Up In the Air

I’m parked in my car on the side of a road with a laptop propped against the steering wheel. Vineyards surround me. The end of a July day, the sun rushed to set in the time it took to type that first sentence. Above the vineyards, a thin haze of pink and orange hovers. Very thin, like an old, worn-out ribbon stretched across the horizon. Whatever happened to majestic California sunsets?

Though I was raised in California, I made New Mexico my home for (off and on) 16 years. Tonight, I’m missing those Southwestern skies. There is nothing like New Mexico sunsets. They are extraordinary in their displays of textures and colors. A mile above sea level, there is also an intimacy between human and sky. I rarely felt lonely gazing, alone, at the clouds, changes of light, and the 10,000ft. tall mountains.

Here, the ground is what people pay attention to. There are flowing rivers and creeks, and a lively, intricate Delta system from the San Francisco Bay that ends right here in Lodi. The trees, blooming flowers, mosses, lichens, and vineyards are stunningly beautiful. I just haven’t bonded with them. Yet. Only two months have passed, the beginning of a long inner journey.

It has not at all been terrible, leaving New Mexico for my home state to live with family. Not terrible, but hard, with moments of overwhelm and sadness. So far, though, the whole situation feels like the natural shine and shit of life, though across a compressed period of time...

When my brother was hospitalized for another MS flare-up, he was given a fabulous physical/occupational/speech therapy team after a period of rest.

After our air conditioning broke down, extended family members showed up to help repair the old machine, saving my sister-in-law 20 thousand dollars – the amount quoted to her for a brand-new a/c unit.

When my beloved Talay kitty ran away, I was able to see how much love my family could provide for my destroyed heart.

Light and dark. Ebb and flow. Not every fall has triggered a gratitude-laden rise, but if I take the time to notice and reflect, a balance seems to exist quite often.

It’s why I’m here on the side of a road in my car: the gift of time given to myself in order to understand the state of the soul. Which is in limbo, between the loss of Home in one place and a sense of Home in the new place. Eventually, the hope is that I will learn to connect with these California vineyards and waterways, just as I fell in love with the beauty of New Mexico.

I can certainly adore both.

A crowded heart is not at all a terrible thing.