California, I Never Left You
(This is my first posting on this page in many months. I’ve been plagued by writer’s bloc! I will be describing what that is like in the next posting or two. Today I will not attempt to catch you up with things, but write only to share about our current trip to Southern California.)
(Carlsbad, CA, 1/25/2024) TO ALL MY MICHIGAN FRIENDS:
No reason to be jealous. if you knew that our first week in L.A. and San Diego County was rainy and overcast for four of the days. Saturday and Monday rained so steady that it broke century-old records for rainfall and is adding to the serious flooding and ocean cliff destabilization that has plagued Southern California since 2022. Where you are sounds better than sitting alone in a hotel room with second thoughts of making the choice to fly here!
But lo! There is a purpose to this trip, a two-week journey back to Southern California and chapter in my life’s script. First, just to be clear, this is not a homecoming. You can never go home again because while you were away “home” doesn’t stay the same. Only the heart does, which can look at our experiences, stand back, observe the changes, and stay open-minded about the lessons it tells you about where you came from, where you are and where you’re going.
I’ve been practicing laying the groundwork to succeed in this purpose for a long time. But it only came into focus yesterday on Day Eight in Southern California. Other than to escape the frigid zone of the Northern Tier where we live in Michigan, I realized the true purpose was to rendezvous with my older sister, Danna, in San Diego, after virtual estrangement our entire adulthood.
I’ve made overtures over the year to reconcile with her, but she seemed content in limiting our contacts to emails and texts. I feared that my last offering, to meet with me on this trip, was doomed to go down like the others. But after mailing her a card on which I tenderly wrote I love her, I received a text from her Wednesdy that she agreed to see me. It’s been at least 14 years since we’ve seen each other. Her two daughters, Amy, 40, and Olivia 34, have grown up without my knowledge of the details of their lives.
Even the conditions for our meeting as well as logistics and terms for dinner were difficult for me. We worked it out all by phone text. I suppose estrangements are so challenging that it is a good idea to work out terms for the meeting as a necessary part of the process of reconciliation. In the past several years we settled on texting to communicate because it provides certain degree of safety. Despite its risk for easy misinterpretation, texting provides some emotional protection compared to the phone or video-call. It created a buffer against hurtful impulsive statements we easily and carelessly can make against each other that sets off an immediate escalation of verbal attacks. Texting has offered some space to remember that our first thought isn’t always the best to say out loud.
I am staying in Carlsbad, about 33 miles north of Danna’s home on Point Loma in San Diego. I’ll be driving there in less than an hour. While Judy stays in the San Fernando Valley with friends, I found a reasonably priced three-star hotel less than a half mile from the ocean in north San Diego County for the second week of our journey. Our friend Jay from San Clemente, about a half hour north, offered me one of his surfboards to try during my stay, a beautiful eight-foot Jerry Lopez soft foam board with three wood stringers. Basically, a beginner’s surfboard, for this once skilled surfer.
I will let you know how it turns with Danna, Amy and Olivia tomorrow in this blog. As for now, this will be short as I am getting more and more anxious about this big event!
God Bless you all.
Davi
