Choose one; Grieve the Unchosen

Choice means responsibility. I am entering a world where my options are getting greater. I am making more money from working overtime in post production. I have upcoming time off for 3 weeks in late May, early June. I live in Venice, California, less than 2 miles from the beach. I could call, Chace, Liz's friend for surf lessons. I could pump up the tires on my Quintana Roo, put on some spandex padded shorts, my Shimano clip shoes and by God get on that $1200 bike once and for all.

I could easily drive 344 miles North to San Fransisco where I could meet up with graduate school classmates now working at ILM and Pixar who are true foodies and feed in the northern city's yummy, hip cafes. If I am feeling Southern bound, I could drive 116 miles South to San Diego and visit my Dad's German friend, Ute, and have her take me to her favorite jazz bars.
If I am feeling in between far north or far south, I could travel to the middle and participate in a yoga or shaman/ medicine workshop for a week at Esalen in Big Sur.

Or, and this keeps nudging me like a born instinct, I could get on a plane and fly back East like I always do. I could go HOME. Christ, my first thought is to go home (back), to visit my Mom, to visit Kristen and Kristin, Tina and Roman - to see my Dad and Kerry.

I miss going back. I want to see the oak trees, their big and expansive arms umbrella'd over their own bulging roots. I want to see the rowing of the tide filling up the creek and then draining it again in the same day. I want to see the red clay dirt hills with speckles of green grass destined to brown come the August sun. I want to drive up Hwy 64 through the Pisgah Forest, windows rolled down so I can hear the leaves clapping and the creek singing trickling songs.

I want to turn down Park Avenue, alongside plush lawns, tulips tipped yellow, and sturdy Georgian style, sturdy brick ranch homes built in the 70's and pull into the drive of my dear friend Erin. I want to see her walk out with her newest creation in her arms, cradling baby Salem with the joy that I hear in her new Mama's voice on the phone.

I want to head down Wiliamson Creek Road and turn up into the Knobb Hill mountain side neighborhood, wind my way up and up until I reach my Mom's house, simple and cozy. Of course we would be together for she would have met me at the Asheville airport with the look she carries as she has been patiently waiting but thinking too much. My arrival is an interruption, although welcomed - she anxiously smiles a happy, yet uncomfortable smile. Expressing joy is as awkward for her as being around too many people, so she becomes concerned with getting to the baggage terminal instead.

And I know that I cannot go back this time. Only this time, for by Christmas holiday it might be different. But this time I cannot give into the urges to dwell in the comfort of going back east. So, I turn back to the many options at my feet with the knowledge that I may even squander the hours of free time wandering around Abbot Kinney and Main Street or even the Venice Boardwalk.

I may do little that is different than what I do right now, which include reading books on writing or picking up my guitar to play the 3 songs I know in the same three chords that I know. Maybe I will watch the same brainless, sad tv shows such as The Housewives of NYC or Millionaire Matchmaker as I consume my special treat of puffed Millet in rice milk followed by Quinoa coconut cookies.

I might rent the top 100 movies from the 70's and live in the nostalgia that was my parents' time that is my time now and daydream and write about my Dad's aviator Raybans and my Mom's yellow poka dotted polyester shirt and short auburn hair. I will dangle in remembrances of the pines along the highway by Lake Hartwell and the smell of fresh water fish and mud. I will see my Dad backing the trailer in at the boat landing. I will see my Mom in her vegetable garden late on a mid-Summer afternoon pulling weeds wearing her signature weekend red doo rag.

(to be continued)