Chapter 1: A Hurricane in Malibu

Sturm und Drang

It was out of the question that I would cancel, even if it seemed the logical thing to do.  I’d been determined to get away for a few days.  I needed a beach, the sound of the surf, and time to read and meditate.  Where no one needed anything from me or had any expectations that I’d be productive.

Navigating the 101, squinting through the windshield and the driving rain, I listened to the radio reporting accidents that had happened, thankfully behind me.  Keeping an eye out for rocks and sliding mud, I made my way through the canyons to the coast and wondered again if kicking off a few days at the beach in Malibu in the middle of the first hurricane to hit the area in a hundred years was the best idea.

But then again, maybe that was just perfect.

I’d been feeling restless as my birthday came and went, like there was a shift happening somewhere that I needed to prepare for.

I arrived at the hotel unscathed. Once in my room, I watched the storm from my balcony overlooking the ocean. The gray water churned as if trying to raise something foreign from its depths as the waves surged in an effort to expel it. Water washed far up on the shore, while the wind whipped in fits and starts, blowing away anything not secured and sending it on its way.

Despite the warm temperature, I settled onto the sofa and debated about starting a fire in the fireplace just to add to the dark ambience. It was then I felt the slow rumble beneath me and experienced the swaying. It took me a moment to realize the shaking was not just within me but was, in fact, an actual earthquake.

An earthquake. In the middle of a hurricane. What’s next, I thought. Locusts? We’d already had a plague and years of lockdown and I’d made it through all of it.

But now, gazing out across the angry seas and darkened sky, I wanted to cry out and beg for some direction. I just knew the answer I needed was swirling out there somewhere.

I’ve always loved storms. It’s something we don’t get often here in LA. When I was a kid, I would stay up watching the lightning and count the number of seconds to the first crash of thunder as a way of measuring how far we were from the heart of it. Even as an adult living in New York, I would open the window and sit half in and half out on my fire escape, breathing in the newly freshened air.  Leaning out and looking up, I’d let the water drop on my face as both the city and I were cleansed by the rain.

I wanted that same feeling, that same cleansing, during my time in Malibu. Once the storm subsided and the sun came out again, I walked the length of the beach, treated myself to a massage, and took time to read books I’d been putting aside for months. My mind calmed and finally I acknowledged that my life needed to change.

On the drive back home, the sky clear this time, my mind wandered.  I thought how lovely it was to be able to do what I wanted with my time and how I wish I could do that more often. I could spend more time with my horses and focus on my writing. I could go hiking and explore nature and finally have time to exercise daily. It’s a big world out there with infinite possibilities. There had to be more to the rest of my life beyond being confined in an office building, boxed in by cubicles, while tethered to a paycheck.

If only, I thought, someone would leave me a bunch of money. I laughed knowing that there was no one who was still around to do that. My parents were already gone and left all they were going to. My Uncle Lee was the only relative left that could possibly have anything, but I doubted he would.  He and I had been close once and he had helped me through another difficult time of change in my life. But we hadn’t spoken in a very long time. Stupid really, even though we were in the same state as each other again, neither of us had made contact. I had sent a couple of cards but received no reply.

Maybe it was because I’d been thinking of him that, while sleeping in my own bed again that night, he came into my dreams. It was so nice to see him. I often thought he was angry with me for some unknown thing I might have done when I was younger. But there was no anger, no drama, just a drop in to say hello somehow.

Or rather, perhaps, good-bye.

I received a message from my sister the next day that my uncle had died.  He had passed away the day I was driving home and just hours before he stopped in to see me in my dreams.

That weekend in Malibu and my uncle’s passing kicked off a cycle of events. No, he didn’t leave a large fortune, but he did, just as he had so many times when I was younger, help me come into my own again.

I cried out for direction.  And the universe responded. 

More to come.