Waking up at my normal time of six a.m. I stare at the darkness of the room and the clock on the bedside table tells me that it's only 4:00 in Denver. I sigh and try to fool myself into thinking that its still time to sleep. Alas ... I am wide awake.
Leaping out of bed I begin the desperate search for coffee. The Dever Centre City Marriott has cleverly hidden it in a credenza. Ripping the doors of the hinges I plug the pot in on the counter and hit the shower. Finishing up, I tear open the condiment package for the cream. This always drives me nuts because I don't use sugar, sweetener, or the other little stirrer that comes inside so they all get thrown away. If I didn't need the coffee so badly I would care more.
Staring out of the large glass window I peer into the darkness of an inner city night. Lights are everywhere and I watch a homeless man push a grocery cart down a sidewalk. He is heavily dressed wearing myltiple coats though it is not cold. He disappears into the darkness.
I look though the windows of the office compex across the street from me. All of the floors are dark except one and I can see the cleaning crew vaccuming and emptying waste baskets. They are talking and laughing with one another. One decides to take a break after she empties the trash and sits behind a desk and props her feet on it. I laugh and she stares out of the window in my direction.
I'm standing there naked sipping coffee and I wonder if she can see me. Her head jerks in the other direction as she laughs at something the other worker is saying. I toast them with my cup and get dressed.
Making my way downstairs to the Starbucks in the lobby I see that everybody else on east coast time is already there. Most are staring at computer screens, silently listening to their I-Pods, or eating muffins while staring out of the large plate glass window with a view of 18th and California Streets. I order a "tall with room for cream" and sit down.
Home calls and I learn that someone wants to talk to me. Rocky writes to let me know that Goddess is hot and bothered that I'm not there. I turn my computer on and scan the headlines back home. Traffic picks up outside so I people watch and contemplate things.
After completely unraveling, my life is coming back together. I can feel it ... taste it ... know it with a certainty. There are things that I don't know ... work is good right now but it's all about the next sell, contract, book, speech and the things that generate income. Nothing is planned at this point beyond next year. Nevertheless, I feel really good about where I',m at and the direction that things seem to be going.
It's been a crazy journey back to me and to this point. Time was taken to heal, reflect, and engage in a new community of believers ... a group of people who believed in me when I really wasn't believing in myself.
At first when they would visit asthough going to Hospice to sit with someone who was dying. But sit they did, silently watching over me, holding my hand, giving me hugs and kisses. Then this thawing began. It was a long, slow thawing but with every passing day things got just a little bit lighter.
Then summer arrived and a party broke out that just refuses to stop. Linked together the parties grew into this celebration of everything that we had been through. We're still here. We have each other. We don't know how long its going to last but lets sure as hell enjoy it while we can.
"It's like we all went back to college," Judy O put it, "without the bother of attending any classes."
And that is exactly what it has been like.
On the way here yesterday a dear friend of mine wrote to say that his job is being eliminated. He wanted us to pray for him. Immediately I wrote welcoming him to the family of transition. It seems that everyone I know and love is transitioning from something to the other ... marriages, relationships, jobs, residences. "The support group is already in place," I tell him, "besides we now have an excuse for another party."
I haven't heard back from him yet.
A bright sun finally rises between two buildings. It blazes into the large windows bathing me in sunlight at my table in Starbucks.
"It's alright," I say out loud, praying for him and for everybody else. "Here comes the Sun. It's alright."
