It’s funny. Similar to how you can be talking to someone about an item, or even just thinking about it, and it starts showing up on your Google and Facebook feed. Well, I think the Universe works a lot like that, too.

I was in love with Madison, Wisconsin. Grateful to be from there, raised there, schooled there and received my social development within its city limits. But into that love was creeping a restlessness. It started innocently enough–a quick ten-day tour of Panama one winter, driving a rental all the way to Boca del Torres, the group of islands from which you could drive no more. Then a six-week stint in Australia another year. Thawing for three weeks in New Zealand. A road trip out West–a mountains, springs, deserts a la Eat, Pray, Love.

That September was when I met some real live gypsies. They were living out of a Stow-n-Go van where the seats folded down into a floor and they laid a mattress on top. On the roof was a cargo carrier. “I just go up there, grab enough clothes for the week and pack it into a suitcase I keep in the van.”

Instead of holding jobs to make money to keep in a bank and pay bills, whenever they needed something — like a replacement for a broken phone — they went on Craigslist under the “Gigs” heading and worked it until they had enough to meet the need, then hit the freedom road again. I was enthralled by the simplicity of it. The non-laying up stores of it.

I had met them at a spiritual gathering that was based on a hotel/bed and breakfast property. They were crashing in the parking lot, but had also offered to help clean rooms if needed. The manager offered a trade: cleaning rooms for a few hours a day in exchange for a hotel room. They took it. But after a couple of days the manager said they could just have the room. They said this sort of thing happens all the time. That’s what impressed me most. Not only the air of answering only to themselves and the journey there were on, but also how taken care of they were while doing it. I guess it was the picture of what my whole dedication to spiritual development was for — to be taken care of in the world while I was free to spread love, peace, and be a witness to the miracle.

They were the answer to a question I was only letting myself ask subconsciously. The answer actually let to that question lighting up even more and moving to the forefront of my mind. Now that I’d seen it, I dared to dream it.

That scene, that connection, moved into my mind and sent out invitations to its friends. They didn’t come all at once, they didn’t even come right away. Such a radical idea was wrapped in gentleness and good timing. And like Mary, I tucked my potential prophecy close and pondered it in my heart. That was September.

That December I took off on three-month backpacking trip another time in Australia, followed by a week in Thailand, and then a two-day layover to see family as I flew through LAX in California that I never got on the plan from, rather rebooked the ticket for a month later. May. Cinco de Mayo, to be exact. It was not intentional (it was simply the date with the closest rate to my original fare) but it was comical–I had started my trip on New Year’s Eve. What I had gained in that new year was a new me. And a new, stronger more dependent relationship with the divine.

A holiday to a holiday; missing the greater part of winter’s cold shoulder. I was never the same after that. Physically, I couldn’t take the cold like I could before. And mentally, I realized I didn’t have to. But mostly it was a spiritual experience–plans had fallen apart and grace had stepped in to take their place while I watched in awe and appreciation. If I could survive that way for four months and in mostly foreign countries, why couldn’t I do it longer?

During that trip I realized I was experiencing these different places differently. Where normally I had visited to soak up the culture and make friends with those living there and passing through it, I was now doing a kind of mental interview. I seemed to be wondering if I could live there. But when I stepped off a city bus and under the ‘swear it’s photoshopped blue sky’ of Melbourne, Australia I realized that I could be at home anywhere.

That’s when true freedom took hold of me and never really let me go.

I came back and worked. That September I got offered two part-time bartending jobs. Unable to decide, I took them both thinking that after awhile one of them probably wouldn’t work out and I’d stick with the other one. But I liked them both. Made good money at them both. So I delivered drinks six days a week and watched the balance in my bank account rise. I tried to find things to spend the money on, but there wasn’t anything I really wanted or needed. It was high season in the tourist town drawing those from Chicago and the Twin Cities to come get warm and wet in Wisconsin Dells boasting “Indoor Waterpark Capital of the World!” I worked hard and I was rewarded handsomely.

And then Spring came. With that, the usual renewal of my five years’ long on-again-off-again romantic relationship with M. He would take his motorcycle off trickle charge — maybe our relationship as well — and with a rumble of the pipes announce his arrival outside my apartment door. I’d grab my leather jacket and hope against hope that this time around, we’d actually get past the hump that we couldn’t get past before.

Sitting by the Baraboo River at a new restaurant and distillery as we take a break and wait for our lunch to be delivered, M browses Zillow for recent listings. The housing market had crashed and he was keen on finding a foreclosure for the right price to fix up and flip. He’s found one and it’s close by. We decide to go look at it after we eat.

As awful, ugly, stinky and neglected as it is, we decide to make an offer. I can’t stand to be in it so I have no idea how we’ll transform it, but M sees what it can be and after all. . . . I do have all that money. . . .

I spent that year and a half contemplating designs for the house and my next life. “Carribean Blue” paint samples spread on a wall evoked maybe I’ll move to an island. “Afterglow” in another room prompted afterthoughts what if I miss it here? I’ve always had Wisconsin to come back to.

And then I really upped my ante: I moved into her. I knew that once she sold, I would have to move along. I’d already be packed so the hard part would be done. As she got closer to being done it seemed, to my logic, that I would get closer to my next step, too.

Except I’m terrible at decisions, about paint and life. Every place seemed to have pros and cons that ended up canceling each other out in a way that neutralized it, and thereby paralyzed me. That’s when I saw him. Walking home from a chiropractor appointment, coming up to an intersection I paused as a shirtless and suntanned man cruised by in a Class C, radio blaring, low afternoon Spring sun shining through the window and highlighting his bleach blond tipped kinky hair. And smile.

It was only seconds, but I could feel the freedom oozing off of him. He was happy, that much was clear. And he didn’t seem rich, he just didn’t seem bound. This was the look of a man who answered to no one and it reminded me of a time that I’d seen that look before.

Looking back, a part of me connected so strongly with him that she jumped in right alongside him. it was decided then, even though it would take me awhile to fully admit it.

Alcohol is good for that. One night out with friends, lips and inhibition loosened by rum, I threw out the most outlandish answer I could to the constant question of ‘What will I do when the house sells?’

I’m thinking about living in a camper, traveling the country for a year and blogging about it. I waited while my friends formulated their logistical rebuttals, but that’s not what came. “That’s exactly what you should do!” “You’d be so good at that!” “You love traveling and you’re such a great writer.” “I’d read that blog!”

It wasn’t just my adventurous spirit that this appealed to, it was the fact that any other option had me relocating from these dear friends and my home state–both of which I loved with all that I had in me. “I suppose then I could come back and visit every summer. . . “

Their cheers cemented it. Though I would spend the entire Summer and early part of Fall trying to internally talk myself out of it, a part of me –the real and wise part — was already mentally packing my VW Bug. Whether I was ready or not, I looked at everything I owned with one question in mind: Does it make the cut? How much do I really need?

When my aunt viewed my luggage in the trunk after my cousins had retrieved me from the LAX airport, she was shocked. “I can’t believe you lived out of this for three months!”

I, surveying the same big backpack, small backpack and handle bag exclaimed the same. “Yeah, I didn’t need near that much crap.”

I knew I could get by on quite little and I had seen something provide for me. I’d also learned that freedom was my number one budget item.

The clincher came one unseasonably warm day in October. I was walking barefoot in Madison one evening, the asphalt path warm from the past day’s sun, and saying to myself This can’t last, you know.

My phone dings at an incoming text. It’s Trinity, half of the gypsy couple I’d met two years before. ‘Just so you know, you’re always welcome in Florida. . . “

This is me letting my hair down, relaxing after the Starfish Enterprise’s Maiden Voyage–Take Two! I’m relaxing after the first trip where she started on fire a little bit and before I knew the truck wasn’t going to start. It turned out to be a lot more exciting than I thought it would be. Evidently the guys on the ranch had put the power cord connecting the camper to the truck underneath a part of the sway bars and the friction, well….it ignited. I still think of sometimes when people gawk at me being a solo chick traveller. That somehow I’m at a disadvantage, simply because of my gender.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t of made the same mistake, I’m just saying that being a guy doesn’t preclude you from making it. Brains are brains. And I’ll put my intuition and alignment up against a guy’s brawn any day. But I digress…

This was acres and acres of nature, I’d picked the closest state park as my first destination. The Spanish moss hanging above reaching down to pat me on the back, ‘There, there dear. . . rest. Because the shit’s about to hit once again.’

Turns out it was only a fuse, but I didn’t know it when I turned the key and nothing happened. Felt like strike two. I was with a guy at the time and he’d been able to rewire the plug with help from my step-in dad over the phone. I picked a good one, I remember thinking at the time. And having an extra truck was going to come in handy as we drove to the nearest parts store.

I suppose one could maybe start to question one’s life’s choices at this point. Reconsider the declaration made in a pub in Wisconsin many miles away, “I’m gonna live in a camper for a year and travel the country and blog about it!” But that night watching the sunset from the dining room window at the foot of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, it all balanced out somehow.

There would be many more sunsets streaming in and I would traverse many more obstacles–my life decision would again be on the chopping block. But not that night. That night I crawled into bed between semis rumbling their welcome and next to the new guy in my life doing the same. I felt like I’d won this round. And this delicious hunk of dark chocolate and I were celebrating.

Whenever I see this picture it reminds me of that and also that in between the tough parts there are always gaps. Let your hair down. Take a deep breath. Get in nature so she can bring you into her gentle sway.

That was four years ago. Something in me continues to rise to every challenge and figure it out. And none of my outside circumstances has derailed what my insides keep nudging me to do. Sometimes, when it gets really hard, I play a little game and say to myself, ‘Ya know, we can sign a lease somewhere and live the easy life….’

The day I don’t feel a part of me die inside in response is the day I’ll do it. Not a moment sooner and not for any other reason.

Yesterday was one of those days that becomes a chuckle in response to someone saying how awesome my life is. The Starfish Enterprise 2 is not going to Appalachiacola in April, after all. That’s the third state park rug to be pulled out from under me in eight months. Three and a half if you count me almost getting kicked out of this park because of a snafu. It’s enough to make you seriously question your life choices. Almost.

“It’s like schedule Jenga,” I comment to another volunteer at our campfire happy hour.

“I think you mean Tetris.”

“No . . . I mean Jenga.”

I know it’ll work out. It always does, I’ve surely learned that. And usually better than the thing that fell apart. It’s only a matter of time–which I have very little of because I’m meant to be leaving in ten days. Time I need to sort out my acceptance letter for publication, try to get into Chicken Soup for the Soul (times two), meet a freelance deadline, and write my memoir while taking a class about writing my memoir. I so did not need another ball to juggle.

At the end of my shift today, my numbers weren’t on as I added and compared what the computer said. I’m usually right on so I tend to get upset on the odd occasion that I’m not. But this little voice/feeling very calmly told me not to worry. Just put your credit card slips down and count your cash. So I did. It was off, too. That same voice/feeling directed me to refresh the website, and then they were all on. The answer is always in the peace. The calm is in the eye of the storm.

So I applied the same practice to the up-in-the-air status of my next destination. I turned it over to that calm little voice/feeling. I felt even calmer. No sense in fussin’–even though I’m so darn good at it. The answer will come in the peace. And that peace gets refreshed just like a browser window, by synchronicities . . .

My neighbor’s daughter was over yesterday, telling me she is trying to catch a stray cat. She’s named him Finnegan. As I came out of my chiropractor/magician’s office, feeling reborn and on a whole other plane after our fast-paced and passionate discussions, I look across the street and there’s a church building with ‘Finnegan’ written across it. This was my fifth appointment. I’d never seen it before.

At work I had a park manager need to find me but he’d forgotten his radio. We ran into each other. He’s not someone you easily run into, but he thought about needing to reach me and there I was.

As I walked up to the farmer’s market the musician du jour was playing his own version of “Refugee” by Tom Petty. Tonight at corn hole, that same song comes up on someone’s playlist. Checkpoints.

And then there’s that happy, easygoing feeling I have that seems completely out of place given my circumstances–yet here it is. I sit front and center to some pretty miraculous and magical stuff. I’m out here on my own counting on it, and I wouldn’t be if it hadn’t showed me over and over again that it’s got me. Every time something in the physical realm fails, I rise. I take my rightful place above it all. And every time it falls apart, it frees me up.

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You’re really living the life. You’re doing what most people want to do, but can’t.” He pauses, turning away to look out the window of the lobby. “Or won’t.”

My mind flicks back to the most recent memory of living life on the road in an RV. I’m not sure dumping the black tank and watching as poo, pee, and t.p. swirl like a septic symphony into the magical place deep underground is most people’s dream, but we are discussing this in a hotel lobby, resting upon a crushed blue velvet sofa with a crystal chandelier sparkling overhead. Dude has a point.

“I guess I don’t really think of it that way. People tell me I’m courageous, but to me it’s kind of ….. normal.” I wave my hand in dismissal of the thought.

His nose releases a soft snort, “There’s nothing normal about it!”

I laugh. I zoom out my perspective using a telescope, grab a quick pano–a little game I like to play– and I know he’s right.

A group of us workampers got together the other night at the Campground Host’s site and there was a couple there that I’d not really met yet; there’s like twenty-six volunteer sites. After a few rounds, (quarters?)–I’m new to the game– the guy approaches me.

“I don’t mean to pry, but… can I ask you a question?”

“Please!” I love questions. I’d seen him watching me and was delightfully curious.

“Do you do this alone?”

Ah, that one. Always tough to answer. I rarely feel alone even though, I suppose, it does look that way. “I’m a solo chick traveler, yes.” Short answers are sometimes best.

He’s shaking his head before I even finish. “I don’t think I could do it.” And he walks on by. Maybe I’ve made him too uncomfortable with the thought of it, even. I stand there, looking across at the bean bags, the board I can’t seem to hit, and everyone around. All couples.

But I don’t feel alone. I wish I could explain it. But it’s hard to put into words. You have to believe it to see it. Most people want to see it, then believe it. You miss a lot that way. Like, a lot a lot.

And it’s good stuff. It’s jump and the net will appear stuff. I’m not saying I know how it works, I just know that it does. I had a guru once, luckily, that said: “Don’t believe anything I say. Try it. Test it. See for yourself.”

I thought I needed a church. Turns out, I needed a laboratory. And that–changed everything.

I’d been agnostic for awhile. I tried being atheist, but my logical mind would not let me deny the evidence I had of a Supreme Being. Something in charge. Something. . . bigger. Making happen what I seemed powerless to make happen myself. I had been carried. Protected. Guided. Gifted. And I knew what the Divine felt like. Because of what it didn’t feel like: human, worldly, limited, finite. I’d seen win-win situations happen time after time. That’s a tough trick for us competitive egos. ‘Self-preservation is what’s really going on today’ **

I could look to ‘God’ like a Petri dish. Or a beaker. Let me mix all these elements of my self, my life, my feelings, wants and frustrations and see what grows. Or explodes. Let me put all these complicated and befuddling equations of circumstances and outcomes onto the chalkboard and see if there’s maybe some kind of a formula. A method to the madness.

Well. Careful what you wish for. I’ll tell you this. If you ask, and you really want to know the answer, you will get the quantum entanglement ride of your life. I guarantee it. And in a world void of any guarantees whatsoever, I think that’s quite the promise.

Don’t believe anything I write. May the way I live my life be an invitation. Permission, if you feel permission is needed. To build your own lab. I promise you, amazing experiments await.

**Young Hearts Run Free -Kym Mazelle

• 

Because I never really am–it only looks like it. I don’t have the big picture. I don’t own the map home. I simply try my best to follow my path and play my part.

I’m getting moved across the street and down the road. To what we call Deep Hole. It’s a sink hole where all the alligators live. And wild pigs. But they’re far, far away. And I don’t have much of a choice. It’s the peak of tourist season, coming up on Spring Breaks and the snowbirds have all migrated down. I could’ve taken the offer from the ranger at Bill Baggs when he called, but that’s long gone now.

“I’ve had a last minute cancelation if you’d like to come down for a month or two,” he’d offered. A state park with a lighthouse, on Biscayne Bay–just outside of Miami.

“Tempting,” as I proceeded to scan my moral code. But even as somewhat unsure as I was about my current park in the middle of February, I didn’t think I could up and leave. Leaving them in the lurch.

How ironic.

I’ll be isolated, but I’ll probably get a lot of writing done. And I learned, again, that all parks are not my park. I’m not going to fit everywhere. And honestly, when I look at this park and feel how it is to be up in that ranger station, I kind of take that as a compliment.

I thrive in certain environments: open and honest communication, appreciation, an attempt to enjoy oneself while doing a job, The feeling that there’s an ease and a flow, with people connecting and being a team. Having a heart. At least most of the time. My last two parks have not been like that. I’m not really sure what I can do to guarantee I’m at a park like that, either. Vet them better? I spent 45 minutes on the phone with the volunteer coordinator for this park. Get stuff in writing? I could, sure, but that’s no guarantee. Take a new offer as a sign of something about to go down and jump ship, integrity be damned? Possibly. At least take a moment to consider the possibility. Keep trusting that all is working out exactly as it should and always with my best interests and ultimate happiness in mind? Absolutely.

This is a part of it. Being on the road and seeing where it takes me.

Still… I really hate living at an alligator pit.

This too shall pass.

As bad as showing up in Rome without a reservation on an, unbeknownst to me, holiday weekend? Spending my last few days in Australia in a squat, bad? Or hiking around an island off Nicaragua hoping for an opening and sliding into the only one because of a cancelation?

I guess that will remain to be seen. I’m still in the midst and swirl of it all. Things have randomly and radically changed again. And in the place where I am because of the last radical change. The dust hasn’t settled yet. It’s dusty as hell, actually–literally and figuratively. I’m in a state park, the first place I stopped on the maiden voyage of the Starfish Enterprise; going where this woman has never gone before. The Captain’s Log around that star date, about four years ago, would reveal my camper starting on fire a little bit.

Luckily I was outside, watching my-guy-at-the-time do some backing up and trying to learn something. That’s when the sparks really started to fly! And not the good kind. The sway bars hadn’t been put on correctly and the friction rubbed through the power cord plugged into the back of my truck. Sooo, back to the ranch to rewire and re-place those sway bars. Myakka River State Park was the closest and chillest spot–back to nature to balance and calm me. The photo here is after we arrived safely and before the truck wasn’t going to start when we wanted to leave.

We got that figured out, it was a fuse, and motored on in search of filling our now pretty starving stomaches and calming our rattled nerves. Landing at the foot of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, right on the water with sunset giving a show through the dining room window, all was forgiven. Some people may have thrown in the towel. Parked the camper, or maybe sold it. Gone back to good ol’ reliable sticks-n-bricks living. The thought never crossed my mind.

Maybe I have been here before. Maybe I only remember the good stuff. Like forgetting the pains of birth when the urge to have another baby kicks in. The room I finally found in Rome ended up being down the block from the restaurant where my soon-to-be Italian lover worked. While everyone else slept, Ainslee and I smoked joints and waxed lyrical as she painted images ignited and words worth remembering around my chair; in the morning it looked like an art gallery more than a squat. And waking up in a bungalow on the beach with a sunrise I could see from my bed, was how my aversion to making reservations worked out on that island.

I cling to that now, as I’m told there may be no place for me here in March. I hold onto every time it looked like things were really not working out for me. Something was always working in me and in my situation to bring about something better. Bigger.

I got a Christmas card years ago that said,

Sometimes we see only the underside of the tapestry of life.

All knots and gnarls and missteps.

But there is a Master Weaver who sees it from above.

And He weaves according to a plan

I considered and/or went to nine other places before I ended up at Harry’s Grill. It had been a couple years since I’d last been on Anna Maria Island–the place where my tour de Florida first began–and I have only limited time to visit my faves. It’s a bike ride guided by the greatest hits. But The Corona has changed things and so I look more like a pinball bouncing off of things, changing direction, and then bouncing off other things. I’m hungry and the sun is soon setting, so I land.

Mid mahi tacos the sun sets and brushes warm golden hues onto the streaking clouds giving the hibiscus bush I’m half hidden behind a radiant backdrop. Ahhh, it’s good to be back, I tell myself and the island again.

It’s a day that started at an appointment with a CranioSacral practitioner adjusting and opening the flow of my energy ever so gently but oh so powerfully. I’m all loose and peaceful as I back into a parked car. I’m even peaceful as I talk with the officer summoned by the owners of a freshly, ever so slightly, scratched bumper. My beach awaits and I’m stuck on the tarmac waiting for the runway to open.

And open it does, $163 and a scheduled court appearance later. I’m in my Wonder Woman swimsuit cover up so we bounce that seemingly negative experience right off those golden cuffs and again throw our lasso around Anna Maria Island. My first target is the woman who gave me said Amazon princess dress. I had admired it on the back of her bathroom door during a Halloween party and, not being able to find a new one, she gifted it to me for my birthday a couple weeks later. I get such a great range of reactions whenever I wear it–from young girls, comic geeks, a gay guy managing a Shell station in Key West running out to me while I pumped gas and begging me for it.

I’m wearing it as icing on the whole surprise cake and as I walk up the sandy steps of the beach cafe, I really hope she’s working today. With a mask and shades on it’s natural she would recognize the dress first and I watch as her eyes travel from my middle up to my face and she lights up as she hears my voice.

“Starfish!!” she squeals and gives me a big hug. Then she backs away, holds my face in her hands and then hugs me again, harder. I’m quite a bit taller than she is and I can hear her crying into my chest. I reckon someone being so happy to see you that they’re moved to tears is one of the greatest feelings there is.

I’m leaving Harry’s and its twinkle light laced patio so I can make it back to my truck before dark. Like many things in nature, this island is beautiful but dangerous. The bike lanes are either narrow or non-existent and it’s peak season for visitors. Not ending up as a splat on the pavement is always on my mind–that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.

As I pull my pimped out for Valentine’s Day bike from the rack, the people at the outside table next to me exclaims, “Ohhh, is that yours? We’ve been admiring it!”

Exchanged pleasantries morph into conversation as I sit on my seat with every intention of riding away. But each sentence spoken triggers another and one thing in common leads to another as the dusk sets in around me and people with apologetic looks walk between us. We talk cats and COVID and travel (the daughter lives in an RV, too) and Grace, laughing and basking in this easy warmth between strangers. I sit perched there as their beers go from full, to half, to suds in an empty glass and I think, I should go several times as the sky continues to dim the lights. And then it comes out that they’re from Wisconsin. I should have known. I feel closer and also farther away from my roots. The pandemic is postponing my planned trip back there this summer like it did last summer, so these three are a really good temporary fix.

We finally break. They stroll to their car and I say a little prayer as I roll off into the night. It was worth it. I ride the main road awhile until I remember I can over a block to a parallel side street that’s less traveled and a lot prettier. I admire the houses; a mix of vintage and new construction and enjoy the quiet–my preference, regardless of mode, is always the prettier way. I think about how we didn’t exchange a way to keep in touch. How unfortunate. And I wonder why they wouldn’t have honked or waved when they passed me back on the main road.

Just then I hear faint calling coming from behind me. It’s them! Evidently they prefer the prettier way, too.

“Hey, we should exchange info!” the daughter starts.

“You inspired us. You were the best part of our day!” the mom leans out the window as they drive away.

I ride on and review the rollercoaster of the day, amazed once again by what at first glance seems like random events only to reveal itself as a divinely orchestrated plan for connection–the ultimate happiness. It’s like watching puzzle pieces fall into place and make a big, beautiful picture.