I’m really struggling at the park I’m at. I’ve been workamping for a few years now, so maybe it was bound to happen, but I don’t belong here. It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong. I see the sunrise over the water from my hallway window and I watch the reflection of it setting from my sofa–or I can stroll the beach and see the full circle. When you feel bad in a place so good — that’s when you know something is really wrong.

The hours are the exact opposite of my circadian, creativity-fueled nocturnal rhythm, and it’s excruciating, but that’s not it. The island highway–one road in, one road out–hums and roars right behind me and sounds like nails on a chalkboard to my sensitive soul. But that’s not it. I’m twenty minutes from a town in either direction with a campground that is still awaiting its comeback after Hurricane Irma so it’s pretty isolated and even lonely sometimes. But that’s not it, either. I just bought a new camper and the drive here was a little terrifying and my bank account looks pretty empty as my unemployment runs out and a pandemic rages on and I could make a pretty good case for that being it. But deep in my heart, I’d know I was wrong. So, that’s not it.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time wondering what it is exactly. It’s elusive and fleeting and ethereal and intermittent so it’s been a little tough to pin down. But when I think about the other places I’ve workamped at, and especially the park I just came from, it dawns on me what they all had in common: the connection with the people. I fit. I fit really well. I didn’t only do a job, I bloomed. I blossomed. Like a plant in good soil with the right amount of sun and water, I thrived. Some parks I felt welcomed at before I even got there. And some took awhile, but a groove was always found –and until it was found, there was a gut feeling that I was in the right place.

I’ve been here almost two months, and there’s no groove. Or if there is, it clearly doesn’t groove with mine. My saving grace is that it’s close enough to Key West that I can drive there on my weekends off. Key West is my happy place and it’s also where my friends are.

So, in the spirit of Christmas and giving and miracles and wonder, I write a couple Christmas cards. At happy hour of course, drinking baby snifters of dark Stouts. There’s a few people on my mind that I feel the strong need to express my love and appreciation for them being in my life. I’m finishing addressing the envelope to the last park I was at, the one that made me feel welcome before I even got there and all the way through, and my phone rings– a call from that area code. My pen rolls out of my hand and I almost spill my beer as my mind flirts with the idea that they’re calling to ask me to come back. That’s when I started to realize what was missing.

The woman on the line was actually the volunteer that replaced me and she was calling about a UPS pick-up gone wrong. She didn’t ask me to come back, that wouldn’t be her place, but we talked for twenty minutes anyways. And the more we talked, the more I longed for the warm family-type community that I had left and clearer it became–I was at park that was pretty much the opposite of that and it was never going to click into place. I was either going to have to get out or muddle through.

I know I want that. That sense of belonging, that feeling that you’re in the right place doing the right thing with the right people. I’m not sure of any of those things now. My heart felt it. Missed it. And ached to have it again.

That was good. I need to keep reaching out.

So, I express the serendipity that just happened to my server, who really gets it and enjoys it with me. She then confesses she’s an artist, to which I say I’m a writer and the ride begins again. She asks for my card so she can say that she ‘once served a now famous author’ and also relates the synopsis of my book to Eat, Pray, Love (which is like, what I’m going for and quite the compliment). This adds even more magic to the moment and I feel it lift me.

I walk to my truck exhilarated by . . .

Another connection. Another checkpoint. And all the next day after the Art Walk. I’m feeling like I’m back on the yellow brick road. Feeling aligned again, as I watch grace operate in my life.

It’s the third Thursday so I’m at the Morada Way Art Walk. Normally, my truck only goes to Key West but this is something I saw as I was leaving my first ever trip to The Keys and I scribbled it on my mental notepad in case I ever got back. And I did, and so I go — every chance I get.

Islamorada is an artsy island and I’ve had some great things happen when I’m around fellow artists. I’m sipping on a Death By Mermaid snifter because it’s 9.8% ABV and because I’ve got to work in the morning. I didn’t even leave my tab open — too much temptation. I’m thinking I should go home, but instead of turning right towards my car, I turn left out of the beer garden and deeper into the Art Walk. I’m not sure why since it’s counterintuitive to the conversation I just had with myself as the beer warmed itself through my veins. I reach the end booth of bracelets with shells and bright colors. I have no extra money for such extras and I decide to just be honest about that. I don’t want her to think I don’t like her work.

We talk about the pandemic and the pathetic way the government is helping us. I “ooh and ahh” over her creations showing themselves off on the black velvet between us as well as the description of her creative process. I like talking to artists — we get each other. My mind doesn’t go in a linear, efficient manner; it’s more like fireworks and silly string shooting off.

There’s an older woman working the booth with her and she starts looking at me through narrowed eyes. “Waaait . . . were you here two years ago?” as her gaze intensifies.

“No, no . . .” I start with my usual defensive response when people think I look familiar. It’s usually not me. Because I’m passing through without enough time to become familiar and because it’s an ease of connection that we sometimes mistake for familiarity. I have that ease. But in this case, I pause. She might be right — I do the math.

Vic and I were workamping at the state park further down The Keys two years ago, and we did come here. And then all the pieces start to fall into place and my mind plays the memory of a night that turned suddenly stormy as we shopped and we took refuge under a tent. I look up and around. This tent.

Her eyes light up and the other lady catches up and jumps in, “You left your bracelets behind!”

I watch in amazement as she digs a little plastic bag with bracelets of jingle bells out of her canvas bag and passes them over to me proudly. “We were just talking about you the other day . . wondering if we’d ever see you again!”

I am stunned. They’ve been carrying these cheap little strings of holiday-only beads around for two years just in case we meet again. I feel that warm feeling of love and magic tingling in my center and lighting up my mind.

And all I can do is stammer. “How . . . but . . . ” and. . . Why?

“You’ve even changed your hair color,” the younger one references me, pointing and reading my mind, but quickly turns to the other lady for confirmation.

“Yeees. You were blonde before.” She nods, looking at my red hair and making no indication of which she prefers.

“And I have a mask on now!” Finally finding words to match my eyes frozen wide in an incredulous stare.

They both nod at this, almost with the excitement of children who got even the extra credit question right on the exam.

“But you are tall. We remembered that,” she looks me up and down in emphasis.

We reminisce about how that storm whipped up and started blowing everything around. How they invited us in and still we got soaked. And it must’ve been all the excitement that made me leave them behind while I tried on her designs. I don’t care about the bracelets. I’ve since replaced them and forgotten all about these lost ones. I don’t even remember if I did buy something from her or not, or what it was.

This connection is my currency. For some people its money, possessions or prestige or maybe their kids being on honor roll that defines them — bears witness to their purpose and subsequent success in it. Not me. For me, it’s about clicking with life and people and moments like this. Those are my riches; and I’ve been so fortunate to have amassed tons of treasures like this. ‘Checkpoints’ a guru of mine once called them.

As we groove on this divine happenstance I find myself feeling renewed. Energized. And then, inevitably, inspired. “I think I’m going to have to write a story about this.”

“Oooo, you’re a writer?!” the younger one, the booth owner exclaims, “I’ve been wanting to hire a writer to write my blog. I don’t know how much you charge . . . ”

I say nothing into this gap, because I don’t know either.

She carries on, “I hate writing,” she actually makes a face, according to the scrunching up of her mask. “I’m an accountant — give me numbers any day!”

And just like that a friendship is born, a new direction in the journey opens, an alliance is made, faith in the Universe is strengthened. I loosen the reins a little more through the now humorous thought that I could be in control; could arrange such an amazing win-win scenario. I just turned left instead of right because of a little tug in my gut.

‘God gives me better than I would’ve thought to ask for and before I would’ve thought to ask.’ Jed McKenna and Spiritual Enlightenment The Damnedest Thing proves true once again.