“Don’t fight it,”  that’s the first thing I would say to someone thinking about living on wheels and the wind the way I do.  Or maybe you should, I know I did for awhile, just to make sure.  I guess I thought, subconsciously, that there was something wrong with living this way; like I couldn’t make it as a responsible adult with a 401k and a mortgage much the same way you wonder when you’re single why you can’t just find a nice guy and settle down.  Society and my family do their best to convince me that stable is better and that security is certainty but I secretly suspected since I was about twelve years old, and intermittently ever since, that this would not be my path in the world.  I remember the moment I looked at adulthood and did the math: 5 days working and 2 days off seemed pretty lopsided to me.   Also how many years of my life I had to work to then be able to retire and have all my time given back to me with free reign how to use it.  I was already employed at this point, babysitting and helping in my grandma’s bakery, and this road seemed to stretch endlessly ahead of me.  I felt like a fraud.  I told no one.  I just carried this secret with me and tried my best to override it.

And if there is a moment when I can say it all began, this, my pre-teen existential crisis, was it.  I believe it activated a Grace, rather a dependence, on Grace.  “Necessity is the mother of invention,” said Benjamin Franklin and it’s one of my favorite things to quote.  You never know you can until you need to.

I pull the camper into Myakka River State Park.  It’s her maiden voyage.  I’m driving and it’s really not that tough- everyone was right.  I come up to a “ROAD CLOSED” sign and need to make a U-turn and as I pull it off, I feel so powerful.    “I’m more worried about driving her than I am about where I’m gonna put her,”  I told my step-in dad.  “I’d be worried about just the opposite,” he’d say back.    I’ve come to learn he was right.

I go to the ranger’s office to ask about the camp host lead I got.  Their volunteer coordinator position is vacant so there’s no possibility of that happening until that gets filled, I’m told.  I say that maybe I could fill the position, but it’s with the State of Florida which means it’s permanent and I am not.  “You millennials,” the ranger says (I’m 48 and take the compliment) “How does someone so young as yourself live so free?”  “I was born this way!”  I declare  “And by the sheer Grace of God.”  I try to explain that we don’t have to provide for ourselves but he can’t really hear me.  I think maybe he hasn’t had a pre-teen existential crisis, or at any other age either.  And I think maybe that’s the problem we have with God – we think we have to earn it.  Work, get paid, give money, get stuff; A Course in Miracle says, “You really think that if you didn’t have paper strips and metal disks, you’d starve to death.”  But I live  a lot on “consider the  lilies of the fields or the birds of the air, they neither toil nor trouble and they are provided for…how much more important to God are you than these?”  or however that exactly goes.  If we don’t know God then that’s on us, not God. Our terms are too tough – on ourselves.

I also think our pride gets in the way.  There’s this self-sufficiency badge that we like to wear when we handle our shit ourselves and there’s no room for it when you live like you’re sustained by the Love of God.  It’s hard for me to explain that I’m not the one doing it when I’m talking to someone invested in doing it for themselves.  I can plant a seed, I can represent an alternative as so many have done for me but until you want to change the rules – or throw out the rules of the world all together – then nothing changes.  A great freedom was given me the other day: “You are who you say you are.  And that is all.”  It dawned across my mind as a light and a gift.

“I don’t know if I can do it,”  I say early on to Vic and to Karen.  “You ARE doing it,” they both declare in unison; and I realize, it’s in the starting and not all in the finishing.  I’m defining it for myself.  I’m making it up as I go along, and no one is checking, there’s no personality police with some power to ticket me for not doing me the correct way.   There is no right way, there is just what’s right for me and I will try this for as long as I’d like and there is no other criteria.

“Tell me the part of your story that led up to this moment,”  he asks me shortly after I tell him I’m living in a camper I just bought and going to  wander the wind, and ride the road for awhile.  The short version?  I flipped a house with my ex, my car got totaled (at 9:20 on 9/20) and my boyfriend broke up with me, soooo I threw some stuff in a rental, grabbed the check at closing and with the intention of no permanent address drove towards the sunshine seeking warmer pastures.   I had no idea what I was going towards, but I was pretty clear on what I was leaving; memories of the best relationship I’d ever had and the merry-go-round of one of the worst.  The cult I’d been a part of and the only state that I’d ever called home – my going out from and my coming back to since forever.

My addresses always ended in “WI”, but no more.  My realtor just laughed when our closing officer asked me to sign and fill in my new address.  “Oh, I don’t have one of those,” I tell her.  I wasn’t sure if I could actually get away with that

If there’s a time when I would reply “story of my life” it would be that some rules are meant to be bent and others are meant to be broken.  I have an almost total disregard for them.  Ask anyone.  I was raised by someone who shoved them down my throat like milk and now I drink neither.  I….make my own shit up, for the most part.  and sometimes I look like I’m really fucking it up, but I never am.  You can’t screw it up inside the miracle, Karen said the other night.  And I live inside the miracle and I like to write all about it.

It started with a force similar to the Wicked Witch of the West showing up early this morning after a very sleepless night. I could hear her even though I couldn’t hear her and slowly woke up to the realization that the moment the men of the house had hoped maybe wouldn’t ever have to happen, was happening. My Baby and I, we’re holding out in the truck like a bunker against The Barbara with beautiful words and music flowing from the radio and playing around us as she swirls around us too. A little Tampa Tasmanian Devil, spinning crazy and getting just as cartoonish. “No Limit” comes on and Usher sings me into having faith in the man I’m sitting next to and walking through this with….”just know when u roll with a nigger like me, there’s no limit, baby. Baby we shine, you and me, we shine.” I’ve always said that when the shit hits, I hope for and am grateful for good timing and good company and to that I would now add a good soundtrack. The refrain of another song comes on as we discuss our options and strategize a game plan. I’m still in pajamas and trying to wake up to what my baby is saying…”you don’t want no problem, want no problem with me” refrains through our plans and lifts me into a better position yet. I’ve decided, I’m not doing anything that’s a reaction to what’s occurring. I feel myself resisting the urge to become unreasonable in the face of something unreasonable. I will carry on with my day as planned and get my truck tire replaced and no I will not take the camper with me and yes I will look for another spot to put her as soon as is possible and no I don’t want to just stick her in storage, and no, you cannot just open the truck door and make crazy demands. Go ahead and call whomever you are threatening to call; I haven’t done anything wrong. Vic held me in when I wanted to react at the ranch when we got there that Sunday night and my trailer was gone (we found it in the woods) and I’m holding him in now. It’s nice to know someone’s got your back and it’s a good feeling when you’ve got theirs. “This is good practice,” he says. “For what?” I ask. “For my mental.”

I’m folding the blanket and making the bed; recognizing the peace in the mundane and the centering effect that folding something down the center has. The blanket got smaller along with my problems as I sing along to the song in my head “you don’t want no problem, want no problem with me.” I’m still in my pajamas but now they’re starting to feel like my armor. I feel like I’m finally on a team and it is so much easier. We hug each other at the foot of the bed. “Are we good?” I ask. And when he says, “Oh yeah, we’re real good” I realize that, if him and I are good, I’m good. “As long as I’ve got my Starfish, I’m okay” he likes to say. So we make a break for it. He goes to work and I go to the garage with plans to be in touch and be in love. As I come out of the gas station I see my truck pissing what must be antifreeze onto the ground. “Jesus,” is all I can say. And as the mechanic puts pressure through the system, it’s like three little squirt guns shooting out in the illumination of the flashlight I’m holding…”Jesus.” Add to that the two front lower ball joints and controller arms and a $50 tire has just rolled into an $1100 estimate clipped to a clipboard and being presented for my consideration – and signature. Luckily, I’m sitting across from the pop machine that has this taped to it:

It is just money I remind myself, paper, it’s not my soul. I float it and it keeps flowing back to me, from me. My bank account or that of Abraham the mechanic, from the vantage point of us all being One, is there even a difference? And how can you not trust someone called Abraham, one of the Bible’s oldest names?

And now, I’m off looking at places to store my camper. We’ve decided, this comes as a bit of a surprise to myself even, that we will stay at Vic’s and just take my camper out on little trips on his days off. I’m sure I must’ve agreed under the pretense that this would be temporary. And I have, after driving and calling and asking for a few hours, found a place with the first month free and $70 after that. Just as I leave the place Vic calls to say that it’s been offered to work out a deal for staying in the driveway long-term. Super. It’s settled and we end up driving around talking and smoking and kissing and processing and enjoying and wandering into the future with with each other in mind. It’s a far, far way from Wisconsin….in oh so many, many ways. We laid in bed at the ranch and woke to the rhythmic gallop of horses after falling asleep under clearly seen stars and the utter silence within a dark, rustic, tree-lined landscape. We stayed in the eye of that storm and we’ll stay in the eye of this one too.

The next morning I walk out of the bathroom to the back of The Barbara in the bedroom doorway shrieking at my boy whose doing a good job of being defenseless under the covers. I say, “Excuse me.” “Excuse me!?! Excuse YOU!!!” she yells in return, to which I say, “Yeah, that’s what I said.” I think she would inspire a good Saturday Night Live character. Someone who tries to act all tough and insulting but can’t get the grammar right. Then she apologizes with, “I’ve got a chemical imbalance, sorry I yelled.” Then we’re all outside and she wants us to move a car so she can park, even though she doesn’t live there, and when we don’t she drives onto the lawn, jumps out and with the wild wind blowing her frizzy blonde hair and swirling leaves around her polyester red pants she yells, “fuck ya all, ya cunts!!!” and slams the car door shut. She then apologizes again and asks my name. It’s like being around someone with verbal turrets syndrome. I ask her if she doesn’t have something better to do than going out of her way to come and try to push us around. Doesn’t she have any friends I ask her, to which she softly replies, “yeah, I’ve got a few friends,” and then proceeds to insult Vic by calling him a nigger. Yesterday she called him a white boy; pick a flavor lady.

We wake to the sound of horses galloping across the pasture and I will miss that.  It’s ending the way it began – my first morning I awoke to the whinnying of Joey telling me it was time to get up and when I opened the blinds of my trailer I saw his face looking in the window.  It was then I knew, I was far away from where I’d come from.  I’d done it.  I’d found the trailer.  I’d bought the trailer.  I’d gotten the trailer delivered from Tampa.  Tomorrow  was Christmas Eve and the big red bow on the window made the statement of what a gift had been given me.  Freedom, warmth, an oasis in the world, mobility, a whole bunch of potential just waiting for me to discover it.

I would be somewhat happy to keep hanging out here, but when we came home from the crazy not-sailing trip two nights ago, my trailer was gone.  Bill, in one of his bipolar episodes decided to move it into the middle of the woods.  Through the fences and in the darkness, we hook her up to my truck and pull her back out and onto the side of the driveway.  I want to take her out then, impulsively because I’m pissed, but Vic and Trinity calm me down and we decide to wait a few days until we have a more solid and sane plan.  We don’t really come up with one, but on Tuesday afternoon we go anyway.

We take her out, Frida Kahlo, around the loop and as Vic is backing up and I’m on the road watching him, I hear a loud “POP!” and then see smoke moving along the triangle that joins the hitch to the camper.  He jumps out as I yell out and run to grab the fire extinguisher.  It’s already over though, except for the smell of melted plastic and burnt wire.  As he investigates, I hear the “zzzztt” of wires sparking and I shriek as a reflex.  He assures me he is okay and continues to investigate.  Another “zzztt” another shriek from me, to which he waves his arm in a firm request for me to relocate.  I apologize.  I can’t help it.  Call it some PTSD caused by a dramatic and traumatic childhood.  “I’m not even getting hurt,” he says to calm me, “but your shrieking is freaking me out.”  I let him handle it and discover that the sway bars were put on on top of some wiring and the friction from driving and turning has shorted it all out.

So, meanwhile, back at the ranch…..

He gets to rewiring it, all the while calling me sweetie as I hand him tools and have Toad on speaker phone explaining how to fix it.  He is absolutely my hero once again.  It’s not that he even knows how to do it, but he stays calm and confident and cares enough about me to try to figure it out.

We finally get her back connected and we are off again.  We go to Myakka State Park just as the sun is setting and stop to enjoy the view and snap some pics.  As we go to leave because we’re hungry, we can’t get the brake assembly to engage.  More investigation leads to the discovery that we’ve got a blown fuse, probably due to the wiring fiasco.  So we drive ever so gingerly to an auto parts store with only the truck brakes to stop the whole thing – luckily, Florida is flat.  Fuse replaced and it’s late, we go to eat at Burger King and when they ask if it’s for here or to go, we answer “both!”  We are eating it at home in the parking lot with a bottle of sparkling Sauvignon Blanc, the last of the four bottles I brought back from New Zealand.  I was saving it for a special occasion and can think of nothing more special than this, the camper’s first night out.  I am so happy, happier than I thought I’d be and that tells me that I’ve made the right decision.  Whatever comes, this is my path, and I’ve never felt it with such certainty as I do tonight over a veggie burger and fries.

We go to the rest area at the bottom of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and camp overnight and this is our view the next morning.  I feel very blessed to be in this place with this person.  As much as I wanted to stay in the ease and comfort of the ranch, it was time to move on and the place that embraced me on the other side of that move was beautiful enough to make the transition all worth it,  It’s the beginning of something very new and also very unknown.  I’ll develop a whole new set of skills as I engage in a whole new way of living…being blown ad trusting the direction.