilt free lunch, I shared with my dad the very long and tortured road I had been traveling for so long.  It was in the midst of that spiritual experience that I finally saw that my path wasn’t moving the direction it needed to be headed in.

That is why I titled this blog “Change.”  It could have been titled something more appropriate.  I could have called it “Love” or “Journey” or “Experience” or anything else besides change.   But that day changed my life.  It reminded me to change my course.  It made me feel change.  I could have very easily come home from work after a bad day and wrote 1,000 words about ugly people.  I could have talked about how ugliness prevails despite beauty.  I could have written a very dynamic blog post about the good, bad and the dysfunctional.  But I’ve done that before.  And, to be quite direct, I am fucking tired of making noise about hateful people.  I am ready to start sitting in silence with people who are loving.  People who are good.  I need that in my life.

I need to make that change. 

-Inner Peas