Adam and I are starting to think he may have dodged a bullet or two with his chemo; aside from some nausea and tiredness throughout the week, the worst of the side effects seem to have missed him. So much so that when I returned from Sprit Rock, where I went for a daylong retreat with Jack Kornfield, he asked me to pick him up at his apartment. He’d gone there to get his running shoes, planning on getting in a jog in this neighborhood, not far from where he lived at the Hotel Mirabelle for a spell.

He seemed okay when I got him, smelled a bit of cigarettes (so smart when getting over cancer) but nothing more. Said he had seen a friend of his who wanted Adam to be in a band he was forming to play bass. Except neither of them had a bass guitar.

We went to dinner at Chava’s for old times sake (I was jonesing for a burrito from San Jose Tacqueria across the street but he wanted more variety in his offerings, I think; he probably eats lots of burritos on my dime). Chava’s hasn’t changed much – same Diego Rivera knock-offs, same fine fare (though my portion of chilequiles seemed smaller than I remembered it). While waiting for our food I asked him how he was feeling in general with a birthday around the corner.

“Okay, I guess,” he said, “though I wish I had a job and a girlfriend.” Points taken. I talked a little about my hopes for the Diablo center in Danville, that they might help with direction toward getting adults with Aspergers meaningful work. Or work they could handle, depending where on the spectrum they were. And the girlfriend, well, I told him being in a band was a time-tested way to meet chicks. Being able to actually play the bass was not even a prerequisite.

I asked if he had been in touch with any of these Aspy groups, Geek to Geek etc. and if he’d been to any of their functions. “Yeah, and they’re pretty depressing: A bunch of people sitting around talking about how annoying normal people are. And they all have Aspergers so there’s not a lot of social interaction. Mostly people stare at their hands.”

But after a day of fretting about him and his prospects it was nice to hear a somewhat realistic appraisal of his situation, or that his concerns mirrored mine. The retreat at Spirit Rock (where the road sign entering says “Yield to the Present”) was filled with sitting and walking meditations, broken up by Jack’s often profound and funny dharma talks. During the first walking exercise, when he sent the more experienced practitioners out to do walking meditation before the newbies, I found myself headed up a hill, leaving all the others in the parking lot and grounds around the meditation hall where we’d been.

I passed a few people on the rise, each doing that zombie walk, as if looking for a lost contact lens. I was more purposeful, while trying to be mindful, climbing up the dusty trail, lizards scattering in my wake, summer sun above and sea breeze and a hint of fog below, smell of eucalyptus and Manzanita bushes. I was so alone I thought either I was a genius or I was doing this completely wrong – which is how I feel about half the time.

When I got to the top of the hill I finally saw another walker, but I think she was from the weekend retreat that was happening there and she paid me no mind. The trail seemed to run off over the hills to Eureka and I couldn’t tell from the crest of the hill if there was a loop back to the center. I didn’t want to go all the down in the wrong direction and find out there wasn’t and I dithered at first, going halfway down and then up again, thinking of invisible people laughing at me, until I took the plunge, headed off down the hill – and of course found a trail heading back to the center, one I couldn’t see from the top of the hill.

And I cried. Put my hands over my face and cried for maybe thirty seconds, realizing (of course) that this was how I felt about Adam – I have no idea if I will find a path that is right for him, but I did. “Trust in the uncertainty,” Jack said later that day. I’m gonna work on that.