Sun City

The rain clouds hanging low in the sky were a blessing…. a sight savored in the city of the sun. Sun eternal, sun through tall green palm trees, waxen and staunch, 40 feet high and blowing in the breeze. It was a morning of blood and pain, for me. Incredulous, bleeding animal. Senses heightened to the extreme; smell, sound, sight. I know what it is to be wild, primal, animalistic. My body knows it. It shows it, every month, at least once. I bought a broken wooden box, brand-new and a sack full of fleur-de-lis….. for a little project I’m working on. It may sound crazy if I say what it will be so I’ll keep it to myself, for now. But, the box will be transformed for treasure, such treasures!

Afterwards, I drove to Sun City.

I realized the terrain reminded me of Ireland, even though southern California is the opposite of Ireland. But, the steep hills, the rolling hills, the rocky hills- now green with rain….. remind me of Ireland. That at least, I can live with. I stopped at Boston Billies in Sun City for a Rueben sandwich with fries to go. It was the real deal- the diner with maroon pleather upholstered booths, the patrons (all in their 80′s), and the Rueben. Fucking great sandwich. Did I mention the place is run by Egyptians?

Then, my main event for Monday- a right on Grosse Point, a left on Allentown and I have time-warped into a dream from the 1950′s where the lamps and couches are, just so. Everything is put in it’s place. The air is calm and easy to breathe. The plush carpet is soft and thick and almost a deep shag and the paintings on the wall are done by Burgus… who I am talking too and towering over by about a foot and a tiny octogenarian named, Louise. We talk, we drink coffee, they teach me the secret signs of a secret society and I agree to be at their next meeting. We eat the cookies I brought and Burgus shows me his wood carvings, which are astonishing. Louise pulls her red Caddy out of the drive and I agree to practice the signs…. since I am not allowed to make notes in writing. I can’t help noting that for how real everything is inside this precious ranch house…. it seems the more frail for it. The well loved porcelain statuettes, the glass globe lamps, the hand made doilies and afghans, the peach and cream satin upholstered mid-century couch….. the brown ducks in the wallpaper over there….. Sanka coffee and rock gardens instead of a lawn….. please never depart this earth. This flourescent light swathed plastic framed Diet Coke microchip airplane vodka tonic bombshell and warplane Walmart self-medicating world!! I need brown ducks in my wallpaper, damn it… never die. (God, I’m homesick.) But, try as we might…… nothing was ever meant to last forever. And nothing ever does and we all know it. It’s what we do with that knowledge that guides the path we take….. some go straight and some go….

Shaking from three cups of coffee, driving in the opposite direction on this stretch of now-known Cali-Ireland with it’s blessing of thick clouds, thinking of alpacas and summer, thinking of friendship and valleys, my grandmother- of the actual probability of my being alone forever, living high up on one of those big mountains way up in the clouds, secret societies, and music….. of what it all means, put together. And I thought of you. (All of you.) I thought of what it all means, to me…..

I am sooo far out…. in the rolling high green hills, the rocky roads, the rolling valleys which will burn with sun in 3 months…… burning with my questions…. my quest. Burning with my loneliness. I press these thoughts to my heart. What shall be? I’ll keep a sweet kiss in my mind and joy behind my eyes instead of tears…. and smile inside, for your sweet presence to be near me. Because I know that in some backwards way, I am actually in the midst of making all my dreams come true. I am surrounded with the bounty of every possibility, fruits of labor, ingenuity… my love, the layers upon layers that line the coat of my soul…. t’is a wonder to be sure, the colors gay, I never tire of running the length of them, every one…. though I do long to love another, one other…. dear, sweet, and true.