How many goodbyes are there in a life? A few can be teary, but all should be shouted from the rooftops at the edge of town: Good-bye! Good-bye! Hands should wave, dogs bark, cats meow & dash away…

I am ready for such a farewelling – a movement toward is always also a movement away, but the balance is kept by the love brought forward to forge the way, the prow cutting thru waves.

The rain tonight is a cleansing & I am clearing with it, surfacing from it. The dross washes away, the chalk marks wash away the children’s hopscotch blocks so the adults can scribe a circle to dance. I see a movie fade where the background opens to absorb the character, who turns to emerge on the other side, polished & pin-neat, smiling & shy.

There are no more pictures on the walls now,  yet the room will be refilled. There will be peace & silence after disorder is boxed away, packed in the car or brought to the post office.

I will be gone from the places where I most recently have been – the vibrance of my energy pulsing to stillness. The song playing is O’Hearn’s “Where Once We Stood.” It all fits so neatly together, so nearly apart.

Once again, I return a life into the packaging. “Hmm,” I say, “this doesn’t seem to fit me anymore.” I drop it on the counter & exit through the revolving door which continues moving even past my passage. My name will ring for some while in some ears & fade.

There are gas cards in my travel purse, an Amazon card for the landing when I’m where I am going. This morning I got in the car & upon turning it on, found the four places where I am planning to stay each night glowing on its mapscreen. Everyone says, “You must’ve talked about it on  your phone.” Or, “You must have looked them up in the car.” I will tell you Truth: I checked mileage between them on the computer in the living room. I spoke no names in the car. I think it was just a Confirmation Miracle: an evidential grace that my wishes are known to Universe glowing in reassurance: I am heard.

The cards have told me stay until invited, but I invite my own self. Work goes nowhere, the same bumps & humps, the same curses invoked every day, the same people underlining dissatisfactions instead of successes. What I would once have given to be a homeowner that now I quickly retreat back three steps from? Ah, there was a time made merry by sharing a life lost to a good-bye many years ago. Surrendered to driving away in a red car.

My stomach talks to me – a kind of scowl at all remaining to be done, but this is only because I have not started the finishing. By Saturday afternoon, the car will be full & I will be folding the last to go into a supple bag for stuffing into the one remaining opening.

Sunday I will mount up, call in the Road Crew (who were really the ones priming the maps for departure) & ask for blessing. I will dial up a destination & drive.

Good-bye & good-bye & good-bye!