The End of the Neverending Trip

The trip was winding down, but I had intentionally set aside a kind of "air lock" buffer of three nights in Santa Fe and one night in Albuquerque to ease myself back to Hades. One must not descend back into the Inferno too suddenly. Acclimation is key. Of course, once you hit Payson up on the Mogollon Rim and then keep going, the descent is rapid anyway. So all delays are futile. But still fun.

For example, my old adopted home town knows how to provide the essentials for a good life. Bread, coffee and chocolate.

 Gluten porn courtesy Sage Bakehouse

 A bag of happiness courtesy Ohori's

Spectacular chocolate-gasms courtesy Kakawa Chocolate House

On this visit, I was blessed with a reconnection with a former colleague now friend; some time with one of my long term friends from the craziest of my days of 30 years ago (a woman who knows every twist and turn of my story and with whom I have a lasting recovery connection); dinner and conversation with a recently widowed also long term friend; lunch with another indispensable person in my life and a visit part way down the hill in Albuquerque with another woman who was a life saving source of support and care in the first week after the breakup back in March. In between these remarkable encounters, I wandered around the city, reflected on how inspiring it was to be in love, and remembered all the stories I had heard from all the people I had visited. 

Each friend with whom I interacted had many tales. Some of the tales were heroic, some surprising, some all about fundamental upheaval and reconfiguration, some about love and loss. My ex wife sat across from me at Counter Culture over lunch as I headed out of town. In all my travels, only about a day away from home, she was one of the only people (along with my friend in New Brunswick and the friend in Albuquerque) to ask me about the specifics of my PhD dissertation plans and research. 

I had (just as gladly, not complaining at all) been mostly the listener along the way, observing and listening, traveling through the lives of others and being a little bit like a friendly tourist. The trip, I realized, had been largely about seeing without judgment. Cultivating the spirit of perceiving without attachment. In the parallel space where I had fallen in love, I felt astonishingly seen and heard. It's not that all of the people I had seen and visited and talked with on the trip weren't seeing and hearing me, not at all. I just had decided simply to show up as much as possible and not be the center of attention.  I count more than 40 people with whom I spent time of significance, out and back. Some who have known me since birth, some since early July, and everything in between. 

I am not at all sure what I would have said on June 25th, before leaving, if someone asked me "What are your goals for this trip? Not your destinations and plans, but why are you going?" My counselor had asked me and I don't remember what I had told him. My sponsor asked me-- same thing. I bet it would have been difficult for me to say "I don't know! I don't have any goals at all, I guess. Just to see what happens?" 

Roses on the kitchen counter of my friend in Albuquerque-- not sure where they came from but damn

Albuquerque lifesaver took me to the Botanical Garden and there was a chorus of Julians of Norwich

Even after writing something of a travelogue spanning the past 21 blog posts (including this one), I have still not caught up with what I experienced, what others taught me, with any clear explanation of why the trip became a spiritual experience, with exactly how the healing happened or how love visited and decided to stay or any of the rest of it. One hopes in writing a narrative that the story will illuminate experience somehow. 

How I feel now is that telling it made it less clear, not more. More mysterious and obviously a series of graceful gifts any one of which could have generated 21 of its own posts. That's an even better result from writing than the hoped for clarity and explanation. In this case, anyway.