This has to be one of the scariest and most enlighening experiences of growing up.. one of the things that just swirls around in your head. For me it wasnt such a negative experience.. just strange. It happened in the
San Bernadino Mountains, on a ridge just north of the crest, the place where the mountains fall off into the
Mojave Desert, stretching to the horizon... You know in your mind that the
desert ends.. that if you could see around the curvature of the earth you could see the snow-covered
Sierras rising wet and cold out of the desert. But this is hidden behind piles of sand and somewhere deep inside you you think.. or maybe know.. that the desert doesnt end.
We were sitting on a granite rock and talking. For whatever reason, he started talking about a girlfriend he had before he met my mother... about how he had made her walk 3 miles because he didn't want his friends to think he was whipped. Something silly, something dumb.. something unintentionally mean... something me or one of my friends might have done at one point. But it wasnt something i'd think HE would have done. At that second, it seemed like he was the same as me... only with all my mistakes behind me. It made me dizzy and seemed to make the desert stretch out even further.
There's something very strange about realizing that your father, and everyone else in the world, is just as confused and scared as you are. Really, the world isn't a bad place... the mountain air was fresh, the Jeffrey Pine trees waved in the wind. But at the same time, I get this feeling that I'm stumbling in the dark, alone. And I feel like I'm the only one who feels this way.. but I'm not... I dont know if that makes it less scary... or more scary.