Dear Friends,
Some of you wanted to know where I am, and another called to say I was becoming boring because I’m not anywhere - at least not somewhere new and interesting. That not being somewhere and interesting is because I am resting (nesting?) in Seattle.
Someone once told me that everything that comes after “because” is a lie.
(that someone I could almost guarantee is my infinitely wise and dear sister - please check her out www.lindamasterson.com. And if you or your brother or sister or friend want a horoscope done or any sort of life coaching or wisdom from the wise woman - there you go. No "because" about it.)
OK. I haven’t been resting - not like last week in that cute yellow house on Hood Canal. The picture below was to the right of the deck. Ahh, fond memories . . .
What a wonderful place that was, being right on the water with nothing else for me to do than keep the pellet stove going, watch the ducks and crane living their lives on the canal, and cook tasty meals. Ahhh is right. And of course I spent many hours writing. Almost 140 book pages of my new novel Shambala, which flowed from my imagination. I was creating people, places and events that became, are still becoming, alive, real and oddly familiar. It’s like reading a great book, which I need to write, before I can find out what happens next. It calls to me like a soul wanting birth.
Anyway, after not seeing another human in eight days, and thinking I could easily hang there for weeks, the Bank came in and changed the locks. What the heck? It was there and now - to my friend Scott’s, and my, disappointment - this great getaway is gone. Because . . . the bank needed a house on the canal? Because the bank need the money? Because it was the wisest and most win/win thing to do?
Only love is real. And everything is a gift. (I keep reminding myself)
It’s easy to get lost - on an island, or on a road trip, in a cute little house on a canal. But as important as all that, or actually more important, is family. Did the bank forced me out of that house, or was my selfish isolation trumped by the Universe, reminding me of family? I arrived back just in time to celebrate my sons’ stepfather Ron’s birthday, and then (the days of not resting) working with Alan to prepare the house and yard for his brother’s, my son Aaron’s 30th birthday party on Saturday. See what I would have missed far away on my island, driving down the highway, or hidden away in the cave?
Aaron on his 30th My sons' house in Ballard, Seattle
Sitting here as I am, looking out the window upon the rain, the green to yellow to red maple leaves clinging to, falling from the front yard trees, I can’t help but think of seasons, my various aches and pains, the sort of rheumatism of change in the weather, the metaphor of seasons, the bundling up to take a walk that’s now an effort. Noticing how I retreated to my room after the introductions, having no interest or desire to party through the night with the thirty year-olds, I wondered. Am I that old? The answer to that question brought the truth.
I am in the winter of my life, and not the summer. I’m no longer interested in pretending.
So I contemplate, (questionably forced in from the cold November rain), the seasons of life.
Spring - 1 - 20 years old. Summer - 20 - 40 years old. Fall - 40 - 60 years old. Winter - 60 - 80 years old. And Spring again - 80 - 100.
I condensed that into a sentence, when it is worthy of a book. In my reality, the summer party was happening all over the house on Saturday, while winter hibernation was also happening, alone in my room. And that is what I want to honor, am honoring, with my writing. I have watched with interest, engaged appropriately, as the spring, summer and fall of my life have naturally flowed one into the other. I have earned the right, feel entitled to be, and good about, sitting by the fire or looking out to the wind and the rain and the falling leaves, with a very simple, kind and sweet desire to do nothing other that see it, be in it, with it, and write about it. To simply love it all.
I wish to share my sadness with the passing of a great son of Kauai, of the ocean and the world. Andy Irons left us so early in the summer of his life (32), and without knowing him I too feel as though one of my son's had died. The circle of 1000 surfers in Hanalei Bay, the 10,000 on the shore, the flower tribute from the sky, shows the impact one good person, with no more than a surfboard and the gift to use it, can have on so many. I can only hope that his passing is a wake-up call to a much greater world-wide campaign for early detection of, and protection from death due to dengue fever, malaria and hepatitis C. My heart goes out to Andy Irons, his wife and unborn child, his family and friends, but also to the millions of people around the world who silently pass from these diseases, which I pray the World Health Organizations, and other such humanitarian groups, will (must) one day protect us all from.
With love and blessings,
David Dakan Allison
