charlobo-a-go-go

Table for 20?

I trucked the Little Family out to Richmond/Pinole (I never know which one it is) for dinner with some friends. It was a no-brainer. Something we’ve done as friends for a few years. I don’t even remember when/where we started.

All I know is that it’s always a good time, and all I know is that these are the ties that bind.

The holidays leave me thinking…leave me wondering about what’s coming up or what’s next in my life. The New Year brings loads of resolutions, reflections, and moments whereupon I wonder what new challenge to take on or what thing to redo. As you can tell, I’ve decided to retake up blogging on a more deeper level than the 140 I’ve been giving you. No, you’re welcome.

Anyway, for the last few days I’ve been playing full-time moms; my folks have been away and I have some time off from work. It’s been nice. Busy, but nice. It’s wonderful to see Bambina do Bambina things. Fun to see Husbandido do Husbandido things (pass out in Bambina’s tent…wtf). I’ve lost track of days - I don’t even know what the numeric date is. 2nd? 4th? Monday? Life is delicious like that.

But my routine is still there. Wake up a little early, quality time with Bambina, make coffee for Husbandido, feed parrot. Watch hours upon hours of Sprout. Do Wiggles dances. Geez. No, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It seems simple, uncomplicated. I read books (A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Lovely Bones, Beautiful Struggle, Mountain Man Dance Moves, all the Twilight Books…all in the last month). It’s simple. I tweet. I read updates. Barrel through my RSS feeds. I move through the day fluidly. Certain days it feels languid.

But without the pressure of work and the constant need to produce and serve others, I’m turning inside to listen to myself more and find out not just resolutions, but revolutions and reflections. Three R’s? Maybe.

I am reeling from a friend’s passing. Just a few days ago. I don’t even know how to talk about it or how to put it out there other than this. Over dinner we talked about it in hushed terms, that rawness making it hard to say more than, wow. This whole post, this is the paragraph that I am literally staring at the screen trying to figure out what to say.

Sometimes you don’t have to say anything.

Tell me about it.

I know. But I want to. I wish there was a way to put it outside of me, not to separate it from myself, but to look at it, explore it and hold it and understand it. It’s not easy to lose a friend. Relatives, distant and not so, have come and go, but friends I can count on fingers. It hits home in a different way.

Scared?

Yah. It hits home in a different way I’m not used to. Suddenly everything seems finite.

Because it is finite. There is a beginning and an end.

It was that voice again inside of me that visits from time to time. For months, maybe years, I let the voice sit silent, not because I wanted to silence it, but maybe I wasn’t ready to sit and listen. I guess it’s time.

I guess you can say that it’s time. But there’s something that I learned about you since we started talking. You listen best when you are ready to listen. You listen best when something snaps your attention. In other words, you’re like everyone else.

You know how to make a person feel special. The disembodied voice came from nowhere but everywhere. Soon, I noticed the figure of a person materialize across the room, cup of tea in hand. She looked like, well, her.

Were you expecting someone else?

No, but it makes sense. You look good.

I should hope so. So, back to you. What’s going on?

The typical end of the year stuff. The typical thinking, pondering, and wishing. It’s been nice to have time to myself as I was mentioning earlier. I know this is going to sound selfish, but I would have loved to go on a retreat to sit back and think. Like meditate. I do a little every day when I go to sleep, but a structured time would be nice.

Let’s just consider this your structured time. You’re skirting the question.

That’s the problem with teachers - call you on your shit when you are avoiding things. You will be thinking all is good when you get smacked to the ground.

Only to get up again. That’s how you learn.

It is. You’re right there. She looked out the window and put her feet up onto the ottoman and nudged the glider into a slow rocking motion. I watched her staring out the window with wonder.

You want to know what it’s like.

I do. But I’m not in a hurry to find out.

I wasn’t either. But that’s life.

She looked at me with that look. The look at feels like someone is reading you. Now I know what a page in the scanner feels like. Transparent. We sat for a few minutes, staring off into the distance. Me looking around, thinking, breathing. She stared out the window. I was waiting for her to start in on me again. Just like I knew she was waiting for me.

I guess, I said, there’s rhyme and reason to why things happen.

You know, that’s been the biggest assumption. That there is a reason. That there is a purpose.  A higher calling. I call shenanigans. Things happen because they happen. I don’t make them happen. I don’t take things away because people are bad or give them things because they are good. It’s the way of the universe - things happen.

Where I come in is to support you through. I am here to work with you, to hear you, to be with you, to talk to you. I just wish people understood that.

It’s not easy to hear you say that. You’re the first person that people blame. You’re the first person that people ask for intercessions. You’re the beginning and end. It’s almost not fair.

I accept that. I hear all of it.

But you have the ability to change all of that, don’t you? She listened to my question and looked into her cup of tea. Where did that tea come from? Hm.

Do I? I suppose. But what does that mean? That everyone makes it through? That I choose some and not the others? It can’t work like that. It wouldn’t be fair, would it? Look…I know what you’re asking. But think deeper about why things are the way they are.

The argument made sense. But it didn’t. It left holes. Holes I could swim in, and get lost even in the clearest ocean. You know what I believe, I asserted quietly, that things happen. That people who go remain alongside us. There is no higher plan. There is no things happening for a reason. It just happens, and it sucks, and people leave. But they don’t leave us. I can hear and feel them. It sounds crazy, and I’ve never admitted this, but I know this to be true. I paused to see if I lost my freakin’ mind.

No. You’re just as insane as you have always been.

This was comforting from the infinite. I suppose it would inappropriate to question that. There were so many questions left, thoughts I had. Although my friend and I weren’t the best of friends, we were still friends nonetheless. We were people who ran in the same circles, and those circles were now incomplete. One in particular was broken and turning in on itself. I worry about him, not knowing what I could do.

Time. Give him time. And give yourself time too. I will do my best. Trust me.

I do. I have. Sorry to stay away for so long.

It’s ok. These things happen. I’m always here.

Good to know. Tell her hi, okay? She smiled at me. That dazzling smile that makes me feel like everything is okay. Everything will be okay.