the long road                                                                

Flying tends to give me migraines. I sit there like a furtive junkie, watching seven straight hours of Bravo and Animal Precinct, unmoving, tucked up like a small fish in my standard issue leather seat. I never drink enough water. I've always eaten a really bad slice(s) of pizza at the airport and I rarely, if ever, open the Cardiology or Nephrology texts I've lugged on to allay my guilt and neglect. 

Such that I return, bleary and famished and squinting, home.

Driving back late at night from San Francisco I stick my head out the window, drink it up. Suddenly and abruptly, there is sky. Stretched out and pin-pricked, thick and uninterrupted. Acutely, ceremoniously, where there was once dirtyfastloudloudscreamhonkpushtrashtrasheverywhere there is now the dark light of midnight and the unalloyed wash of moon. And instantly, unequivocally, I am better.

wind and sea

The bleached out bones of my life are here. I have not tired of Santa Cruz.  I still love the wide, patch work streets, the low trees, the quiet houses, the dank redwoods, my separated life. I love it fiercely now, today, two years out and away. It is notrashnosirensnohonkingscreamingscratchingbigrigsontheexpressway. 

It is quiet, it is only birds and seals--barking, scrapping, fussing over sun spots--and an occasional lawn mower. It is only open windowed sunshine and the clicking of dog feet on hard wood. 

We walk out in the strong on-shore winds to the ocean, lean on the iron railing, look down at The Lane. In the mornings we go to into the redwoods, padding quietly along the paths and needles, shady cool with little sun. The afternoons are all chilled, damp air hung out to dry in the sun; the mornings are full up with kettles of tea and coffee mugs.

The minutes go so slowly, are spent so quickly and I am better already.