We flew into San Diego Thursday to visit my father. He isn’t doing great since my mother passed. I thought that maybe I could help, but so far I think that was a bad idea. I’m very little help here and since I arrived, I have felt drained. The only thing I want to do is run away.
As a teenager, I would go out into the hills. Now that I am older, I can drive and it is easier.
These roads are the only thing that are familiar, besides the disappointing scowl on my father’s face. He tries to talk to me, to relate. How is that possible when he can’t escape and I can’t focus on anything.
The bushes splash color, vomiting pinks and purples across the land. The birds never shut up and the heat m of the freeway drones on. Life is constant here, so it seems so strange that it enthralled me and yet plunges my mind into the darkest of places. I tell Brian stories of my childhood, but try to stick with stories that are pleasant which means that we’re pretty much driving in silence. He feels the tension and can see the stark disparity between the things we see and this dull reality.
I had hoped that this trip would bring closure, ending a chapter of my life that left me feeling empty. My childhood had patches of idyllic mystery.
My life feels like a patch of hopeful spikes with nothing left but bitter orthodoxy and a love of the divine. Of course, my feelings are invalid because that divine isn’t Christ and in my family, love was never free. Ironically, my dad wasn’t ever part of that lunacy. He was always working. There is no binge and purging of these thoughts, they must stay contained.
As the sun sets on this life that my family created here, I can’t help but to laugh. New relations are formed and others break away. It hasn’t all been bleak this trip, I will have more pleasant postings of our trip I am sure. My best friend got married. It was beautiful. I guess I had to get this all out of the way.
In any case, while my mood may be sour, at least the pictures are pretty.
Brian keeps trying to keep my mind occupied. This has to be less of a vacation for him but he is trying to make it one. Today we are going to explore cult compounds in LA. How fitting, viewing the rubble of houses that once preached of free love while practicing the perfection of the death of the soul. First stop, the Jim Jones temple.
It is just one of the many reasons that I love this guy.
