I am reading Richard Bach’s, Running From Safety again.
The premise is a conversation between a grown-up Richard, and his 9-year old self that after his brother’s death, he “locked away” emotionally in a basement. The book is the journey of this reconciliation and the passing along of an adult life lived for the child who is just getting his feet back and preparing to set off on his own destiny, that may or may not result in the outcome of Richard’s adult life as it currently stands.
What a beautiful premise, to invite ourselves to consider the advice we would offer to our child self.
In this case, right now, in these waters of yes, the creative invitation is a conversation with my younger self, after that first kiss with a girl who I had feelings for, finding ourselves approaching the “deep-end” of love for the very first time.
Back then, I rode a bicycle, everywhere, if I wasn’t by foot cutting up some deer trail into the Santa Monica Mountains to explore and capture some Pacific views. Often, I would push that bike into the mountains too. Shortly after that kiss I found myself looking into the sun, as it started to set later that afternoon. What on earth was I feeling? Gosh, that kiss was one of the most extraordinary events in my life. I knew that feeling was possible, but I didn’t know just how delicious it could actually be.
As I leaned on my bike a man came up over the rise, jogging, relaxed. He was headed my way. This was a common vantage point for sunsets. He kind of looked like my Dad…but Dad never jogged.
He began to slow his stride and eventually came to a walk as he approached the flat area where I was gazing out over the chaparral, the cars and streets and freeways below…
I started stretching after my run to the top. There was a kid there. Reminded me of me. Kind of feral and clearly at home in the wild here in the Santa Monica mountains. His bike was a mish-mash of parts that all made sense for climbing dirt trails and jumping curbs, riding with no hands when needed and cruising too. He had this look of wonder I couldn’t help notice. Knees were scratched. Shoes well worn. Eyes clear, and blue.
“All good? Sunset should be outstanding!”
He says to me, “Ya, I just feel a little dazed after my first real kiss with a girl.”
“Wow, I sure get that. What’s her name?”
He says, “Ashley,” and that they have been friends for awhile. Their parents know one another. Her mom is a bit weird but Ashley is great. She can ride a bike like him and has been up here before. She’s kind of fearless.
“So is it love,” I asked.
He says he’s not sure, but he thinks so. And then he asks. Like I am at some door and politely, he’d like to come through the door and pass where I am standing.
“Is it love?”
“Well,” I say, “if you are asking, it probably is.”
So without missing a beat, he asks me what’s next. I swallow, look down at the ground, look out at the sun and ask, “How much time have you got?” He said he needs to ride home before dark. I nod, and agree. I do too. And I am thinking about dinner that night, and my timing. I have 5-10 minutes for this. So I start, and it comes out of me as if someone walked up and turned on a faucet…
Love is the strangest, full of pain, full of joy, adventure and mystery you will come across until your soul starts to burn for the truth that is inside of you right now but you just don’t have the words yet for it. It can look and feel like that truth, but it isn’t. It is it’s own domain, its own dance, its own sweat, its own tears.
“What do you like to do more than most things on any given day,” I ask
He says he’s an explorer and likes discovering new paths in the mountains, a snake or a hidden beehive, a hawk circling or dolphins down at the beach, surfing in the waves. I like him. He’s solid and clear. He’s also quick to add he’s a jock, plays football and loves the team efforts, working together either to defend, or score. Geez, this could be me at what, he’s probably 14?
And then he adds, like something he just remembered and should have said first. He likes to write. It comes naturally. Mostly science fiction adventures but they are hard because the stories take awhile to build. Not like poetry. He writes that with ease. He has a few he wrote about the ride he had with Ashley the other night. Before the kiss.
And then I say that love will shape his writing and if writing is his passion he should fuel it with that love…but not to get them confused with one another.
Love, I say is all about caring for another. Surrendering to relationship and at the same time surrendering to and embracing, fighting for what’s true inside of you. Often, you discover both as the edges of who you are and who the other is, begin to blur. The challenge becomes when that passion of being together no longer agrees with your truth. Especially after you have built a life together.
He says he knows kids whose parents have separated, and gotten a divorce. Those grown ups look confused, lost. Angry. They are not very good at teaching him about love. Ashley’s parents are recently divorced. Then he asks if I have any kids.
I do. Two girls. Different moms. Those are longer stories than I have time for. The biggest gift that came out of those relationships are the ones I have now with those girls. Those two young women. They have become soul and heart-deep humans that nourish the good in others. They are caring and grace those they touch. You would like them I say.
He then paused while looking out over the spread of humans below. I looked out too. I imagined he felt a little overwhelmed with all the unknowns before him. And then he said simply, “ I think I got this.”
I asked him what he meant and he said asking about love wasn’t going to help him really know it. Sort of like other people’s lives…you could read about them but you really don’t know them until you’ve been inside their home, their rooms or just sitting down with them over dinner.
So I asked, “Well then, what’s next for you?”
He said, smiling, “more kisses.” We both laughed.
I started stretching again, getting ready for the run back down. He was checking his bike chain and tires.
I finished and was moved to add one more recent discovery.
“You know the health of anything, especially a relationship, is about both people in the relationship. It takes both of you to make it work, only one of you to screw it up. It’s why that truth inside, inside both of you, is gold. Nurture that in one another, allow for it to thrive and the relationship will thrive. That will take some trust but like riding that bike, you learn.”
He asked me about my wife and what she was like as he was getting ready to head down and if I thought she agreed with me. I said I never really asked her directly but that it seems like we are in these waters, our truths intact, thriving in a commitment to not just the truths inside of us but to a third truth, the truth and gold of our relationship. And that is a thrill and something we are building a life on each and every day.
“Gold, I like that. Sort of like this sunset in a few moments.”
He thanked me and then asked if the pain was always part of love. If they go together. I smiled and said only towards the end, and after it. The rest is all growth.
He seemed complete. I had more to say but he stood up on the pedals ready to push, turned and said with a question, “So the verb of love is trust?” He began to ride away.
“In what?” I asked.
“In the gold!”
“And where is that,” I shouted.
“Inside,” and sweeping his hand in the air, “and all around us !”
And I shouted again, not sure if he heard as I began to follow his tracks downhill, “Keep pedaling kid…it only gets better!”
He waved with a thumbs-up.
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