I'm hanging out at the Portland airport waiting for my flight home. Unlike Seattle, both San Diego and Portland airports offer free wireless (Portland's is way faster than San Diego, though), which is great for those of us wanting to delete a bunch of junk email from our work accounts or write blog posts or just surf the net to kill time. I ended up extending my stay in K Falls by a day, and I'm so glad I did, but it feels like I've been away from home for a really long time now.

I had a fantastic time in San Diego with my friend Shannon. Not only does it feel like I've been away for ages, but it also feels like that trip was weeks ago. We made the most of our two days! Like I said in my previous post, it was really great, for once, having time together that didn't feel rushed, yet we found plenty to do to occupy our time. We talked and talked and talked, and we saw lots of cool stuff. We didn't rent a car, because the two of us in a car seems to always lead to "issues" like parking problems, sketchy directions (as well as sense of direction), and near misses of all varieties. Believe me, it's not pretty. We quickly became pros at the Trolley (with only a few minor mishaps) and encountered a series of quirky cab drivers who entertained us. Oh, and we gave the bus a whirl for one outing. Favorite line from the bus experience: "I think my quarter is in your pants!" More on that later.

In our two days, we explored the Gaslamp Quarter, tried a variety of different restaurants with varying success, ate yummy sundaes at Ghirardelli, visited Old Town, walked from Pacific Beach to Mission Beach (or vice versa, I'm not really sure), shopped, and spent several hours at Balboa Park on Friday. Balboa Park is really lovely and HUGE, so although we saw a lot of interesting stuff there, we didn't even make it to the zoo. However, we did make it to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Natural History Museum, which was a must for me once I found out about it. I came across a pamphlet for that exhibit during our adventures on Thursday and had it clutched in my hand the rest of the day, mentioning it at pretty much every turn. I think I drove Shannon a bit bonkers with that one, so it was a relief--for her, I'm sure--to finally get to see it.

Going to that exhibit just felt completely fitting, and I really enjoyed and learned so much from it. Shannon was the perfect person to experience this with, since she and I have had so many conversations about religion and spirituality over the years. Plus, over the last year and a half or so, I've had religion on the brain. It's come up for me in lots of different contexts and, although I have a handle on what I believe and why, grasping how it fits into the overall construct of Religion is very cloudy for me. Even though I don't have a desire at all to fit in to one particular belief system, I want to better understand the history and diversity of beliefs over time. I've grown more and more curious about this and what it means in terms of the big picture of human existence. I have questions, which are leading me toward further exploration and discovery. My hope is to have a sense of how religion--Christianity in particular right now--has developed and changed over the centuries, and, perhaps most interesting and somewhat baffling to me, why participating in a formal religious system is so important to so many people, when for me the simple act of believing (what it is that I believe) and my own inner knowing is what brings me peace and fulfillment. And, truth be told, I'm disturbed by many things that happen in the world in the name of religion and, overall, tend to believe pretty firmly that religion of the masses does more harm than good. For the most part, I just don't get it.

This isn't to say that I feel spiritually adrift in any way. I don't. My beliefs, unconventional as they may be, feel very right to me. Rather, I think, like most people, I'm a truth seeker. Even if I question the validity of the historical documentation we have, the idea of getting closer to the truth is intriguing and irresistible. I don't want to put a limit on this. I feel it's incredibly important to stay open to possibility, change in how I think, and new understanding throughout life, and I hope to always have questions.

This aspiration is what made seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls so great. It's another piece of the puzzle, and now I'm really interested in reading that interpretation of the bible. Over the last several years, my spiritual curiosity has driven me to learn about and practice meditation. It's sparked my interest in energy healing, yoga, tarot, karma, manifestation and the law of attraction, and I like to learn about these things through books, courses, movies, articles, blogs, etc. I'm excited about the possibility of attending an Abraham-Hicks workshop this summer. It's led me to read parts of the bible and, as conflicted as I feel about it as a whole, I adore, for example, sections on love in the First Letter of John and other passages of enduring love, hope and forgiveness. Also, I picked up a copy of the U.S. News & World Report Secrets of Christianity edition on my trip, and I've added the Gnostic Gospels and the Gospel of Judas to my future reading list.

Anyway...I went way off track my original plan for this post, and now, on this heavy note, I must board my plane. I know you'd rather hear more about my adventures in San Diego and the funny conversations Shannon and I had with cab drivers, restaurant hostesses, bus passengers, and store clerks. I know you can't wait to hear about how I, and a couple hundred other people, had to evacuate the Southwest terminal at the San Diego airport due to someone pulling the fire alarm shortly before it was time to board the flight to Reno. I'm sure you'd love the details of me, Mols, and Trav driving from Reno to K Falls at 1a.m., singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in monster voices (Trav woke up at midnight during our journey and just stayed awake), and going through tiny little towns with creepy, ghoulishly lit, life-size nativity scenes on the main drag. We were spooked and focused on looking straight ahead only. I could tell you about bowling with my family and hanging out with my sisters at the Black Dog bar and "casino" in downtown K Falls on Saturday night. Woo. And I will. I really, really will.

More soon!