I heard: “Big Sur is calling to me” and here’s what happened to me.

I immediately felt the grey, El Nino winter that that I spent in California, in 1999.

I was working in a restaurant in Kansas City at the time a place that was renovating. All the staff was given 6 weeks vacation, unpaid.

So I planned for it, saved up money the way that single people can do– just enough– and bought a one-way Amtrak ticket to San Francisco. I had a cousin to stay with. And a college friend. And my first-ever laptop.

In the weeks, I hung out in Berkeley, writing things that got saved in the hard drive of a laptop I don’t own anymore. Also on floppy disk. Once I  printed onto dot matrix at some point too. My feet froze in the Starbucks as I wrote.

It was a psychological break from work for me that I hadn’t ever taken before. I was free to wander around… in my writing and in the day.

Unfortunately, most days were drenching cold rain.

On the weekends, I found my way to be with my friends Mallie and Adrian. We drove north and stayed in cheap hotels. Walked barren beaches and watched dogs chase men in wetsuits into the surf. We argued and ate. She dropped me back in Berkeley again for the weekdays, to come and find me again on the weekend.

More writing at the library table, and wandering around San Francisco alone. Then the weekend again and roadtrip.

We meandered south, where we found the sun. We stopped in Santa Cruz and walked along a funny boardwalk and up onto the cliffs, watching the wild surfers below us.  We went on for miles on two-lane roads through old Western towns that are hidden like real fossils. Stopping at bar that was rough hewn and soaked in beer and pops up in my memory like a movie scene.

We kept going, by the artists’ caves packed into the trees along Highway 1, and the little surprise restaurants in the middle of nowhere, overflowing with people and paperbacks and coffee stains.

We found our way to Hearst Castle Road, and timed it so we could take the tour. Stared at the abandoned and gleaming bowling alleys like they they were diamond rings sitting on a can of tuna in the supermarket. The castle on top of the hill that people wanted to be haunted with fame and glory was just draped in fog and stony silence.

We wound our way back up the first highway. Stopped in Carmel for lunch and felt cheated by the  diamond choker vibe. A strangeness of glamour tarred the wildnerness.

Another weekend we went north again. Into the redwoods, walking without anyone else. Only the rain and dead leaf carpets. Trying to adjust our sense of proportion. And our sense of alone.

In between the weekends, to solidify the strangeness, my cousin introduced me to a red-headed boy. And the boy took me on a date. To dinner in North Beach, San Francisco. And then to that wonderful, narrow bookstore where the Beats lived.

The boy took me out again, and then surprised me by finding me beautiful.

In weak moments, the sun winced its way out from the clouds.

Otherwise, the rain poured down. We had to kiss in a doorway to stay dry.

After another week, I stared at Bridal Veil Falls at Yosemite, my nose frozen, but far enough from the coast to be in the sun. Wishing to be back in Berkeley, the way girls in love do.

Then the train and the goodbyes and the wishes to stay and promises to come. And photographs — traded — all before the cell phone era. And I don’t remember the train home, even though I took it there.

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I find myself slipping.

I know I shouldn’t look down on that other person, but it’s all too easy to do it.

I see a man sitting in his car in a parking lot with his engine running for several minutes at a time. I think of wasted fuel, money and burned petroleum added to the air I’m trying to breathe. I want to go over and ask him to shut the engine off, roll down his window and enjoy the bird songs in a nearby tree.

We take our kids to the local pizza buffet. I see a lady piling her plate high for the fourth time. I don’t want to say something to her, but my death rays are almost visible.

Those are probably not your hot buttons. But I’d guess you’ve been in that place I ended up at because of other issues.

Let’s not go there. We end up letting those thoughts grow, like weeds. It gets harder to avoid that loop the next time. And sometimes it does come out, often with disastrous results. If we let those loops run, we share them with our friends. They end up wanting to avoid us.

So let’s not just play nice … let’s LIVE nice.

This is a guest post from Paul Merrill.

–

Paul Merrill lives in suburban Colorado with his wife and three kids. They have a minivan and sometimes dream about owning a Prius. Eight years of their family life was in Kenya and England. Paul has a taste for exotic toothpastes. His home blog, Shiny Bits of Life, is really wonderful.

No related posts.

Men don’t leave.
Skin flakes gather
On sheets
Cologne draped from
Unaired corners.
Men don’t leave.

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I agreed with myself that I would write a small stone for Fiona and Kaspa on their wedding day, which was June 18.

What with the whirlwhind of (fill in list of excuses here), the entire weekend disappeared somewhere.

I didn’t realize that I’d even forgotten until today, driving, I heard Mary Chapin Carpenter singing “Late For Your Life:

No one knows where they belong
The search just goes on and on and on
For every day that ends up wrong
Another one’s right
Call it chance or call it fate
Either one is cause to celebrate
Still the question begs why would you wait
And be late for your life

So here I stop to fulfill my promise.

Dear Fiona and Kaspa:

Peace and love on your wedding and the days that follow.

My to-do list keeps running through my mind as I look around on June 22nd for a small stone for two beautiful newlyweds.

So in honor of your fourth day of marriage, I skip this thought to you.

bullet points remind me

Of the thousand bits of

nothing to do today–

run my finger down this used envelope

and imagine your skin

waiting for me in evening’s dusk.

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I admit it. I have a serious Life-Crush on Tara.

It’s Ok. I am sure she doesn’t mind. I mean, after all, her business is to make people want to feel that gorgeous feeling of love… not just for her, but for ourselves.

There are just those certain kinds of people in the world, aren’t there? The ones in our lives who make us feel lovely.

They walk into the room, and all the self-consciousness, all the questions about who we are or who we SHOULD be just disappear.

In fact, what I like best about People I Love is how perfectly “out” of myself I feel. I turn toward the love between us, which shines like a beautiful ever-changing star wherever we go together.

That’s why I tweet, actually. I love to pop over to Twitter, just to get a glimpse of what the lightmakers are mumbling about today. What zen light is AmyOscar up to? Tara, have you had your coffee and your revelation yet today? Will ImtheQ ever find happiness or the perfect taco? What small stones have Fiona and Kaspalita skipped today?

I walk the line between what is healthy injection of light in my day, and what is distraction. But in those moments when I’ve forgotten myself and feel wonderful, I know I’m doing OK.

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Grateful this morning, at 4:30 a.m., for Colin’s choice of 52″ inch HD.

Eschewing Jon Stewart’s cynicism, for blogs on exotic millinery.
Sharing the Royal Love feels sweet, pure; held whole
A soft, cold, unpeeled orange.

I am a Londoner again, today, splayed spread eagle
In St. James Park at noontime–
Between meetings–
Hogging first slices of sunshine
After a long winter’s damp.

I’ll go back to work.
I’ll go back to arms’ lengths and
Cigarette laced multi-pint dinners and
Hiding myself inside the Metro
Inside the Circle Line.

But today I am
Lying still, veins hot,
American-open and streaming the beat
Of squawking tourists,
Greedy pelican, and diesel revvings.

Beyond the ice cream cart queue
Where I’m knocked flat by pageant and love
Buckingham winks and waves.

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Maine waters, very good for meditation

This picture reminded me instantly of our summer vacation in Maine and of floating on my back, gazing at the blue sky and hearing only the sound of my own breath.

But then, it also reminded me of this new feeling I own… a tight grip on my heart that comes from the constant stress of responsibility.

After those few moments of perfect me time on the cool lake, I came back to reality, and regained my senses.

After all, there is no real “me” time anymore. Even if I steal away while Colin is with the kids, they are always leaning against my heart, poking me, asking me questions, asking more of me than I’m at first willing to offer– more than I believe I am capable of offering.

And this, I am happy to say, is a mutual feeling.

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Betty cat sidles up
Shoves her way in
Lolls under my firm pressure
Kneading my gut.
Telling me with toenails uncut…
Stop working, stop everything–
Make more…
Make more love.

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Make the day pause,
A top all done now the spinning:
But not yet toppled.

If (for just one day)
I am the morning sun,
Then
You are the luscious hills
I peek over;
The refracting air dew
–In winter, air’s mirror–
And that single ecstatic
Songbird rambling
Her grocery list.

And if,
At noontime,
I’m busy shrinking
Dingy winter piles
(Just this once),
Then,
You’re the relieved oak branches
Sighing,
Or epic icicles smirking at my
So-called heat.
You are
The tires and the grit
Scratching roadside harmony
To keep me company.

Then, when I see it’s time
(One day only)
To stretch the shadows long,
Then you become the
Winged beauty of your dreams:
Hummingbird, pheasant, or pterosaur

And we’ll light out
Together,
Horizon advancing on
Our command,
Into our dreams and
Any ordinary day.

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On Day 27 of #reverb10, Brene Brown asked:

What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?

My moment was an accumulation of split-second realizations: each about the same and exquisitely lovely. They were those moments when you are looking into the eyes of someone and you suddenly see the glimmer of returned love and friendship.

Because we have passed mile marker “Year 3″ in Connecticut, it seemed logical that some of our friendships have started to stick. But logic has nothing to do with that vast expanse of loneliness that I always seem to forget about when I get all excited by the prospect of moving somewhere new. I was glad this year to start to feel that “safe” feeling with my friends: where you can begin the task of ordinary friendship and all its wonders.

It’s all well and good. After all it should take a LONG TIME to find “the people” again; you know the ones. The people who:

• get me
• forgive me and come back
• ignore me when I forget to flip the “tact” switch
• (Actually find my lack of tact sort of charming, and kind of a relief.. in that “She said that! Hah! WOW! I would never have said that. Hmmm, but it WAS what I was thinking….”)
• laugh AT me at at just the right moments
• laugh with me the rest of the time
• don’t act all that surprised if they find me blubbering over in a corner now and then
• wear their own skin like the most comfy fleece ever!– because those are the only kinds of people I seem to attract
• carry VIP membership to the Generosity Circle of the Universe.

So today, right now, I am thinking of the sweet friends I earned, gained, grabbed, nabbed, or just got lucky enough to nudge into with the minivan in 2010.

I often am unsure why they hang around me, (waiting for Colin to get home and make dinner?) but I am thrilled to have them for any reason.

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