Emptying

48

Dear friends,

I feel teary and even reluctant to hit send. This is technically the final chapter, though I will share an epilogue next week and some notes the week after. It’s hard to believe, almost a year ago I shared my memoir’s preface here on Substack, and a new chapter every week thereafter. I look back on this time with undying gratitude and awe for the circle of kindness, support and friendship that has flourished during this time. I never dreamed my story would touch soul-travelers from all corners of the globe, and nurture relationships that will live on, even when this memoir is complete.

My mind continues to drift to new, yet-to-be-defined offerings for the future. My latest exploration, Unfixed interviews, is deeply satisfying. There are so many brilliant minds over here on Substack and I look forward to continuing this series long into the future. Unfixed Media also continues, sharing from a vast pool of audio/video content with future projects underway.

And as for nurturing my newfound love for writing? You will be the first to know once that love molts her current plumage and alights into something new.

---

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

A week before the move, an invisible rotor rooter snakes its way through our lives. Within twenty-four hours, Dave’s mom dies, we put our beloved twenty-one year-old Kitty Pang down and an entire building a few blocks away blows up. When the gas-leak explosion happens, I am full of acupuncture needles, lying in repose, and then not. My ears ring and the clinic windows answer while staff run around in the dark— though clueless of the cause—reassuring patients. I lie unsure if the blast is real or just the force of my own life — two-and-a-half years of upheaval, disorientation, catharsis and adaptation combusting under the pressure of one incarnation. I lay in the dark, startled at first, but then calming; I am relieved this chapter is ending.

My home echoes without furniture, shedding its namesake after ninety-percent of our belongings are sold or donated. King Fred, the scruffy, feral stray we’ve been feeding and loving for four years stands at the back door—he is the hardest to leave behind. As I scrub cupboards and counters, I open the back door, inviting him in to unfamiliar territory. His recurring mange didn’t inspire an open door policy; but now, who cares? He’s tentative but laps around the kitchen island a few times and then bolts to his outdoor kingdom. Before we depart, we kneel at the back door and give him a last goodbye, a chin scratch, a stroke on the head. He cocks his snaggle-tooth mouth upwards and coos with his awkward, “I love this but fuck off.” The house holds stories and memories but this black, block-headed beast holds the key. He was the predictable groundskeeper, reminding us in the last two-and-a-half years of strife, that a little food, shelter and kindness can be enough. He is the sage embodiment of Unfixed, every sunbaked or rain-soaked inch of fur a reminder: Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. - Lao Tzu. We give his cat house to a neighbor along with monthly cash for food so his boundless life chasing chipmunks remains unbound.

After closing the front door for the last time, we sit in our packed car, motionless. We know little about what’s next; with everything we need behind us—two small suitcases, a few bins with essential documents, a computer, and a duffle bag of colorful wool—we are headed to the Oregon coast to rent our friend’s property for seven months and buy time until “what’s next” is clear. When Dave turns the ignition, our eyes brim with tears, less a sadness of goodbye and more a wet, cellular emptying. Tears exhume any last attachment and wash it into the void, hollowing a shelter for something new.

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” - Lao Tzu aka King Fred

We drive west along the Sunset Highway, our emptiness opening her mouth to wilderness. Like the winding rural lines before us, our life’s narrative now meanders and bends with unpredictability.

Dave and I build on today, tomorrow still an uncertainty. Our home of over a decade is no more. I haven’t worked in two-and-a-half years. My family has grown beyond comprehension. My own sense of self, lost and now rebuilding as pieces of the puzzle—my biological foundation—falls into place. Holding those pieces in my hand, I stand back and see the hole they created and where they now belong. The shapes take up space, and with their certainty, so do I.

But the paradox of a self more defined is that she is then free to undefine. As I incarnate, magical thinking gives way to magical presence—a state of solidarity and wonder not for what could be, but with what is. And like the water under my feet, what is changes, moment, by moment, by moment—the details of an identity drops of rain in a bestowing, ancient origin.

When Dave and I pull into the sleepy, coastal town of Manzanita, a cloth of orange over the Pacific shrouds our past in dying light. We stop the car, roll down the windows and breathe it in. The ground shifts back and forth under me. Dave doesn’t feel it but I do. I’m becoming used to this sensation; I’m becoming better at allowing; I’m becoming unconcerned with becoming. I’m also getting used to my two dads. One I never knew, one I adored, both a longing. The ache to feel them by my side won’t ever heal but healing is not now, and anything but is not healing. The ground will solidify someday. Or maybe it won’t. But its constant, liquid teaching is a foundation from which I will unbuild the rest of my life.

With Dave’s hand in mine, we watch the sun relax into the horizon. Tomorrow its arc of almost will rise over the hills, the animals scurrying into light, the sunflowers turning to watch. Feeling the sun’s arrival rise above my body of water, I celebrate this wild, untamable life.

Reminder

oohwah   ooh  ooh  ooh
		oohwah  ooh  ooh ooh

	mourning doves exchange 
	the same message
		across the late morning cleaning
		and hundreds of years
	even the inflections
	sometimes
	one starts before
	the other finishes
	still 
	the same message
	the same reply
	reminding
		balance
		territory
		you are here with me
	the same message
	over and over
	common knowledge easily forgotten

oohwah  ooh  ooh  ooh
you/are  here  with  me


...and my reply

oohwah   ooh  ooh  ooh
		oohwah  ooh  ooh ooh

	daughter’s calling
	a lost message
		across the night’s obscuring
		and tens of years
	even the longing
	sometimes
	buried before
	it was bidden 
	until
	the lost message:
	an ancient reply
	reminding
		unity
		wholeness
		you are all are we
	the same message
	over and over
	common kinship easily forgotten

oohwah  ooh  ooh  ooh
you/are  all     are   we

EPILOGUE

Pacific Ocean, you are all are we