My days are taking on the ebb and flow of someone who is not on the road, someone who has Internet access, a laptop, a blender to make smoothies, and a bed. Even my walks have developed into a particular pattern. I take the coyote route to the park, sit for a minute and watch the sun set, then loop around to home. It’s a good route, uphill during the first part at the gloaming, downhill in the dark at the end. The sunset site must be one of the highest points in the town, and there are usually other people there sitting silently watching the sacred moment that evens out the day. I have always been a devotee of the water goddesses myself, but I must give Apollo, Ra, and the other sun gods their due. They make great art.

Walking tonight I was aware of my wounds, the emotional trauma of loss and the scarring that sometimes is invisible to the wounded but prominent to others. While I haven’t revealed the nature of my loss here, I have revealed something much more intimate: my response to it. And I wonder at times just how visible the scars are, just how sad and lonely I may sound at times. I had a good talk with St. Judy of Ohio about some positive developments on other fronts, things that should make me happy and relieved, but I felt washed out and empty. I decided it was part of coming down from the road. Like running a race and not realizing how tired you are until you stop. LIke a motorboat that slows to a stop, and all that water comes rushing in behind it like it was trying to catch up.

I wonder how I sound and look to others. Can they hear and see the wounds? Do I appear as a victim? Do I have a kind of emotional leprosy that will rub off on people who come near me? When I ask myself these questions, I push back against them and tell myself that I am strong and content, larger and much better than I thought, and I mostly believe myself. But I have checked in with a few readers to see if I am revealing too much, being too weird, putting my pain on the Internet like a loud drunk in a bar. They tell me I’m okay, so I’ll believe them.

Then it occurs to me that this post is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: I post about my wounds then wonder if people see them? Duh. So I guess I must be okay because I can write about this, and not just write about it but put it on the Web. St. Judy of Boston, a devoted reader, wrote to tell me that she was talking to her hairstylist today in Boston who inquired about her friend who is driving across the country. “Did he get to California?” she asked. Amazing. Even sacred. People I know and love read and comment on this blog, and people I don’t know and never will read it as well, and some people don’t even read it but are part of the journey. C.S. Lewis once said, “We read to know that we are not alone.” Is this why we write as well?

So this is the answer to my questions: you are here reading this blog and therefore are helpers on the journey. That makes everything okay. Somehow my story is part of your story, and as Walt says “what I assume, you shall assume.” So I shall continue to celebrate and sing myself here because every atom belonging to me belongs to you as well, and I am walking wounded, but I am still walking, and I am not alone.