Numinous.

Numinous

A powerful feeling of both fear and fascination, of being in awe and overwhelmed by what is before you.

The trick to not getting overwhelmed is to simply focus on the adventure.

The dark lingering oh shit, what just happened feeling creeps up on me every few hours like a devil sitting on my shoulder whispering bleakness and dejected thoughts in my ear. But then I turn to my music posse, Jay Farrar, Dave Grohl and Ben Kweller for inspiration.

‘Walking down Main Street/Getting to know the concrete

Looking for a purpose from a neon sign

I world meet you anywhere/The western sun meets the air

We’ll hit the road, never looking behind”

I recently read an interpretation of Son Volt’s “Tear Stained Eye” lyrics to be a reflection of the friendship and path Jay Farrar forged with Jeff Tweedy during the Uncle Tupelo days and the regret and bitterness that took hold after their breakup. A sad and melancholic interpretation.

Call me a hopeless romantic, but for me “Tear Stained Eye” has to be one of the most wistful yet tender calls to the universe of love, wandering and affection. There are two people in my world that I would, without any hesitation whatsoever, meet anywhere the western sun meets the air. A vision floats through my mind of meeting my partner-in-crime in a vintage 1967 blue Jaguar E-type series 1 convertible. Carefreeness, genuine love and friendship floats over us as we drive south along PCH with the Pacific Ocean roaring its waves in song as we pass. But that's a story for another time.

It is not the fact that I am jobless at the moment with very little sense of what my next act will be. Or that I am venturing on a road trip across country alone with just my dogs, my thoughts and the road before us. No, my paralyzation comes from a fear of being emotionally vulnerable. Something that has been my biggest road block to truly bonding with another human. I have always been the poster child for the Simon and Garfunkel song “I am a Rock.”

Being the youngest kid in my family by ten and thirteen years, I was exposed early to the music genre of soul searching truth - of the country and within ourselves. These songs had a profound influence on my core being. I dreamed of being a surfer girl, riding the waves, waiting for my surfer boy to take me for a ride in his woody. I would be the candy girl full of sugar and honey and I would break on through to the other side. I didn’t know what the other side was, but I would get there. I also learned that you’ve got to hide your love away unless you want people to stare and laugh at you. I would become a rock. An island. Because a rock feels no pain and an island never cries.

So here I am in my early fifties learning to be vulnerable. Letting people in very slowly by showing glimpses of my true self. My dreams. My desires. My fears. The adventure isn’t traveling across country to see magnificent places. It is not hiking the slick rock of Moab. It isn’t laying in the wilderness, cozied up in my (The) North Face sleeping bag and watching for shooting stars. It is about meeting people. Being vulnerable. Falling in love with myself. And THAT is numinous.