Looming Tequila

Riding the bike trails in Oregon, the solitude, the peace it creates as the cold wind blows on your face as you twist and turn on the tiny path weaving through a beautiful forest of huge green trees that smell as incredible as they look. Being with family gives me such a feeling of comfort and happiness. A level of being myself with no worry and always seeing love in there actions towards me. Waking up the last few mornings to the smell of coffee and breakfast and the most familiar voices I know talking upstairs. The porch off our house was the perfect view of a serene lush landscape and even gave us the opportunity to feed wandering deer off of it. We went white water rafting down the Deschutes river and as we regaled my dad with our story as all us kids went in one raft, my sister in full laughter in between gasps of air told him of some verbal vomit I had which we all laughed at, he hugged me and said "You don't know how much like me you are". My rocky relationship with my pop would have usually made me not like this statement but the last few years have changed us both for the better and this trip is making me realize how right he is. I smile. My sisters and I laugh and speak nonsense in weird voices, content to sit and talk for hours, it feels like home. It's fathers day, all eleven of us are gathered closely around a large table cluttered by food and bottles of wine, he makes a toast to life and love and says that the last five years have been the best of his life. I can't quite say the same not that I should analyze it because I believe the good and bad are there for a reason but it sends my spirits soaring that the best years of your life can come in your 60's and that there are things and people that you haven't met or encountered that might be the meaning or precipice of your existence. We go home and make margaritas and drink and play games until most everyone goes to sleep but my sister and dad stay up. We spend hours listening to Zeppelin, Morrison, Dylan....music that is from his youth but transcended to ours. We spoke of our childhood, our mother, the days when the money ran out and we all shared one bedroom on a long dirt road, our trials and troubles and he toasts once more that brings tears to my eyes. "If for anything I am thankful it is that despite the mistakes I've made, the depression I let affect my parenting, when I wasn't there, I am the luckiest man in the world to have these daughters. You fear when you have kids, the people they will end up being and I couldn't have more admiration or respect than for how my daughters turned out". I've lived in L.A for five years and I can easily say I've met so many different kinds of people that it is staggering. You met people who you think are amazing who turn out to walk all over you and people who you might accidentally walk all over who turn out to be the most eye opening friendships you have. This was the first time I really sat and thought what it would be like to make a human being not knowing at all what kind of person with what kind of morals, heart or dreams they would have. We dance in socks and pajamas on the kitchen floor with the looming scent of tequila in the air to the songs that make me feel that all is right in the world. I've never seen either of them dance so dorky and look so free and happy in my life. It's 6am and the sun rises on us, this is a night I will never forget.