November night. I was born in San Bernardino and it was a rainy day and perhaps St. Bernardine's Hospital was not yet reputed for its ghost nuns stalking hallways.
This, an afternoon soft sunset bike ride, caught by surprise at the outlined beauty of the sky, the very full moon at horizon, sky still light, behind a pink veil, and the yield to slow stain of colors until the entire sky seemed to be in collusion to give me a wonderful embrace as I turned the corner, as I turn the corner on another year of my life, coming to a close. Not what I expected. In the desert, you expect sharp things, abrupt beginnings and endings, a brace against what can't be embraced. Only pretended. Or better, pantomimed.
I measure my time in this sphere by a sort of connect the dots from November to November. The just-darkening time of year. Always right after the time change, and conveniently before the holiday hoopla. Usually during the week of Veteran's Day, so it's often a week with a day off and a day I wish I could take off. Last year, I remember distinctly that I took a desert hike. With Phil. And then, off to Jeff's for a birthday party with potato tacos and many friends and a drum circle and I ended up going a little smash-ballistic with a tennis racket and handfuls of candy that erupted from a pinata they had for me. The country was not yet in economic meltdown. We had not yet elected (hurrah!) Barack Obama. We had not yet endured so much. I was on sabbatical last fall and much more relaxed, spending much time in my own inward journey of metaphor and outward days in the open spaces. We had more innocence. I was a year younger. I didn't have a touch of fascitis in my right heel. I was probably not as healthy then as I am now. I was not in therapy, and I had not yet started a literary magazine, and I had fewer poems published.
Tonight I cruised on my Mojave Red mountain bike, a nice Schwinn, orange reflective vest and extra care taken crossing the freeway-busy roads here, 6 lanes wide with people soaring through. Staying on sidewalks, talking on the cell to my mom - parents back from 5 weeks in Italy - and my younger brother, who lives in San Jose, who is sadly breaking up with his girlfriend of 2 years. I try to call Philip, we had plans to celebrate my birthday with dinner and a movie tonight, but then I decided against going to Riverside because I was feeling extra tired the past few days, due to a lot of hard working on the desert book and at my teaching job, and several weekends in a row of being away from home - desert excursions and teaching gig for Joshua Tree Park Desert Institute.
And so, I spent the last hour of the daylight, the wedge between sundown and complete dark, less than an hour at this time of year, and in a quiet hush, marvelling at the last piece of unadulterated sand dunes adjacent to the Indian Wells tennis gardens. I wanted to dissolve in them, lay my back against that pure white and be a newborn baby again - untouched by pavement and too much brightness and the tracks of so many across my back, and perhaps the whisper of a ghostly "Hail Mary" across my forehead, cleansing me of carnal sins. Instead, I passed on by, taking the 7 mile bike route I rode, easier now that the weather is cool, not the "take it slow, it's HOT" strain of June, July, August, when Phil and I rode so many miles together around my neighborhood, 9 or 10 o'clock at night, and still so stifling.
I look to the fireplace - Phil had the rocking chair parked there. I wrote a lot of poetry with him sitting there and reading. I really miss the guy. I hadn't lived with anyone, aside from my daughter, for almost 20 years. Wow! We are still friends. We just spent the weekend out at Tecopa Hot Springs, tentatively feeling our way into friendship and regaining a foothold on what we enjoy(ed) together. Quiet time, the feeling of being not so alone with....someone else who understands what it means to be really alone in the world. And interesting, because both of us have enormous numbers of "people connections" and when in public, can easily charm and
empower an entire room, when we are "on" and in our "groove." A rare and ironic find.
And so in one hour, 20 minutes, I will be notching up to the next year, another passage, a round sweep of moon and sun, from one November afternoon to the next, and I'm not far from where I was born, maybe 60 miles, but how much ground I've come. I've carved out an adult life, with this teaching gig and raising a kid, and now I'm restless, aching for the next set of adventures: more graduate school, an enhanced literary and teaching career, a desert lit anthology in the works and the sudden desire to "get the hell out of here." It will have been 10 years next August since I arrived in this wedge of California desert, and I'm gangbusters to get the hell on out. No more summers here.
Kid is grown, house is ready to be sold, well, almost, and I'm ready to downsize, as they say, embrace my writer's voice and dig in full board into the literary and writers life and world. I'm so bored with my community college job I have to really discipline myself to sit here in this house and do the work. It's not hard. It is worn dull, like a knife that is no longer sharp. I can't imagine connecting that off-color dot any more than I have to in order to springboard to the next set of goals. I've maxed out on everything here. I've hiked every desert hike, many times. I've done the rounds of events and fun things. I've not only seen friends and colleagues go, I've seen many come AND go! I've always been the one to quick-live, staying in one place 2 years or so for many years. My time has come.
Where will I be next November? This winter will give me the opportunity to explore more of the desert - wrap up the desert book - and in a way, I feel that by creating these things, I am saying goodbye. To something that once familiarized, is already spent and done - opening up the way to the next set of intent. This is a quiet birthday year, in contrast to last year's zaniness. I have spent more quiet adult birthdays than busy ones. And so, it is all good. I will work most of the day away, teaching poetry and on the desert book, and then share dinner with family, I believe.
Looking to the stars, because we lack elders, and as I get a bit older, I don't know who to turn to for advice - who really knows? We don't have real guides anymore, only what we can piece together, us amateur archaeologists - Father and Mother Time - and the shadows of the wise ones from earlier cultures. Down to the wire, now. For what they're worth, in their quiet and fickle coming and going, swishing in stiff black robes and high, starched habits up and down ancient halls - I can almost smell the heavy smolder of the priests' frankincense pendulum - and realize that I just might be able to hang out and enjoy a little time with those Ghost Nuns after all.
