The Calm Before the Storm

Entirely relaxed, perfectly still, calm and peaceful life. Pacific Beach has been simply therapeutic. I have listened to the ocean, listened to the rain, and watched the sunset all from my little cottage on the beach. I have worked out for hours a day (because, quite frankly, what else do I have to do?), I have read, I have written.

My son's last football game of the year was on Saturday, so we took our final trek to Salem, Oregon this weekend to watch his 42nd and final college game. My daughter made the trek as well, but fairly uneventful, except the reflection of the past 21 years and the past 33 of his sport seasons (37 if you count regular Little League and All-Star Little League as separate seasons, which they were). This portion of my journey is over. And so this chapter is complete.

In two weeks we will be back in California, back in the fast lane, and tying up loose ends, getting rid of the last of our winter clothes, taking our shorts and tank tops and flip flops and Aloha shirts and dresses out of storage and packing them for our one-way journey to paradise. Having our final San Francisco meal at Scoma's on the wharf, and our last cheers in San Francisco over irish coffees at The Buena Vista. We will be visiting family in Half Moon Bay, San Jose, and Fremont, as well as close friends in Danville. We will visit the Wine Country and have a last champagne toast on the Mainland. We will be dropping off Keanu, our Honda Element, for his journey across the sea, and we will do all of this in 6 days.

It is tiring to think that I will have all this movement in such a short period of time, as I now am perfectly still, with little or no movement. Perfectly still, entirely relaxed, calm and peaceful life. The calm before the storm, the perfect quiet and still before a period of motion, movement and change. I shall sit back and enjoy this quiet, enjoy my free time, enjoy my last period of stillness for a while.

'Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.
Saul Alinsky