Notes from the Neighborhood – The Last One

I’m calling this last entry “Hope.”
I say this is the perfect way to end this journal because although life does not come with any guarantees and in spite of the twists and turns, above all else, I still have hope.
It is morning now and soon I am going to embark on an official journey. This is no simple task. Not by any means, because as simple as this is, there’s more to this trip than meets the eye.

I wonder though –
What does Albuquerque look like?
What does the air smell like?
What do people sound like and, of course, how quickly will it be before someone mentions my New York accent or the funniness in the way I speak. 

But ah, off I go to the other side of our country.
I have hope that this trip takes me to where I need to go – and here I am now, awaiting my time at the gate, waiting to board a plane and waiting to take off to land at my layover in Dallas, Fort Worth.
Then I’ll make my way to Albuquerque. From there, I’ll make my way over to the place where I’ll rent my car or my “little hooptie,” as I plan to call it.
I have something small, economical and nothing flashy. But the car is intended for one purpose alone, which is the reason I‘ve rented my little hooptie for this event. I need something to take me approximately 90 miles north to a place called Chimayo.

I hope the people are as friendly as I expect them to be. I hope their accents are as perfectly southern as I would imagine.
I hope my drive is what I dream it would be – and the roads, and the sights, and the things I’ll see, the landscapes, the scenery, the roads, and the emptiness of a long road, stretched outward in a straight line, almost as if to put me in the same category as Kerouac. Or in my opinion, although I am not equal to his greatness, I plan to detail this as best as I can because before long, I will return tomorrow a new man.
I hope that all of this is as beautiful as I imagined. I hope the air is dry and the sun is high. I hope the town of Chimayo comes with all that I wished for.
I hope the healing powers of the grounds around the church are real and that as my faith resumes, all will be healed and my new world will reveal itself to me kindly and with a gentler appeal.

I hope that I find what I’m looking for.
I want to see this surpass my dreams and give me a new insight as to what the world looks like, outside of the boroughs or the city, the island, and all my New York hometown symbols, which I have grown to claim and always loved.  However, I have passed the halfway mark and rounding the corner, I want to see a brand new life.

But as for what I am looking for –
I hope I find it and leave everything behind. I hope I find this and still, I will leave it all exactly where I found it. This way, I have a reason to return. When the time comes and we come back here, as in you and I, as in us, as in a couple, as in crazy and hungry for life and hungry for love, and yearning to live more than the kids we used to be – because when this happens, I want to show you what I’ve seen and where I’ve left it – specifically, just for you. 

I want you to pick this up. I don’t want to touch it.
Instead, I want you to have this.

I want you to be the one who unearths the so-called sword which has been locked in the granite of my heart and so, since only one hand can unsheath this sword, then it would also be true that only one love could heal this heart, which is mine, which belongs to you – to do with as you choose. 

This entire journal has been filled with ups and downs, back and forth ideas, fears, assumptions, worries and to all, I hope this trip solves at least some of the fiascos in our head.
I hope that my tenacity and that my leap of faith is not unnoticed and that while I leap forward, I hope that I am not alone.
I hope that I am in the company of my one true love, that in the end, when I close my eyes at the end of each day and after I come home to face the mirror with a constructive conclusion to end my night before I sleep – I hope that it’s you that I see before I sleep. Also, I hope it is you who I see when my eyes open for the first time.I want nothing and no one else.
So please – know this.
There is no substitute. 

I hope that life changes for the better. I hope the grounds of divorce are kinder to all parties so that resentments can slip away and become unobjectionable.
I hope that my heart can hold the dreams I have and I hope that my heart knows when to explode to let my dreams escape.
So that at last, this can all come true.

I hope the food is good. I hope New Mexico is kind to me. I hope the travel gods are at least kind to me and that my trip goes off without a hitch.

I hope.
I think this is the first time I’ve allowed myself the freedom to be this hopeful. I think this is the first time in my life that I have allowed myself to declare my truths so honestly and openly.

I think that for the first time ever, I am being true to myself and truthful to the fact that there is nothing else out there to stop me now.
There never was.
There was only me and my misdirected assumptions.

I hope that my love is enough for you. I hope that my arms are strong enough to hold you through all the weakness we go through. I hope that this trip cures me so that I may improve and patiently, as I wait for you to walk through the door, I hope that what I have is enough to make you forget the mass dilemmas we’ve seen in this messed-up, crazy world
I hope I planned this right because as I say this, I didn’t plan anything. No, this is more of a “fly by the seat of my pants” sort of thing.
But again – I am not here for the experience. I am here because I hope this trip brings me one step closer to my dreams and thus, I will find my heart, and most of all you, holding my love in the palm of your hand as if to be sacred and adored, loved, cared for – and eternally connected from now until forever.

But still – I must be honest.

I was always afraid to hope . . .
I saw hope as something that leads us towards disappointment,
But I’m not disappointed.
Not any more.
Not now – because I have hope and in connection with my hopes, I have this journal which I am about to complete right now.

I was never one to enjoy faith but even though the word sounds hopeful, faith can be neutral or agnostic, or negative as well because at one point my faith believed that I was destined for destruction or worse, loneliness.
But not anymore.

My very first book opened up with the words, “This is for you, my love.”
Well . . .
I have news for you
So is this one
For you, my love.

I have plans which will evolve.
I have a bucket list.
I have new recipes to share and hope that while the world is an imperfect place, and so are we – still . . .
I have hope that tomorrow will be a brand new day.

A new day

I love the sound of that.

So do you. (I hope)
With all of my heart, I am down on one knee virtually speaking.
I am reaching for your hand, looking up with my eyes, all in love.
I am asking you this now and I will ask you this every day for the rest of my life. Even still, even if Father Time decides to punch my time card and my shift is up –
I will come back and sit beside you. No matter where you go – to love you and to adore you, to hold you and kiss you, and to make love to you, for hours on end until the sun fades or the moon goes away.

Please, with all of my heart . . .
I am asking you now
Marry me?
I will carry the world on my back
I will cross rivers, oceans and climb mountains, survive valleys and march through fields of wood or emptiness and I will do this to the end of the Earth and back – but only for you.
It is only right that I end this journal here, while flying high above Texas.
Chimayo – I haven’t even seen you yet and already . . .
I am healed.