The Future's Not Ours to See

Imagination could never predict this future self. I'm feeling square peg-ish, with so many cozy affiliations in all my pockets, but the relationships I carry are from a different city. I'm trying to fit into the circular and oh, so smoothly rounded hole of a new-to-me-city. Everyone's lives are already so full, do they even have room for me? Might relocation have been easier a decade ago? I only know that I feel slow, tired, and a bit overwhelmed. Welcomed, but an unknown quantity to the warm hands extended to me.

Sunday morning found me at what neighbor Jean calls "The Church of Last Resort" in Montclair, for the second time. Mark was at camp for the weekend. Many artists, aging hippies, and independent thinkers make up the congregation. There are some young families as well. Seems like it might be a fit. A place to find community of like-minded folk to support and be supported by. I extend my hand to the ones offered.

"Glad to meet you Cheryl and Anita," I say.

“Studio City? Where’s that?

“Southern California. Where all the TV and some of the movie studios are. Part of Los Angeles.”

“Oh, yah! And what did you leave there?”

(Pardon me while I retrieve the lance stuck in my gut. Such a visceral wobble in my emotional body that it catches me off guard. 'Don’t get too intimate, maudlin, remorse-filled, don't show how hard it was to leave everything you've known for sixty six years behind' I censor myself.)

Out loud I say, “In December, I closed a practice of thirty years to move here - closer to our amazing granddaughter and daughter. I’m a trauma specialist...”

“Are you a therapist?”

“No, I’m a body worker. I work with babies who’ve had a rough entry into the world and folks recovering from falls, car crashes, surgeries... big owies.”

“Oh, that sounds (choose an adjective, I’ve heard all these and more) intense, interesting, amazing, like nothing I’ve ever heard of before(!). Are you working here?”

“My husband and I have only been here two months and a few days… working very little… I’d like to write… and continue to work a little…” 

“Nice to meet you, Melissa! Welcome.”

And so it goes... around the social hall at the church, until it’s time to go into the room where neighbor Jean is leading 90 minutes of story telling. I carry my polka-dot cup with me from the social hall. Polka dots signal  “new-comers.” This is perhaps why, when I get lost in the wrong building, the red-headed organist from the service, spotting my cup, directs me so kindly to the correct room. 

I’m trying to make associations between faces and names. It’s odd how facial types remind me of those dear ones I left behind. Between two worlds, I’m easily moved to tears  - not just by the loss of the familiar, but also by the real kindness extended. Like beautiful music, which was plentiful in today’s service, my heart-strings are strummed, and I come back to harmony. If a damp-eyed harmony, it is still welcomed and re-calibrating. It's easier to allow the misty-eyed response during the service, when everyone is looking straight ahead, than it is when gazing into all these new faces.

The story telling was wonderfully engaging. I couldn’t believe how quickly the time flew. I was reluctant to leave so abruptly, but I’d told the worker scheduled to return Sunday to complete a job, that I’d be home at noon. Knowing that he’s been running one to three hours late for three of the three days he’s been working with us, I felt I could fudge it a little bit, but certainly wanted to be home by 1:30, so I ate, listened, and ran. I felt guilty for leaving my polka dot cup and a fork on the table. I don't know a thing about protocol here.

The worker arrived at three O’clock.

Now, if only I can keep all the names straight! I met more than thirty people today. Unlike at camp, where I sometimes borrow my husband’s trick when I'm stumped for the name of the person before me, of asking a camper how old she is now, and if she can stand on one foot and spell her first name, I’m not likely to ask the octogenarians to do that, just to see if they can… or just so I can have a clue next time I see them what their name is!

I know I have a tendency to go which ever way the wind blows - sign of an early autonomy developmental disruption, says Bodynamics. It would be so easy to be an extra in everyone else's movie. What are those muscles again that need support? Oh, yes, Latissimus Dorsi. Placing my own hands there lends a more upright posture.

Now, I remember! I came north also to find time to write. Maybe I’m not so far blown off course by socializing and communing with new folks. The stories I heard on Sunday, a few in particular, were inspiring, and one of the gals, who is a published author, invited me to a Monday write group, which my neighbor also attends. I think I'll try it!

Maybe I can trust my instincts. Maybe all is unfolding exactly as it should. Maybe we cannot imagine the future, but only look back down the mountain and see how far we’ve come. The peak is mysterious; forever playing peek-a-boo with the clouds. 

Onward.