Having made it through the surprising business of discovering it was not a dog I wanted, but my dog, I have settled into the semi-uncomfortable but somewhat reassuring knowledge that it is not facility on the computer I lack but a consistent connection. Of course at the Apple store whose business it is to know everything they didn't have a clue, which made me even more uncertain. But now I am seated at my own desk, and get that the decision is mine whether or not to pursue electronic facility, and or God.
I had an open invitation from the Almighty for this weekend, via the Quaker Center up the Coast, eight hours up the coast from all estimates, in the cab of a red truck driven by a spiritual furniture maker from the La Jolla area where I was once so aloft and alone, my house not a home on the side of a cliff looking down on a beach far below, where once or twice I was actually able to connect with someone to speak to. Having discovered to my surprise that I am actually and inarguably older, the prospect of all that time in the cab of a truck, albeit red, began to intimidate me, which unaccustomed feeling combined with a realistic appraisal of my bones, so I opted out.
Now I am, of course, sorry. Back at the desk in my quiet but still somehow alien apartment, I am reaching into the sky that might have been on the inside of my head had I let it be on the outside of my body, and gone to the retreat in N. California. Never regret, I think I remember somebody telling me, or many people telling me. But not knowing what would have happened had I pursued what seemed the difficult path, I can't come to a firm conclusion. The Road Not Taken I remember to be one of those great bestsellers from the time when everybody wanted to penetrate the Invisible, but this is more the lift not accepted, and the back not taken into account, along with the age. Age. The very word is an insult. I remember that being a line from my play that they did at Bryn Mawr about the women upstairs from Plato's Symposium. How bold I was, and occasionally intellectual, carrying high the flag of Mind, because I was proud of where I had gone to school, for good reason.
Now that I am settled... my luggage, at least... my alternative post the Champagne French Bakery on the corner where I can plug in to the outside world when my own fails to connect, I can begin to address whether or not I want to or mean to write a (hate the word) memoir. If I am going to, I know I must do it while I can still remember. Saw an comedian I once admired come into this shop this morning, and although I remembered that I liked him, I couldn't think of his name. But that was okay, as he has lost what used to be his visible spark. Or maybe he just doesn't like croissants.
