It’s RokIsland Fest here in Key West and I’m getting in place for my shift in the VIP tent when I get all the feelings. “Who is this?” I look to the stage and ask my co-volunteer.
“Stephen Pearcy, lead singer for Ratt!” He yells back.
That explains it.
When I was a teenager, I wasn’t allowed to go to concerts. I wasn’t allowed to do a lot of things my peers took for granted because my mother, a cop, was in the profession of seeing, or at least preparing for, the worst in people and events.
Couldn’t wear leather pants because then I’d be “asking for it.” Couldn’t get my drivers license because I might end up in an accident. And I couldn’t go to concerts because she, “Saw too many girls getting lifted out of mosh pits on a stretcher,” or “Overdosing in the bathroom.”
Contrast this with a father who was so close to the music scene, Van Halen’s first U.S. cover was under the masthead of his music newspaper The Emerald City Chronicle. That sentence alone speaks to a lot of what my dad and I had in common. Love of music, love of this band, love of words, love of The Wizard of Oz, and both of us writers.
But my dad was not there to weigh in on this decision–they’d divorced long ago, having been total opposites that had attracted. Their collective DNA was like magnets repelling inside of me. Even though I hadn’t seen much of my dad since he left when I was four, with his guitar flung across his back, I was very much like him.
When I was sixteen, Staci–my best friend with a much cooler mom–and I worked out a plan. I’d sleep over at her place the night of the Ratt concert and Staci’s mom (who’s got it goin on) would take us. The electricity was palpable as soon as we stepped into the coliseum, joining the sea of titillated teenage girls in black off the shoulder shirts and black eyeliner with a crush on the hot lead singer. Our newly activated pheromones ready to be set aflame by slick guitar riffs.
The playlist progressed and so did me and Staci, closer and closer to the stage until the tall speakers were piercing our ears, the bass guitar emanating from inside my rib cage. Something came alive in me and clicked into an experience I’m still addicted to. Ratt was my gateway show.
Not only to concerts, but to not following fear. Fear can only take you back to your past, and you might get stuck there. Fear doesn’t warn, it limits, keeping you in the replay of the very situations it’s telling you to avoid. I try to never listen to it. Wouldn’t be where I am, if I had. And I really like where I am.
“I’m thinking, for our next meeting, being the new year and all, it might be good for you to bring a business plan so that you’re free spiritedness doesn’t get blown off track from what you’re trying to accomplish. Since you’re a pantser, and all.”
He’s my accountability partner. We’re both members of the Key West Writers Guild working on first drafts of our first book. He wanted to stay on track and proposed we have weekly phone call check-ins. And he’s referring to what some writing instructors like to teach: Are you a plotter or a pantser? Plotters make outlines and plans. Pantsers fly by the seat of their pants and just see where the story goes.
“Noted.” I say as I put away the groceries from my bike basket.
“Oh…did I overstep?”
“That’s just not how I operate. I don’t even balance my checkbook and you want me to write a business plan? All the best stuff in my life has come sans plans.” Evoking the Jed McKenna quote to cross my mind once again. ‘God gives me better than I would’ve thought to ask for, and before I would’ve thought to ask.’
I’m not a panster, I’m a flow-er. And I’ve gotten to this amazing space in my life–living on an island, in a camper with my kitty, writing and business building on a seventy-some degree day in January. I’ve just had a story and poem published in an anthology and now get to bop around the island promoting it.
I did not plan this. I allowed this. I held steadily an intention of fulfilling my purpose, and am receiving (and thoroughly enjoying) the outward picturing, and support from the Universe. “There’s no way I could’ve planned all this.”
He verbally stumbles. “Uh, um, well, yes, of course. I didn’t mean to…”
But he did mean to. The same way many people of the planner and plotter persuasion have tried to reel me in, wise me up, structure me and convince me that some other, more orderly way of living would somehow be better. I was raised by a woman like this. A woman who’s view of me was akin to that of a wild horse needing to be broken. As if I would fall off the edge of the Earth if she didn’t keep me tightly tethered.
I was a wild child. Still am. Still gravitating to the edge, wanting to fly and be free–to be weightless. I didn’t like the pull on my freedom then and I don’t take kindly to it now. It chokes me, cutting off my air supply. I run from these conversations like someone from a house on fire. I’ll die if I stay inside.
I live on the fringe full-time because, ‘If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.’
It wasn’t just that I was attracted to him. What with the thick, dark hair hitting his shoulders, one group of tendrils separating from the pack, twisting down along his temple. Or his beard with flecks of ginger glinting, also full, and above a black vintage Levi’s Strauss T-shirt taut across his chest. The calm, considerate way he listened reflected in his thoughtful nod and unwavering gaze.
But I was, definitely, attracted.
But to more. The air of adventure rising off him, swirling around me and mixing with mine, forming a threesome with the smell of freshly frying fries. The pairing effect similar to the scent of just baked cookies wafting through a realtor’s Open House. I spotted it right away, his position by the only outlet in the dining room, his two backpacks and dirty fingernails. I know this move. This is my move. I’m a gypsy writer. And I’m always scoping for future places to plunk down, pop open my laptop, and write.
My first words to him, full of curious exploration,“Is that the only outlet?”
“Yeah…but, I have a double plug, if you want to share.” His answer further endears him to me. The misunderstanding makes me smile and his generosity restores my faith in humanity.
I love people who share.
They call my number and I excuse myself. I return to a booth not too far away. After reading and eating, I rise up to go and our eyes connect.
“I like your pants,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say. Because, with their rust-colored, complementary striped bell-bottom style, I like them, too. “I think they make me look like Donna from That 70s Show,” and that’s a good look. They’re one of those things you know you’ll get compliments on when you wear it. We all have them.
“Where did you get ‘em?”
Really? Not only a follow-up question, but the same one I was asking myself as I pulled them on this morning.
Thus begins two hours of talking about adventure and freedom and herbs and the island. About following one’s nose, and one’s calling. And biking the Sunshine-Skyway bridge (him, not me. And not even him, because the cops stopped him at the top). “I had a song all cued up for the long coast downhill.”
I liked how I felt in his presence–comfortable. The longer I was in it, the more comfortable I became. Our initial ease was growing into a warming glow.
He motioned to the other section of his booth, “You’re welcome to join me.”
Like a flower blooming, our conversation was, and I within our conversation. We spoke of where we were from (me Wisconsin, him Michigan), how to properly sleep in a hammock (diagonally), and how old versions are better than the new and improved (countless examples). I liked what was coming out of me. All my best stuff–my words, my perspective, my suggestions (he’d only been here a few weeks) . . . even my hair looked good, judging by its reflection in the big window framing winter’s early darkness.
I was into me, and I was really into how this had all come to be.
Single moments of the evening–seemingly weird and random at the time–were now showing themselves in one fluid movie in my mind. I’d stopped at a Free Little Library to drop off a book. It wasn’t even my regular one. And I have a strict rule of only dropping off, but as I slid mine in, a spine of another caught my eye with its fiery sunset colors and title Heaven and Hurricanes.
Just the back cover, I think because, the rule, and because I was trying to get to the seven o’clock showing of the Whitney Houston movie and had dirty laundry in my back bike basket to wash on the way. But as all good back covers make you do, I was opening the cover and reading the prologue. And then I was tucking it between dirty sheets and detergent and taking off, pushing hard to make up time.
Everyone at the laundromat was on their phone, while I leaned against a folding table and sunk into the superb writing and intriguing plot. As quarters dropped and clanked, an idea dropped into my mind: check the rating on Rotten Tomatoes. They persuaded me to wait and catch it streaming. With clean sheets, I rode off into the night now wide open, sans plans.
Except to read more of this book.
And I was hungry. Nothing at the cafe next to the laundromat had really grabbed me. The tartar on a Filet-O-Fish does, as the golden arches come into view. Suddenly, I can think of nothing better than my feet up in a booth, reading and eating.
My commitment to blogging has been consistently inconsistent. It happens a lot with us travel bloggers. Magnetically drawn to adventure, we have a hard time sitting still long enough to tell anyone about all the adventures we’re having. But it’s a new year, I’m setting intentions and being older, I’m valuing history more–just like I’ve heard people say you do.
Since I can’t go back in time, I’ll do the next best thing–use the Throwback Thursday trend to fill in some of the blanks. Beginning at the beginning: How I got into this wild and wanderful way of living on the road. . .
I had just returned from Australia and over lunch with a friend, it came to me. “I think my four seasons are going to be Spring, Summer, Fall and Travel Somewhere Warm!”
She nodded and smiled her understanding and we toasted my freshly hatched plan. But then, eventually, escapes from Wisconsin winter started turning into something else. What had started as flirting with foreign countries was turning into something serious.
A couple years later, I was back in Australia for a second time. This was my longest trip yet. I’d left early on New Year’s Eve, traveled for twenty-four hours and landed in Australia in time to ring in New Year’s Eve. A month in, I was stepping off a city bus, looking up at the surreal blue sky above Melbourne when a revelatory thought streaked across my mind. I think I could be at home anywhere.
The bus doors slapped shut behind me while something inside me cracked open, into a room chock full of possibilities. Biking the path along the river a few days later, I had a second revelation: There is no right way. There’s only the way that’s right for you. This threw a switch in the room of possibilities, lighting up Panama, Colombia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Canada–every place I’d ever been, and reframing them as places to live rather than places to visit. I watched myself interviewing, entertaining the thought of moving completely. Gulp. Wisconsin had been my going from and returning to my whole life.
After staying in Australia for exactly the maximum three months the embassy said I could, I flew home on Thai Airways with a brief layover in Bangkok. I’d arranged to stretch the hours into a week. Since my next layover was at LAX, and some of my dad’s family lived near there, a two-day layover had been scheduled. As I threw my big and smaller backpack into my aunt’s trunk, she remarked, “I can’t believe you’ve been living out of that!”
“Me neither!” I surveyed it all. “I didn’t need this much.”
But I never got on the plane. I bought a new ticket for a month later, landing back home on Cinco de Mayo. Easter was on 4/20 that year and Wisconsin got snow.
That trip stretched the rubberband to a point I wasn’t sure it could keep snapping back. Not only had I survived in strange places for four months, I had thrived. A wildness had gotten under my skin. I could feel the wind in my hair, even indoors. Something, somewhere else was calling me.
Three things came together to start forming the picture of, and making a plan for, the gypsy life. Then there were three things that fell apart to take that picture out of my mind and into my world, kickstarting a plan into action.
I’ll tell you all about the first three next Thursday.
This is my sixth Christmas on the road. The sixth annual celebration of the holiday with my toes in sand instead of snow. On December twelfth of 2016, I put the only place I’d ever called home in my rearview mirror. Driving off in the rental given me for the twelve days of Christmas, with the sole intention of making it to Nashville by nightfall. I was cursing my last Wisconsin blizzard and the six inches it had dumped, making strapping my bike to the rack on the back extra challenging. This weather was one of the reasons I was leaving and ironically, had also made me stay an extra day. The night of which I’d spent in bed with the grad student I was shagging for the past month and a half, waiting for my house to sell. I’d gotten up a few times in the night to pee, each time having a mini existential crisis. I was totally untethered. Adrift in the world and riding the wind–just like a snowflake.
What was I doing? Was everything I owned really reduced to what I could cram into my VW Bug, sitting in the parking lot downstairs? Was I honestly leaving? And with no real plan other than to find a camper and travel and blog about it for a year? Could I really find my movable home and something to pull it with, in twelve days?
Then I’d crawl back into the warm bed, feel the hard body of Joey laying next to me and forget all about it. Until the next pee.
I’m no Scrooge, but if the Ghost of Christmas Past would probably take me back to the scene the next morning when Joey asks me where I’m moving to, steam from our coffee cups moistening our faces and me not knowing what to say. Does he pick it up in my pause, or maybe the evasive sideways glance out the frosty window?
“Ohh…you’re leaving leaving,” his face reflecting surprise and something else. Confusion? A slight sadness?
I explained my plan of a year as a nomad, motioning to my car and describing how I’ve sorted and packed. He countered with a sweeping arm to all the stuff he’d like to get rid of. Saying Florida has a good graduate school for Veterinary Science.
My stomach sinks a little, signifying I’d not read the room correctly. I’d thought after a nice kiss and a quick It’s-been-fun pat on the butt, I’d drive off and we’d shrug off these trysts. But now we’re in the parking lot, he’s in flannel PJ pants and we’re negotiating the bubbly and champagne flutes I’d brought to celebrate (we’d drunk the absinthe he’d made us instead). It’s decided he’ll keep the flutes as a souvenir and I’ll take the bottle. He’ll come visit me and we’ll drink it then.
I’m guessing the ghost would want me to get the lesson that people, even if they’re only lovers, have feelings and expectations that may be different from yours. I’d dropped a bomb on someone and I could’ve handled it more delicately. I also tended to think back then, I could disappear from someone’s life without them caring too much. I’m grateful the view of myself and my impact has elevated.
The Ghost of Christmas Present would show me in the woods–in my second camper, that one year of living on the road has stretched to six–in a state park in the middle of Florida where manatees come to winter. They counted 476 yesterday. I’m slowly editing the finished first draft of my first book: Gut Instincts. It’s about how I got off the medical merry-go-round and had a self-induced healing of Crohn’s Disease.
My vision for the book is that it parlays me into the realm of coaching where I help people access the same thing in themselves. Empower them to take back their bodies and direct their treatment by listening to the message their illness is sending. Heal your mind and the body follows–that was my experience and there are many like me. I’d like for there to be even more.
I’m a healer, it’s my life purpose. Doing my purpose is where my utmost joy is. So why can’t I build my website? Why do I expend a lot of mental energy pushing my purpose away? In the Hero’s Journey it’s the stage: Refusal of the Call. Having a website feels like putting a flag in and declaring my own corner in the world. I don’t know why it seems so scary, tons of people have done it. Every business I walk into is the result of someone doing that very thing.
It’s nothing special, I tell myself. People do it everyday. I started a blog, I can build a website. I can work for myself. This is the natural next step in the progression of my career. So why do I hesitate taking it? Am I afraid I’ll suck? I can’t afford to suck.
Would the Ghost of Christmas Present show me people in pain, suffering while they wait for me to get me shit together and launch a real solution? Would it show their family and loved ones berating them for what they eat, blaming them when a flare-up hits? I’ve seen and heard of some mean lack of support, I’ve experienced it myself. This sure was motivating when it came to writing the book. But it doesn’t do much for me now.
Wonder what the bony fingers of the Ghost of Christmas Future would point to… Me unhappy, no doubt. A manuscript gathering cobwebs and dust. A computer screen displaying the domain name I’ve purchased, still with a blank screen. Three out of five Americans have a chronic illness, would that number be even higher in the future? Especially without my healing intervention?
I was diagnosed so long ago, nurses asked me how to spell Crohn’s Disease. It was rare. I didn’t know anyone else who had it and no one I told had heard of it. My stock answer to the question: what it’s like was: it’s like having a flu that won’t go away. Fast forward thirty-five years and there’s five different categories of it. It’s on the rise and I know I can help. I healed mine and I can help others heal theirs–would love to be doing such important and fulfilling work. Giving talks, having a podcast, being on others podcasts. Putting the modern medical system–which lacks the holistic approach necessary for true healing–on notice. Empowering patients to be their own primary care providers and form partnerships with their doctors.
Soon after arriving here at my current workamping gig, two major things happened. Hurricane Nicole began forming and I got a wicked sinus infection. When I was a kid, my allergies could get so bad they’d trigger a head-in-a-vice-teeth-hurting sinusitis. Leaning heavily on my inhaler bought me some time, but as I packed to evacuate to a hotel, I had to stop and catch my breath after every trip to the car. After checking in, I went to the nearest urgent care where they confirmed my suspicions and gave me meds. I got better. For a while.
What began as a headache two nights ago–one I thought might go away once I slept–has morphed into a drill bit spinning into my right temple and an ice pick shoved up my right nostril and into my right eye. And this is after I’ve taken my last three Excedrin. The ibuprofen the other campground host brought me hasn’t helped either. So I saddle up and head to the other urgent care where I’m told a different antibiotic would be better.
“That other one really isn’t the best for targeting the sinuses,” says Dr. Dan.
He leaves me there thinking about how hard it was to get my gut bacteria back in balance from the last round and unsure if I want to put my tummy through another. It’s a more holistic answer I crave, void of long waits in the pharmacy pick-up line. An idea streaks across my mind.
“Are you familiar with Colloidal Silver as a treatment?” I ask Dr. Dan as I pass his desk on my way out.
He hems and haws and expresses doubt. Once back in my truck, I Google it. There’s thousands and thousands of reviews about how well it works for all sorts of things. Then I think about how disempowering the whole traditional medicine process often feels. How I didn’t get to offer much input on my treatment plan. How I didn’t learn anything more about my body and how it works. How I felt like a slab of meat on a paper lined table, just another chart to file when it’s done. Adventures into traditional medicine often feel incomplete, lacking in creativity and ignoring the spectrum of natural cures.
What would make me feel better right now, I wondered as I buckled in. I could feel the weight of it pulling me down. I’d felt this despair before in various tender, healing scenarios and this question had always been a trusty compass.
Buy more Christmas wrapping paper.
It seemed such a silly directive. Benign and completely unrelated. But I know better. I know to go how it it resonates rather than reasoning. I don’t know how the events that followed cured me, but they did. There’s this nice kid who works at the Dollar Tree, always says, “Welcome to Dollar Tree” from register #1. But he wasn’t there. While I waited for the couple in front of me to decide on the perfect balloon, he popped up and opened register #2.
“How’s it going?” I made small talk as he scanned my toilet paper, wax paper, stain remover.
“Oh, ya know, gotta take it one day at a time.”
That’s a 12-Step program slogan. I shrink it down to tell him where I’m at. “Sometimes one minute at a time.”
This little exchange bonds us somehow. It’s as if a window has opened in the swamp I’m sinking in. We tell each other to “Have a good one,” which feels more like a prayer than some robotic parting words. Once outside, I notice a lightness in my being. I’m not going to get the medicine. I’m just going to have to get better without it. I smile at the afternoon sun warming my face. I applaud myself for not going off on the rude receptionist at the clinic. I think about my cozy camper with my cozy kitty and how grateful I am for both those things. And for that sweet kid as my checker.
Turning the last corner into the park, I’m envisioning my flannel pajamas as the crisp air fills my open window while I talk to the ranger at the entrance gate. Closing in on my site, I notice something. The pressure in my head has eased. My teeth are no longer throbbing. The drill bit in my temple has ceased drilling and the ice pick is gone, too. I look at the time–I’ve got just enough daylight to bike the trail.
I felt good. I felt great! And I didn’t even buy wrapping paper.
The total ringing up to $4.20 at a store in the Madison airport was a checkpoint. One of life’s delights. The ‘I’m on the right track’ message they give to be illustrated by what happens at the next airport…
I’m hanging at the food court passing my three hour layover by snacking and writing. I love when it flows so strongly, my fingers simply taking dictation from the creative ether. I’m also staying aware of the time and the mounting desire for a window seat. Finishing up, my gut says: Go now. Rounding the corner to the gate, the agent is grabbing the intercom to announce the need for volunteers to give up their seats and fly in the morning. For $400 and a free hotel room. Already there, I’m first in line. When no one else volunteers, they bump it up to $600 and an elderly couple steps forward.
I should’ve waited.
“Good thing you didn’t wait!” the agent says after everyone around me has boarded. “We only need one seat and you were first. People wait, but that’s silly. You all get the highest amount no matter when you volunteer.”
I smile as the little you-fucked-it-up voice inside my head sits back down. The guidance I felt moving me in Madison has flown along with me. Turns out, they only need one seat.
Feeling a bit flabby from a day spent mostly sitting down, I decide to resist falling into the crisply made king sized bed, and head to the fitness center. I’m grinning from how beautiful the hotel and room are. Damn, Delta! Inside is a nice looking, nicely built guy lifting weights. Hopping onto the treadmill, my Midwest niceness—still going strong having spent two weeks there—strikes up some small talk. He’s got a nice vibe, so I keep talking and check for a wedding ring.
Our conversation broadens to where we’re visiting from and me mentioning Key West brings the follow-up question of What made you move there? I answer like I always do, because I wanted to be a writer and Key West seemed the best place to make it happen.
“Have I heard of you?” His eyes soften and his smile offers encouragement and hope.
“Not yet, but you will.” This day has brought out a level of confidence I don’t normally speak with.
His eyes light up and his smile says he’s enjoying this.
“Jennifer Juniper. My dad named me after. . . “
“The Donovan song.”
“Yeah, it came out the year I was born.”
He looks to the ceiling and thinks, “1968?”
I often have to explain the singer and no one’s ever offered the year. Who is this guy?
“I’m a bit of a music fanatic.” Words I love to hear, delivered with a glint off the band circling his left ring finger.
The irony.
The night rolls in, darkness pressing up against the windows surrounding us. We talk music, which gets me sharing some fun facts about my father and the music scene in Madison in the 70s while I bounce around to the elliptical, the bike, the weights. The topic of my healing memoir gets broached. I mention Bernie Siegel’s Love, Medicine and Miracles as the kingpin in my long and strong remission from Crohn’s Disease. He’s an engaged listener, sharing he’s a two-time survivor of cancer.
“The first time I was twenty-three. I felt a lump that turned out to be testicular cancer.” He goes on to say he wouldn’t wish chemo on anyone, makes a face still haunted by it. “The second time was a couple years ago–prostate cancer. Go figure.” He attempts half a smile.
“I was young, too, when my disease hit.” Our connection widens and deepens as we talk about how isolated our uniqueness made us. Surrounded by the vibrance and strength of youth, while your body fights against you. And you in turn try to fight back.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he says.
“Me neither.”
A bond is forming–overcoming similar obstacles locks you in with another person. I stop working out, falling into the warmth developing between us. We talk about the tests of old: drinking barium and watching your insides light up on a monitor above your bed. The need for a sense of humor. Having good doctors, having not so good doctors.
“It changes your whole thought process,” my unplanned workout partner states.
I nod at his all encompassing answer to what having a chronic illness is like.
“I was in an intense career with high performance goals and heavy pressure to meet them, flying all over the place.” The second cancer wrote his resignation letter, giving permission to step into something calmer, lighter. Healthier. Confirming a major tenant in my book. . .
A disease has symptoms, but is also a symptom itself of the life we’re leading. Doctors laser focused on one area miss seeing the person as a whole. Until we look and treat holistically, there’s little hope of true healing. I share how I, too, was living at mach-10 speed with my hair on fire when my broken belly yanked me back and demanded I drop a gear.
Or two.
Then three.
To now, living the life I want and choose because any day, any moment, the rug could get pulled out from under me.
He nods that he relates. “I didn’t think I had the option to wait till I retire, like everyone else.”
“Neither quantity nor quality of life is guaranteed when you have a chronic condition.”
He shares he gets scanned every six months. Instinctively, I hold my breath in empathy of what that must be like. The topic turns to love and inspiration.
“If not for the love of my mother the first time and the love of my wife the second time…” his voice trails off.
I scan my mind’s files for the person I could say the same about. “For me, that was God. You definitely need a power greater than yourself to get you through it. Love is so powerful.”
“I’ve got a friend at my gym back home who told someone my story and it really inspired him. He wants to write my story, but I’m only just starting to talk about it. I’ve kept it pretty private, it’s personal. But the idea someone could be helped by it tugs at me.”
“I look at it like I made withdrawals of others’ stories of strength and miracles to inspire me. Now, it’s my turn to make a deposit.”
He considers this as the streetlights pierce the surrounding darkness. Our topic adding more light. I share how even though my intention was to help others with my story, in writing it I’m reliving it and it’s helping me all over again.
“I bet your mom would want you to write it.”
Not one to be flippant, he mulls it for a moment and smiles, “Yeah. . . she would.”
Laying in bed, I think of two things. How I want to be in a hotel room this nice on my own dime, because of my book. And how I’d like a duplicate of this guy, except single. He was so attentive and easy to be with. The warmth and the connection–that’s what I want. And for a moment, I had it. If that’s what I’m attracting, even for a half hour, then I must be growing. I want to grow more. I want to be in a whole other place personally and professionally by next summer.
It was at this exact spot—Delta’s check-in counter at Madison’s International Airport–that I first learned how awry one’s travel plans could go. A bubble of innocence popped. My trip to Europe had begun magically enough, on my birthday driving with my BFF through a snowy, cold November day when Marvin rings from London.
“Celebrating Jen‘s birthday!” Kate answered his what are you doing question while putting him on speaker. We knew him from a spiritual academy in Wisconsin, before he became a self-made millionaire, dreaming in code. Feats I can’t begin to fathom. Kate got a lot closer to him than I did—he’d flown her to Colombia, given her a laptop, a phone.
After his birthday greetings landed, he made a generous suggestion, “I’ll fly you both to my place in Holland as a birthday present. We’ll tour around. . . Spain, Italy, Belgium, maybe come to my flat in London–I love London. I’ll cover your food and drink, all you’ll need is spending money.”
We lived in awe of this offer for the next five months, our greeting became, “We’re going to Europe!” In a shrill octave, like we just won the lottery. And to my gypsy spirit madly in love with going anywhere, I felt like I had. Europe. EUROPE. Across the pond. The closer it got, our greeting became the countdown: “One month!” “One week!” “Tomorrow!” The anticipation was titillating—a future we were living in the moments of the now until we’re wheeling and clicking across the shiny floor to the counter where the Delta lady wouldn’t let me on the plane because I didn’t have three extra months on my passport past my return date.
Her words slap the silly grin right off my face. Promises I’ll come back on time, claims of complete ignorance, an offer to sign said promise, nothing changed her mind because it’s not up to her. It’s Europe’s rule, one that comes with a hefty fine if not complied with. “They could send you right back on a plane once you land.”
A risk I considered taking.
Instead, she suggested (and a plan hatched) that I drive the three and a half hours to the embassy in Chicago, get an expedited passport and fly out of O’Hare the next day exactly 24 hours later.
I’m approaching that exact same spot now, twelve years later, my heart beating rapidly. In memoriam. There’s a woman off to the side, smartly dressed in a shade of orange best described as happy. She’s encircled by more luggage than can possibly be her own. I motion for her to go ahead. She gives me a big smile and motions for me to go ahead. Classic Wisconsin.
I hesitate, restate my motion that she go ahead. Also, classic Wisconsin.
“It’s a long story,” she offers by way of explanation, doubling down on her smile.
And I, by way of empathy, extend a, “Yeah, I was there once.” Explaining my passport issue of twelve years ago.
Her eyes brighten, “That’s us, too!”
Stunned (but also not, because I lived it) I keep going with how I solved it. Her husband comes up, looking dejected saying how there’s no appointments for two weeks unless they drive to Colorado. To which she exclaims, “She had the same thing!” pointing to me and explaining how I got on a flight the next day.
After a little discussion, they do the ol’ what do we have to lose shrug. Their gratitude and the timing of it all makes my heart do a different kind of excited beat—the thrill of playing a part in alleviating another’s struggle, a satisfaction in fulfilling what feels like my purpose, and seeing the big picture get divinely orchestrated once again.
Turning back to the counter, the agent is beaming and says incredulously, “Oh my God, what are the chances? I had no idea how to help them and then you came along!”
I feel the space flip from what had been a place of angst and mistakes into a place of magic and promise. After twelve years. Dare I say, it felt surreal.
I’d once asked one of the main teachers at that spiritual academy about these serendipitous type experiences which often occurred in my life.
“Checkpoints,” he’d said. “Between you and the Universe.”
I’ve carried that answer with me for years and it’s always made me smile. Writing this, I decided to look the word up: a location whose exact position can be verified visually or electronically, used by pilots to aid navigation.
I’m getting into the little Honda Civic my step-in mom is letting me borrow for the two weeks I’m back in the place I was born, formed, and launched from almost six years ago–Madison, Wisconsin. No longer home, but forever the soil where the seeds of me sprouted. My roots. This Civic is half the size of the truck I use to drive my home around now—a 32-foot travel trailer.
As I lower myself into a seat barely above the ground, I roar off down the main drag of East Washington Avenue and all the familiar sites: the crack house looking Smart Studios where Nirvana recorded Nevermind, my old rival high school, the place where the 24/7 diner used to be where I had my first full-time job. It’s all familiar and alI different. I’m different. Used to biking now more than driving now, using mile markers rather than exit numbered signs where I’m now living and moving around a two-mile by four-mile island. I’m unsure of myself as I merge onto the interstate, which is weird on a road I’ve driven millions of times. I turn on the radio for the soothing yet empowering combo music provides. Drift Away is playing. Of course it is.
Drift Away is mine and my dad’s song. It’s taken his place in my life, announcing his presence as spirit. It’s not only apropos because he always drifted in and out of my life, our relationship written in morse code: dots of time together broken by dashes of distance. But because we’d both fallen in love with the song through the Canadian acapella group that wowed him so much, he brought them to America. The Nylons. My sister and I would watch their first show with the audience and the second show backstage, feeling the heat of the lights and the red velvet curtain brushing our arms. My eyes flitted between peaking out at the audience who couldn’t see me to my crush, the soprano Mark. After the show, we’d hang with them in the green room. It was as close to fame as I’d ever been and it made my already cool dad even cooler to me.
The summer before my senior year, after finally lobbying my mother hard enough, I got to go live with my dad. My job as a bagger at the nearby grocery store, where I packed up many pig’s feet and snouts wrapped in cellophane on a styrofoam tray, planted the seeds of vegetarianism in me. I’d just been talking about living in this neighborhood with Cara as we walked from the festival to her car. And now here the song was coming on to match it. And right when I needed it.
Memories come flooding back of that summer. Dad taught me to drive and I got my license. Cruising windy roads to his good friend’s country bungalow where we’d listen to albums of great music all afternoon. Dairy Queen drive-thru on Sundays—the one treat his diabetic diet could afford. He took me to his fancy hairdresser where the locks of my permed big hair style iconic of the 80s fell to the floor, half my head cropped short in some avante garde asymmetrical fashion I was emulating from a Rolling Stone magazine on his coffee table.
When Prince’s Raspberry Beret video premiered, I ran across the parking lot from work, pounded up the steps and barged through the door to hear him yell from the living room, “I’ve already got it on!!” MTV would play it every hour on the hour for 24 hours and I’d sleep in fifty-five minute increments that night. Setting my alarm for each showing. In my bedroom at home, a life size cardboard cutout of Prince on his Purple Rain motorcycle sat in the corner and directly in my eyeline as I fell to sleep. It had been a display in my dad’s friend’s record store and he’d gotten it for me once the promotion was over.
Shortly after I graduated college, he drifted out of my life for the last time. Unmooring me. All the religious pomp and circumstance I’d invested in over the years, all the times I’d prayed or clung to a Bible story for comfort—it offered me no comfort when it came to the topic of death. Dad’s dying kicked me over to the spiritual realm where I sought and found the only acceptable answer: there is no death. Uncle Kracker’s remake of Drift Away was released about the same time to announce his presence still with me—I could say to the ether, “I need my dad right now” and this song would come on the car radio. Dad’s presence would then linger like he was riding shotgun. Training my mind to go beyond the physical evidence of what I saw and touched, I found everyone I loved still here. Their bodies left, but their love stayed. Keeping step with me moving through life.
George Michael’s Faith follows as if God Himself is the DJ, reminding me of what it took to sustain such seeking. The same thing it takes now driving this car. The same thing a life of adventure requires.
My dad wasn’t always there when I needed him, but he’s sure got a way of showing up now when I need him most. Pumping me up, giving me company and confidence. And no doubt it was his adventurous genes at play when I decided to live the gypsy life on the road.
I know you really want to tell me goodbye. I know you really want to be your own girl.
Every woman I know in a relationship right now is feeling oppressed. Are they more aware of what’s always been there? Or are men–consciously or subconsciously–acting out a ripple of Roe v. Wade? Is the behavior ramping up or is the intolerance?
And it’s all the same complaints. Jealousy. Control. Anger. Micromanagement. Disrespect by infidelity, invasion of boundaries, and inability to express feelings without throwing shade. Over sushi I hear stories of men refusing to do the work necessary to save the relationship. Men in the middle ground–not exactly leaving, but not totally stepping in either. These women are willing to nurture their partner’s (or anyone’s) growth–even the slightest spurt of it brings encouragement from these loyal cheerleaders. Men strike me as oriented towards ownership, locking it down. Women seem more oriented towards change: in their relationship, themselves, their children, their jobs, their government. We exercise a broader field of thought. We have more crayons in our box. Can entertain a variety of possibilities. We can hold the desire for something we want and the not knowing of how it will come does not sway us.
My one friend recently said, “I’ve checked out books about how to separate financial assets, how to advocate with a mediator for custody of my children. I’ve scoped out locations where I can live.” Another, “I’ve put my foot down and if he does it again, I’m kicking him out to live on his boat. Which is where he’s supposed to be living anyway.”
These women (past versions of myself included) started to making exit plans long before making the move that stuns a man oblivious to more nuanced gestures. We inch away in small ways every day towards the door where a shocked look will watch us leave for the last time. We get told we’re overreacting–well, we’ve been micro reacting for days. Months. Years.
An astute divorced man once told me, he thought a marriage license was license to change someone. The women I’m writing about. . . they’ve turned that license on themselves. They are outgrowing their marriages and are not going to take this shit much longer.
Solo Chick Traveler 