Healing

I am empowered to design and enact protocols to promote my own healing.  Somewhere along the way that concept had gotten lost in the vibrations and repercussions of a series of physical and emotional life stressors.  I recognized that my emotional containment had begun leaking when I caught myself oversharing.  I recognized that I needed affirmation beyond what my FitBit could provide. I needed to initiate my intervention, so I took off to Beautiful Bountiful Bucolic Bakersfield to visit my college roommate, Scott Douglas. 

Scott had a clear strategic plan, get to the restaurant first so that he could see me coming, and I could not get the jump on him.  I respected that level of vigilance, but I explained to him later over lunch that I had reached a kinder gentler age, and it has been eight years since I have used physical force to resolve conflict.  Back in college, Scott Douglas was one person known for having more personal idioms than me.  As soon as I saw him, I faced him and said, "What did you always tell me?"  He had started to roll through his personal idioms, including quotes from Clint Eastwood movies to find the right one, but I went ahead and gave him the answer, "You always said, "If I had your frame, I would be packing 225" . . . Well, I passed 225 lbs and did not look back."  Scott was looking as lean and agile as his college days, but I resisted the urge to test him by taking him down. 

Unlike some, I enjoy being around winners; I enjoy listening to stories of their successes.  I enjoyed hearing about Scott raising four children to successful adults and now being preoccupied with a slew of grandchildren.  I enjoyed hearing about his successful career coaching football, and later golf, in which he led a football team to a national championship game.  I enjoyed hearing about how he has continued leadership in the Fellowship of Christian Athlete's ministry.   I did not have much to speak of except for telling of how I had been blessed with grace to have raised a couple of children of my own while having a front row seat to the Holy Spirit working in the lives of others while serving in various capacities.  

I did bring along a copy of my second book, Days of Elijah, to autograph for him because he is referenced in some of my favorite stories in the book through the character of The Bakersfield Joy Rider.  Then I got a surprising request: He asked me to make the inscription out to his son, as proof that I exists beyond myth and legend. Over the years he had told his children, particularly his son, stories about me as much as I had relayed to the world stories about him.   I enjoyed a wonderful lunch with Scott over the course of a few hours. 

It seems there was some divine intervention augmenting my own healing initiative. Right before leaving town, when my car was already packed, I decided to take my laptop out of the car and send out a rehearsal announcement for the next Saturday to the Robert Allen Layman's chorus. I got distracted grabbing something for the trip and forgot to put my laptop back in the car. I got the disturbing recollection that I had forgotten to do so when I was on the freeway headed north. I decided to keep on going, and that changed the nature of my time away to a relaxation retreat instead of a work retreat. 

The next day, after the first good night's sleep in over a week and a good workout, I stopped at El Rancho des Escelantes, the home of the Lovely Long-Lashes Latina from Beautiful Bountiful Bucolic Bakersfield, a former research coordinator in our lab who is now in a PhD program.  A couple of years ago, I had visited her family home after coming to Bakersfield to watch her little brother, who is actually bigger than her, wrestle.   At that time they extended an invitation for me to come back and pick fruit at their place.  A couple of weeks prior to my current visit I had done so and harvested seven pounds of very ripe figs.  One of my most used idioms in the lab is, "Sharing is caring."  Them having shared, it was time for me to reciprocate, so I dropped by to drop off several jars of the fig jam I had made.  I hear little brother is quite the fan of the jam.  

After a brief visit I was back on the road.  I decided to treat myself to a scenic drive, so I took the long way home up highway 178 past lake Isabella.  After lake Isabella I saw some beautiful farmland that resonated with the Aggie in me, and my days biking from Davis past farmland to Lake Berryessa.  Then I took the detour down fourteen past Edwards Air Force Base, where I spent a few years of my childhood living on Base while my father served as an aviation electronics airman.  As I drove along listening to classical jazz, I considered the wonderful affirmation I had received visiting Scott and hearing about how he remembered me as someone bold, fearless, and insightful who could relate to every person I met. I needed to be reminded of that person. In that I found healing.