Chasing A Western Sunset

 

Hurling toward the western sunset at 80 miles per hour extended the time it took to enjoy the lingering last rays of daylight. Odd, it seemed, to be chasing the sun. By the time the sun won it‘s race to disappear off into an ocean I wouldn’t quite reach, I had already crossed the California state line and was close, not close to seeing the sun sink into the Pacific, but I was well into the Eastern Inland Empire, my destination, Riverside County.

My grandparent’s moved to Riverside in the 1950’s where my father’s father took a job working as a foreman for Sunkist. Rich in it’s heyday of orange tree groves, Riverside was once the capital of citrus fruits. As a child my father had nowhere else to ride his bike except through the acres and acres of fruit trees.

Riverside is not that way today. Still there are orange groves but buildings and freeways and people and bus lines and shopping malls and emission smog have eaten up much of that space. I did not grow up here through much of the city’s changes, but my father did, and he returned in time for my brothers and sister to stay here.

I was old enough to come or go, and so I did, many times.

Riverside holds many memories of my using, and drinking, and the shame of wandering University Avenue searching for contraband are here. I look down any street to find harbored between all the familiar sites reminders of our family’s discord and my disease. Yes, I got clean here and married here and gave birth to two children here, and I divorced here and relapsed and moved away again.

Now I’m coming back.

There’s a whole mixed bag of emotions for me in Riverside, and a whole lot of trepidation in hurling my vehicle toward a western sunset. I’m wondering what I’ll find here this time. It was fearsomely difficult to pack a bag, and pack my son, and overcome the anxiety in getting through those first few miles away from my safety zone.

Yet you taught me, and I remembered, today it’s the actions that I do that count, that feelings aren’t facts, do the next right thing, and leave the outcome to God.

I arrived safely at the end of a six hour drive in front of my sister’s house. In the dusk warmly lit windows outlined by twinkling Christmas lights beckoned me to the front door. She flung open wide her arms and her heart, laughing and happy to see me. In a deep sigh I relaxed, and fall deeply into the safety of home.

Every day matters.