In Denial

The weather was misty this morning. "Um...aren't those raindrops?" asked Monte. I chose to call it mist and went outside to ride my bike because when I can't think of what to do next, I ride my bike, or when I have lots of things to do but don't want to do any of them, I ride my bike, and pretty much both situations applied.

Also, I had compiled a whole new playlist for my iPod and was looking forward to a good listen while pedaling along.It was admittedly damp and gray, and, okay, sometimes I felt a bit of light precipitation, but there was no wind at all and the temperature was mild, a nice time to be out riding. The sky was white and the ocean as dull as an old nickel, but luminous new shoots of grass had already begun to green the landscape, and the overall effect was soothing, reminding me somehow of England, in a muted, muffled way, and I felt as though I had permission to put everything on hold.

Van Morrison was singing "So Quiet Here" and "Into the Mystic"  and I sat on a big rock by the side of the road while the world faded into a whisper. If I could have written a song right then it would say: Let me linger for a while where it's green as the Nile, let me sip from my vial, in denial. No more numbers to dial, no more papers to file, let me stay for a while in denial.

Or something like that.

I was still recovering from our trip to Orange County earlier this week, but even in that context I have to acknowledge that little joys kept interrupting the anticipated bleakness. For example, I saw a few brown leaves blown along a rainy street and felt ridiculously happy for a moment because I still love fall so much. At night I noticed an incongruous string of old Christmas lights aglow along a dreary motel balcony, and I felt a silly surge of pleasure because they were pretty and festive and evoked a juvenile sense of holiday wonder.  

The next morning, the parking lot smelled of rain, and even in a parking lot the smell of rain is pleasant, and I got a little splash of rain in my coffee as I walked to the car. Residents at the assisted living facility kept looking outside and telling me to drive carefully, and a sad-eyed man named Augustino pulled a battery-powered light blinking red or bright white from a pocket at the back of his wheelchair and insisted I take it in case I got stalled along the road on the way home.

Here's what I have concluded. Those silly surges of happiness? They are as real as the aches. Don't deny them. And those quiet moments of joy? They matter as much as the sorrow. Honor these too.

And now a slight digression to recount an amusing incident that occurred when Monte and I stopped for lunch in a little seaside town on the way back from that O.C. visit. I was wearing my new eyeglasses and a snugly belted black trench coat and an outfit that was accidentally spiffier than usual, maybe looking a little like an accountant or some  small-time city manager who'd gotten herself misplaced among the surfing and beach towel stores, and we were walking by a fly fishing shop (in itself an oddity, I suppose) and a guy yelled out, "Sarah! Come on in!"

A few minutes later it dawned on me. The eyeglasses. Brown hair. Dressed to bill. I said to Monte, "Is it possible? There's no resemblance, is there? I think I am going to be ill."

"Well, it could be interpreted as a compliment, you know," said Monte reassuringly. "She's quite a bit younger than you, and lot of people think she's a babe. And it's obviously not a commentary on your politics, since he doesn't even know you...right?"

It surprised me how appalled I felt even to be "complimented" in this way. Which got me to thinking about, of all people, Sarah Palin, that gift from John McCain that keeps on giving, and how incredibly offensive, idiotic, and arrogant I find her to be, and then I was mad at myself for wasting time on her, just as I am mad at myself for doing it now.

"She's just a media celebrity," says Monte, in his calm and logical way.

But there are actually people who take her seriously, that's what bothers me, and some of these people vote, and their vote is worth as much as my vote, and this is not a pleasant line of thought. "

The key is to try to understand what's at the root of it," says Monte, "and what's motivating it."I still think a lot of it is fear and ignorance, but I am remembering something I heard Jon Stewart say in a recent interview with Terry Gross, and it lulls me into sanity. He pointed out that the history of our country is about pendulum swings, back and forth, and that we are a resilient nation, that we even fought a Civil War, which we won and we lost, but we survived. And we would endure even if (God forbid) Sarah Palin or some Tea Party type actually got elected, and afterwards the pendulum would swing far back in the other direction. So we are advised not to lose perspective or our sense of humor, and maybe that's a form of denial too, but it comforted me some.

Now, back at the Ranch, as I sit on the rock by the side of the road, Tired Pony is singing "I Am A Landslide" and Mumford and Sons is singing "Roll Away Your Stone" and I am feeling as though I can dislodge heavy stones, pushing and pulling until they rock and they roll. I am feeling as though all the sadnesses I have known will someday melt like snow in sunlight. I am feeling as though I have landslide potential.

Then comes Tom Petty, who says "I Won't Back Down" and Ray LaMontagne with a perfect road song, "Beg, Steal, or Borrow", and I am defiant, back on my bike, and there's an infusion of raw youthful energy with this group called Little Fish that my daughter knows from Oxford, led by an amazing young woman who seems like an up-and-coming Chrissie Hynde but with a better voice, and then, since I am apparently on random shuffle, I'm suddenly back to Van singing "These Are the Days", and indeed they are.

And I ride past the place where the school bus stops, a gravel turn-off by a happy bank of mailboxes, the place where Monte once waited with our daughter in the mornings and welcomed her back in the afternoon, and where a new crop of moms and dads now does the same. Years ago, Jane Hollister Wheelwright told me this: "It all becomes cyclical. There's no stream you can follow. It's just cycles, over and over."

It occurs to me how lucky I am to still live in the same community, to bear witness to all the cycles in this setting, to have known the planting of trees and their falling, to have visited the secret places that endure.  It has been a month of death and birth here. Some of the loss cut close this time, and I learned long ago that grief is not a process but a presence that moves in and stays. But I know too that if the day offers you a misty sky and a rock on which to sit, you should linger for awhile, in acceptance and denial.

Then get back on the bicycle.