Affirmation

sign

Tomorrow morning I will set out on a journey into a very dark place that promises to be more painful, depressing, and difficult than I can express here. Basically I am going out of my way to face misery, and  I don't even "have" to go. But sometimes the hard thing is also the right thing. And this is the right thing. I think.

In any case, when I return...and believe me, I will be very happy to get back home...I will let you know, in an abstract way, how it went. Wish me strength.

But before I leave I want to document a Ranch day  filled with light and life: the glint and glare of bright sunshine, monarch butterflies darting about, surf happening and surfers happy, and cowboys and cattle gathering in the corral at Santa Anita for a branding just as they would have a century ago.

As the sign says, there were also old horses, blind dogs, and unruly kids, and there was me, too, on my trusty bicycle, slow and easy, just lookin' around. I even made a wrong turn, got slightly lost, crossed a creek and pushed my bike up a steep-ish narrow climb, finally got myself oriented and coasted home where I ate a sweet orange, just-picked, standing by the sink, its juice squirting on my glasses.

I'm gonna take an orange with me on that train tomorrow morning.