Away

 It seems that I have been away for a very long time. It seems that while I have been away the country has changed in ways that seem to defy the usual Democratic exhortation to "remember to vote." I have been away paying attention to matters related my turning sixty years old. While the so-called Supreme Court has been rearranging the Constitution in ways to suit the angry mob that once upon a time was a disenfranchised assemblage of tiny minds. 

I was away. I was enjoying myself. I went to Disneyland with my son. I spent two days being distracted by the happiest place on earth. I stood in line and waited for experiences that kept me away from the headlines and the distractions that come with sitting in front of a television or a computer screen for hours each day. On this trip, I didn't even bother to take a laptop. Instead, I piled up a series of blog entries ahead of time that could be read out of time, not connected to any crisis du jour. 

I am back now. And I don't know how much heart I have to invest in the way things slid closer to the drain while I was out enjoying myself. When my son and I were as finished with Disney as we could be, we trekked over the hill to meet friends from out of the past. It was a reunion of sorts, one that required me to give some background to my son who had certainly encountered these people prior to our visit, but had never fully reckoned on their roles in my life. These were my friends from high school. My locker partner, and his girlfriend who later became my girlfriend while my locker partner moved on to dating the girl who would become my wife. And the girl who thought we were all so funny but turned out to be every bit as funny as the rest of us and was best friends with my wife, the mother of our son. Trying to untangle this web of high school intrigue was a minor chore that unraveled before us all as the week turned into a weekend and we shared meals and memories and generated new ones. 

I was able to remain distant from the hearings and the decisions and the protests because for the first time in a very long time, I was on vacation. There were reminders, and hints at what was going on in the world, but instead I chose to favor those who had come to celebrate with me. The people who, forty years and more down the path, were still my inner circle. It was a nostalgic joy, but not one in which we wallowed. The celebration, for me, sprang from the way that these people came back together to share their lives as they are now. All that noise from outside would come rushing back in soon enough, but for just a few days there was peace in the valley. So much so that I was able on one morning near the end after looking at my watch and noticing that the six o'clock hour had not fully begun. I rolled over and went back to sleep. 

I was away. My hands were not full of thoughts and concerns of others beyond my reach and control. Instead, I was able to spend quality time with those close to me. I was able to drown out the noise of the pending midterms and the disgraceful conduct of those anxious to turn back the clock on our rights. I was able to turn back the clock and then bring my past fully into the present. These are the folks who have made this long strange trip with me, and before I go back to the grind of trying to work out just how we will survive the current storm, I want to say what  lovely time I had while I had the volume turned down. I want to say how lucky I am to have friends like these, and I hope that when my son turns sixty that he has this same opportunity. 

And now back to our regularly scheduled.