It is a rainy Sunday morning, which cancels the only plan I ever have for this day. Religiously, I have been meeting up with the Sons of Kauai at around 9AM at the 7/11 in Lihue. So, here I am, sitting at my desk at home, with nothing, but time.
I have been writing a fair amount recently about time, primarily within the context of my age and how it has truly altered my consciousness. This Sunday is a couple of days ahead of my birthday on May 29th. Since I started this writing business of mine, I have felt motivated to share my feelings about this time in my life, especially as the day approaches. I don’t think I have ever been unhappy about it. I have rarely felt regret over the past, nor terribly anxious with the future. A huge exception would be my tenth birthday, less than a month after my father suddenly died.
Frankly, I was hoping for one of Kauai’s perfect days, pure heaven on a motorcycle, especially now, in the midst of my celebratory mood. I planned on coming to my desk, after shedding my biker costume, so I could write about what this time of year means to me. When you get into a solid groove on the road, the bike becomes a magic carpet ride for the mind. My descriptions would likely be more flowery than now, taking a slightly different route to get to the same place.
As a kid, I always remember wanting to be older, along with taller and more muscular, but with smaller nostrils. I loved all the milestones on the way up. I know I couldn’t wait to hit my teens and twelve didn’t count. Sixteen was way more of a girl thing. The driver’s license was huge at seventeen. Eighteen was next and that was a big deal, opening up the entire bar scene back then, in the mid-Sixties. The excitement began to ebb, post twenty-one. Whether you like it or not, there is no escaping the “adult” label at that point. However, I do remember feeling a sense of freedom, unavailable until that age and it was exhilarating.
Other than the trauma of my tenth birthday, as twenty-one approached, I was graduating from college, with no chosen career, plus in June ’66, the Vietnam War was in full bloom. Sure, I was finally free, but all the uncertainties come at you when you take charge of your life, metaphorically leaving home. I found an Army Reserve unit on Staten Island, avoiding the dilemma of a hard choice. I landed myself in the broadcast advertising business, where I stayed until my forty-second birthday.
In my twenties, I got married and had two sons. The career thing was new and very exciting. I wore suits to work and carried a brief case! There were times when I was filled with possibilities. At the end of that decade, in the mid-Seventies, things began to sour, forced to let go of any vestige of youth, looking at a world that felt like it was chosen for me. I spent the majority of my thirties in therapy. I am not sure when leaving NYC even entered my fantasy world. I had a not so, conscious uncoupling and the only thing keeping me in that life were my two young sons.
Around my fortieth, I finally understood that I would have to leave the City and that entire way of surviving in an unforgiving environment. I was just beginning to try and embrace the questions for which there are no answers, leading me to the Zen of the Buddha, a connection quietly keeping me company since then.
I chose my forty-second birthday as the time to make my move. I disengaged from all I had known and headed to the high desert country of northern NM. The week prior to leaving, I got my ear pierced, wearing my badge of independence for all to see. I loved my sons very much and that part I keep to myself, because it is simply too private.
I had quite a time out there. I became a half-way decent camper, never having done it before. I bought an old pick up truck. I wore cowboy boots and didn’t feel at all embarrassed. It felt like I was finally getting to be the person I always was. I became way more comfortable and way more aware in my own skin. On my virgin, cross-country drive from one galaxy to another, I began the adventure that continues to this morning.
I initially visited Santa Fe at a time when I was running out of rope in New York. I remember the very first time I stepped out of a car and placed my foot on Canyon Road. I felt like Fred Astaire, in perfect rhythm with the place. In my fifteen years there, it was very good to me and my life was incredibly rich. I lived out on the limb a great deal and never once panicked. I had become a believer even before I left New York.
Somewhere in my late fifties, it began to feel like my work there was done, time to continue the journey. It is harder to deny the subtle encroachment of aging on your world when you can actually peek just ahead to sixty. I needed to have a true sense of paradise, a place to begin taking care of me. Kauai became my home within days of celebrating another birthday, my fifty-eighth.
Time here has been powerful in ways I never could have imagined when I was first beamed in to this brand new world. Something happened to me on this island, when I stopped looking forward nearly as much and began to focus more on looking within. As my past accumulates between my ears, there is more to resonate with, reaching some kind of critical mass entering my seventies.
To be completely honest, I would have been happier waking up to an aqua blue sky with those floating, cotton ball clouds. I would have slipped on my worn out, leather vest, flipped my baseball cap around backwards and hoped for any Eagles song to wake up my motorcycle speakers. Most of the preceding thoughts would have kept me company on the ride anyway.
No matter where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing, every year right around my birthday, I tend to pay more attention to these things.