the things we tell ourselves and each other

being on a retreat with your theater company is really amazing.
So is eating ice cream.
Doing these two things together is off the charts.

Especially when the Red Sox are the BEST TEAM EVER.

I am thinking of the people who have been evacuated in the wild fires raging up and down this western coast. I was talking to someone about the Santa Ana winds on Saturday night and it was one of those things where I was just sort of saying something, as if it were true, and possibly even obvious, but in fact I had no real idea what I was talking about other than the sorta strange intuition that was permitting the words to come out of my mouth as if they were indeed fact or expert or something. We discussed Suzan-Lori Parks' play "Santa Ana." I kicked a felled large frond from a palm tree out of my path in the park near the substation in Culver City and watched a tumbleweed blow across Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. Was it a premonition?
Man, ... strong winds.

Questions: Can it be a 'retreat' when it is just two people? What if, the actual purpose of the trip is entirely different and the retreat aspects are mere moments between the reasons you are really there? Is this denial? Is it effective?... Might this line-of-thinking be an option for all the evacuaees?... i.e. Visualize yourself on a sudden and spontaneous vacation. Everything is not bad and scary. You are going to the Stadium! Lots of people will be there! Free food and camping! TOGETHER! For days! (Hope, or, in Spanish, Ojala! (insert appropriate accents))

sometimes denial feels healthy and/or necessary