First walk like that in over ten years.  Can’t believe I’m here.  My thinking, clear, like the air.  All the scents from when I was younger welcoming me back this morning – the sweet wood smell, the wild grass, weeds, trees… how the air through trees up here sounds completely different than Sonoma County or anywhere else.

Stopped at a hole at the North Course, just looked out.  I remember the bike paths for the most part, except parts that were changed recently.  The shop, the little restaurant where my cousin Nick and I would get a hot dog and soda, then go to the driving range and hill balls.  Everything closed now for season, looking like a ghost town, reminding me of…. What.

Mom and I this morning getting coffee at the Starbucks in “The Village”, what I used to call the mall when younger.  Now typing at the bar, or counter, what last night I called the Maury Mountain Bar.  Mom laughed… I had the Malbec in my glass and we talked till past 12am.  She never stays up that late but the shock of me here, and if not shock then realization.  I’m here.  I did the walk by myself this morning that I’ve been dreaming of for nearly ten years.  No challenge, no guilting me, no comments or remarks or skirmishes, looks.

Enough of that.  There is no comparative, there is only NOW.  Mom, Dad, and I plotting our day.  River walk in Bend, leaving here at 2.  Then, glass of wine and dinner at Lodge.  Beside myself excited and literally feel like doing what people say they should do in this type of time and feeling… pinch yourself.  This entry is my pinch.  My writer’s retreat.

Here.

NOW.