Can’t sleep, must write

It’s early Saturday morning.  Early…as in late Friday night.  3:43 a.m.  I hear the clicking of the keyboard, and wonder what I’m doing back here, back in the wee hours.  I thought I’d relinquished them to the past.  Only a few weeks ago, I thought I’d beat the odds of finding a new rhythm.  Ha!  That’s what I get for predicting my future.  I know this one.  Why am I surprised? 

This past week was “vacation” for Dave and me.  We took a break.  We drove up the Sonoma Coast, and stayed in a lovely house in the wooded hills above the cliffs, above the surf of the Pacific Ocean.  The scenery was beautiful, the sunsets awesome, and the quiet was…quiet. 

Quiet was exactly what sent me back in time, over and over, for four days.  I think Dave was surprised that I was somewhat distant, that I cried on our drives up and down the coast.  He couldn’t possibly see all the things I saw in my mind.  I wouldn’t have wished that on him.  He was the epitome of the patient-Dave.  This is who he is, so I was not likewise, surprised.  He cooked great meals, and left me alone with my thoughts.  I couldn’t ask for a better husband.  When we laughed, we truly laughed.  When I cried, he honored my time on another plane, in another time.

We took daily walks; visited Trinks, our favorite Gualala coffee house and bakery; climbed the stairs to the Point Arena Lighthouse; and soaked in the hot tub under pine trees and cloudy, blue skies.  Each morning and afternoon, we looked for the deer feasting across the street, or in the lot next door.  I think I have more photos of deer, than most people have seen in a lifetime.  Owen loved deer, so they are important to my attachment to him.  Every time I saw two young deer together, I thought of Nat and Owen playing in the many fields of their early years.

The night skies were beautiful, luminous, eerie, and…quiet.  I stood on the deck, and hoped for the sound of a mountain lion padding her way down the gravel driveway, not to eat me up, but simply to disturb the silence.  She did not appear.  She was me, and I was as invisible to the night sky, as my memories.  They were closely guarded, encased in my chest, my mind.  Only now, in the aftermath, are these words floating out into the ethers.  I hear the mountain lion’s feet, her soft purr, and I am grateful she wandered off to the trees, leaving me to my nighttime adventures.

Not even the drive home yesterday could break the quiet memories of our past year, or our entire lives.  As we drove south, all I could see were the years when Nat and Owen rode in the car with us - or with me and Michael (their dad) - driving those same roads on camping trips or afternoon outings.  I heard the voices, the laughter; saw their faces, their smiles; and wondered how it changed without my permission, without my acceptance.

It changed.  That’s all.  And, I’m left with the visions, the voices, the void.

Did I relax and rest on our vacation?  Yes.  Did I get all out of it that was possible, given the nature of our today-lives?  Yes.  Did I wish it were different?  Yes.

The first thing I did when we entered our vacation home, was play the piano.  Not the kind of playing a trained pianist would play.  But, the encounter of my fingers touching familiar keys with long-forgotten lessons, and a yearning for company, a teacher, at my side, instructing me on the finer points of composition and harmony.  I heard the sounds, and hoped my mechanical memory might tap in.  It did.  And, it didn’t.  I was reminded of an evening I spent with my brother, around Christmas of 2001 or was it, 2002? when we visited a church in San Diego for a communal singalong - part hymns, part “The Messiah” - a hymn, itself - but with a larger audience.  I recall him being surprised that I could still sight-read music.  Some things, old things, mechanical memory…never change. 

That’s what I kept finding on our trip north.  Those things that don’t change, are counterpoints to those that do.  That’s but one of the conflicts.  My own circadian-rhythm conundrum, another.  Any 24-hour period can be as comforting and as disturbing as any 36-hour period.  Tonight, this morning, whatever this time-zone is…well, comfort is not one of its attributes.  Conflict and disturbance are familiar here. 

Often, I wonder, where do I end, and you begin?  I don’t.  You don’t.  No matter if you are in my small circle…you are most certainly in my larger circle, and we are somehow, all one.  All memory.  All imagination.  All past.  All present.  All future.

Song for the night: 15 Step, Radiohead

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WedRDYmtvX4

~ by Linda on April 26, 2008.