Life Unraveled

During the summer of 2019, a few short months before my Mom passed away, I returned to my hometown for a visit.  I don’t recall much about the time spent there, save for one small event.  I went with my mom to the beauty shop to meet “the girls”, as she called them.  One of those girls I already knew by name—Susie—because that name was revered like royalty around these parts.  Susie was the woman who did my mother’s hair every Wednesday.  The artist who patiently washed, combed, curled, and teased Ma’s hair every week like clockwork, faithfully constructing the dark bouffant hairdo that was as much a part of my mom’s persona as any other physical trait she possessed on Earth.   When Ma was sick in 2017 and laid up in the hospital for several weeks, there was only one person she kept nagging at me to call.  I heard it over and over.  “Paul, call Susie.  Tell her I am desperate for a wash!  Call her, Paul!”  And trust me, she said thi...

I normally consider myself to be a fairly reflective person.  I enjoy looking back over life and gluing the jumbled-up pieces of living back together to more clearly discover the full picture of how exactly I got to where I am now.  I know that the past is done.  I am not a fan of trying to rediscover that which made me happy at one moment in time, only to drag it kicking and screaming into the now.  That always feels cheap to me and more than that, it never works anyway.  But for the sake of this little post, with my 48th birthday staring me in the face and not having written on this blog for nearly a year, I have deemed it as good a time as any to lightly retrace the paper trail of how I got to this place in my journey. I vividly remember what I was doing last March 18th to celebrate my 47th revolution around the sun.  COVID lockdown had just started in the Bay Area, where I was living at the time.  I don’t have to tell anyone how frightening and unn...

Some ruminations about the goings-on of this past period of life in lockdown... I kicked off the Great Quarantine of 2020 absolutely hypnotized by the unfolding stats.  I watched the coronavirus case and death meter go up, up, up.  That scared the shit out of me.  I began looking at all sources of information regardless of political affiliation.  I became kind of a COVID Pac-Man, gobbling up online articles like they were power pellets, clearing board after board with my extensive "research".   I was getting drunk on that power.   Unlike my video game alter ego, however, I felt significantly more power-less the more information I devoured.  Paralysis by analysis, if you will. I started a new daily routine.  Fresh off losing my job, I stopped setting my alarm every morning and instead let my body tell me when to wake up.  That felt amazing.  It was a wonderful development, a shift for the better. I have slowly watched ...

What the hell are we doing? Yesterday was a very strange day.  Not only did I not know what day of the week it was for most of the proceedings, but I also decided it was finally time to venture back into the retail jungle known as Target to retrieve some depleted necessities.  It being my first time in any shopping situation for quite awhile, I maybe underestimated the pomp and circumstance that now goes along with a quick run to the store in this dreadful new era of COVID-related lockdowns.  I prepped myself as best I could before ever stepping outside my front door.  Mask?  Check.  Gloves?  Check.  Fear and Trepidation?  Check and Check.  I wasn't sure exactly what I was afraid of, but I most definitely knew I felt much resistance to the whole excursion.  I thought about my last trip to the Target.  It took place several days ago, possibly two weeks, for sure not more than three.  Or it could have been the day before la...

There I was, standing below the giant rainbow flag on Normal Street, at the San Diego Pride Festival, one speck in a sea of colorful revelers celebrating diversity and inclusion, when out of nowhere it happened.  I spotted the next group in line to march their way down University Avenue during the hours-long annual parade.  It wasn't a float with boom-boom-booming dance music, three-quarters-naked buff men, or a surprising corporate entry (Wal-Mart?!) that got to me.  That would have been too obvious.  Instead, it was the sight of the San Diego Police Department awaiting their turn to march--probably two dozen men and women in blue smiling, laughing, waving small rainbow flags--that sent a happy shiver down my spine and cued the waterworks from my eyes. My first Pride in San Diego after moving here a month ago was not expected to be much of an emotional experience, at least not by me.  After all, having been out and about for 18 y...

I've been reflecting back a lot lately, more so than usual.  Maybe it is the Mercury retrograde, or that I just have too much time on my hands, but I can't help but want to take closer note of where I have been.  Life as it has transpired during these past several months, even years, feels more like a random collection of moments than a linear journey with some clearly established, finite goal at the finish line.  Amazingly, this feels like progress.  I don't look at things the same way anymore.  I can see how the pieces all fit together, how they make up the me that I know and love, and yet the individual episodes don't quite flow together into one coherent series.  Instead, it's incredibly choppy, beset with fits and starts, stockpiled with joys and sorrows, rife with depression and elation.  It's sort of like one minute I am traveling the world, exalting in each snapshot of newness I encounter, and the next minute I would prefer to sit quietly in ...

I have been on the road for a month as of today and it is time to break the silence. A few highlights: I walked 220 miles in 2 weeks. I did so without much prior knowledge of the Camino de Santiago, the historic trail that runs across northern Spain. I thought I had the right shoes for such a trek, but the opposite soon became apparent. I got blisters. Lots and lots of painful blisters, mainly on my left foot. It was not always fun, and very often it was tiring, but it never failed to be interesting or thought-provoking, and I can say with certainty that I am glad to have had such an experience and would not have had it any other way. I slept in rooms with as many as 12 other people, even resting for a night in a dark, ominous cave that became known as "The Death Chamber". I ate bread. Lots and lots of delicious European bread, sometimes crusty, occasionally dense, and always shoved down my throat at record pace. I fell in love with bocadillos, the Spanish sandwiche...