“I like to do the Southernmost Slow Ride. We ride under the full moon from the White Street Pier to Truman Waterfront Park to catch the sunset—and sometimes we have themes, like fairy rides,” I say.
He looks perplexed over his pitaya parfait. “What did you just say?”
“Is the white stuff yogurt?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Do they have non-dairy yogurt?”
“That’s a good question. I don’t know.”
“I’m doing this to build the anticipation and to distract you. Because you’re about to say you know me from the bike ride, and I know you don’t. I’d remember you.”
“Were you wearing a tutu?”
Snap. I WAS wearing a tutu.
“I was wearing a tutu.”
And then, right there, you could hear the pieces fall into place. The switch flipped on. And in its light, we could see that we both remembered the real first time we met.
“You were doing time-lapse photography with the cruise ship turning just as the sun set.” I could see in his face that this was true.
“And you were in a tutu and super easy to talk to.”
I smile at this. I’ve been told that before and I really like that about myself.
But it was more than that. Earlier in the day, I’d thought about that encounter. I remember ending the conversation with him because the group was heading to the next destination. Before riding off, I’d said something about missing his final product.
“Look for it on Facebook,” he’d said as I pointed my bike towards the other cyclists.
“How will I find it?” I called over my right shoulder.
“Key West Sunset!”
And today, weeks later, it crossed my mind that I never did look.
Now, here I am, sitting across from him as a curtain of rain holds us hostage under the awning.
It didn’t shelter us from his ex-wife, the mother of his children, biking by.
She smiles at him. And she turns to me, “Do I know you?”
You know damn well you don’t, my eyes reply.
“I don’t believe so,” my polite words say.
“Can you give me a ride? I mean, I don’t know what you’re doing here,” she motions to our fancy fruit bowls, “but it’s raining pretty hard.”
He starts to acquiesce, to my slight surprise, and I start to mark the date done.
I still don’t know who she is. But I sense by now that there’s some history there. This is not some random acquaintance encounter.
“I mean, I’m happy to give you ten dollars for a cab ride home,” he offers.
Okay, he’s clearly uncomfortable. Who is this woman?
“I hate cabs. They creep me out.” She’s smiling through this scene, but it is not a happy smile. “You really can’t take me?”
I check my phone for the forecast. One, because I don’t know what else to do, and second, I’m hoping it will tell me that the rain is about to end, so her point, whatever it is, will be moot.
He starts to assert himself. She throws out the idea of going into a nearby store under the same awning.
I secretly hope she goes.
And then I say, “Yeah, I can lose an hour in that store easily.”
She looks to him to save her. He doesn’t. Good boy.
She rides off, pouting. Only then does he fill me in on who she is. “She loves to create awkward situations.”
She’s really good at it. I think, but don’t say.
We resume our awe over the fact that we’ve already met, and the road has somehow curved to allow us to meet again.
Funny how that works. Funny, even though my world works like that so very often.
My Facebook memory feed just popped up and took me back nine years–to Thailand. I had an eleven-hour layover on my way back from Australia. A“one night in Bangkok (and the world’s your oyster).” But what good was that? I couldn’t do much of anything with just one night.
So I called the airlines and asked if I could extend it.
“Sure,” she said, “you’ll just have to pay the taxes.”
While she put me on hold to find out how much they were, I did a quick Google search of ‘things you need to know when traveling in Thailand.’ I was through the first ten–exchange rate (awesome), cost (cheap), the cuisine (good for vegetarians)–when she came back on the line.
“About twenty-two dollars.”
Sold. I stretched it to a week (once there, I would wish I’d made it for longer). I made no plans, just followed my gut. I jumped on a ferry to the island of Kho Chang, then took a taxi–which meant riding in the bed of a pick-up truck and whacking the quarter panel when you wanted to be dropped off. I watched until I caught the vibe of a place.
A poster advertising a full moon party piqued my interest. It was in front of a little resort with cheery yellow hobbit houses. A place to stay with a party on the beach bonus. Whack! I hit the quarter panel.
Fire twirlers kept time with the drum beats as the sun set over the gulf. Then a DJ came on in the moonlight. When I got tired, I swung in a hammock on the porch of my hut, listening to waves. Eating breakfast the next morning meant sitting on a cushion on the floor at a low table. Going in to a 7-Eleven, you took your shoes off and added them to the neat row of flip flops by the door. Thailand smelled like incense and felt like devotion.
On my second night, while trying to take a selfie on the beach at sunset, a German guy approached and kindly offered to take it for me. We hung that night, sitting on cushions and drinking cheap Thai beer. He mentioned he was going exploring the island the next day and invited me along. The next morning I hopped on the back of his scooter zipping over hills and washed out gravel roads towards Lost Beach–so remote it ran on generators. We stopped at a park on the way to climb boulders and jump off into a swimming hole with waterfalls. We drank more Chang beer on the beach and acted out a play with twigs and shells. As night fell we decided to not go back, climbing a ladder up to a hut on stilts next to the shore and becoming lovers.
In all my travels, this was the first time going to a country where I didn’t know anyone, didn’t speak the language and was all on my own. A powerful experience I wanted to commemorate with a tattoo. Like everything else, they were cheap. Different from the States, they were done with a needle made from bamboo. The shops were everywhere. I saw many getting them done while asleep, or maybe they were passed out, either way they were verifying the advertising touting it as less painful than machines.
It wasn’t. It took me two whole pokes to figure that out. But what do you do? I considered calling it off but then I’d have a few black dots on the backside of my neck. Keep going, hoping I’d toughen up, but each poke seemed to be more painful. I seriously stressed at my decision, my conundrum. Just then the South African chick I’d watched a few doors down popped in to show off her completion and ask how I was doing.
“It hurts!” I almost cried.
Her accent was soft, but her words were strong, “That’s because you’re resisting. You’ve gotta go into it.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. What if my acceptance was mistaken for approval and make it even worse?
The artist stopped and asked if I wanted a cigarette.
I hadn’t smoked for years but I reached for it with an I’ll-try-anything attitude.
Inhaling, exhaling. Breathing in pain, releasing it out and accepting. A little more each inhale and exhale. I found the rhythm comforting and paid more attention to the music in the shop. By the time the cigarette was done I’d relaxed into it, puffed my way above the pain. I went even further into it and it continued. I was in some sort of communion with it.
When he was done, I was disappointed it was over.
Years later, watching an episode of Parts Unknown, I heard a story that reminded me of this experience. It gave a take I was proud to resonate with. A native Hawaiin told the story he’d heard from a guy going out on a boat with his grandfather when he was five years old.
“He said ‘When the wave make the canoe move, the canoe make me sick, my grandfather throw me in the ocean so I can go inside the wave. And when I go inside the wave, I become the wave. And when I become the wave, now I’m navigator.’ At five.”
Acceptance doesn’t mean giving permission to get worse. Acceptance means going into it, joining with it. That’s where my strength is–in realizing I don’t have any limitations. Resistance is really just arguing for my limitations. Becoming one with what I fear dissolves limitations.
A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to. ~Gandalf
“Why’d you come at the end!?” My friend and fellow writer, Arida, exclaimed a couple days ago, at an event honoring Black History Month with readings of poems by Black poets.
I got there late but not at the end, she just hadn’t seen me. We cleared it up, and the whole interaction cued up the scene of Gandalf responding to Frodo’s similar accusation. I often get accused of being late and this quote eases my mind every time.
I’m arriving at another event, Arida launching her own book of poetry, and I appear to be late again. She’s not reading though, so it’s all good. It’s on the rooftop terrace of the Studios of Key West.
“Going up?” I say to the guy at the elevator doors.
He smiles a gentle smile and nods.
I quickly laugh, “I guess there’s nowhere to go but up!” trying to shrug off my awkwardness. The awkwardness I often have when half my brain is still on whatever I was writing before, as I try once again to merge back into social traffic. Adding a bit of random information pushes the gas pedal down a little more. “No one has a basement in Key West. We’re at sea level.”
We step into the elevator. He asks how long I’ve lived here and I ask how long he’s visiting for. He’s from northern Illinois. I’m originally from Madison, Wisconsin.
His eyes light up, “I’ve been to Madison. Loved it!” Of course he did, I think, Madison is amazing. Mentally, I put up two points on the scoreboard my subconscious has suddenly erected.
We step out onto the fourth floor: Hugh’s View. Giving a 360 degree angle of this island beloved by so many. The bar greets us to the left, “Can I get you something?” He asks. A couple more points go up.
You might be wondering, ‘Is it that easy to impress you, Jen? Been to your hometown and loved it, offers to buy you a drink.’
Yes. Yes it is.
Turning from the bar, I see there’s a mic and a chair onstage. As we turn further, towards Arida’s table, I hope she doesn’t do her exclamation again. I’m in the bubble of pseudo-perfection that a new, chance meeting creates and I’d like it to not burst quite yet.
“Arida, meet…” I motion to my companion, “I don’t know who this is.” Then I look in his eyes and laugh, “Who are you?”
“Will.” He says to me. “I’m Will.” He says to her.
He leans in, watching intently the mutual admiration flow between Arida and I. “You are such an incredible writer, Jen.” Then to Will, “This chick’s poetry is so profound, I had to read it twice.”
I praise the animated way she delivers her material. The confidence she exuded when she read at the launch for the guild’s hot off the press anthology a few days ago. “You inspire me. I took mental notes.”
His eyes are wide with engagement and he nods along, showing belief in everything we’re saying. Tipping his head down to the table, he asks,“Well then, which book should I buy?” Breaking his wallet out again.
Arida could’ve promoted one of her own books, but she directs him to the anthology. “You’ll probably like this one the best. It’s got a bit of everything.”
A warmth climbs my neck–my poem and story are both erotica. That’s a heck of a first impression. “Every poem and story inspired by and set in The Keys,” I chime in.
“That’s what I like, the slice of life kind of stuff.” And now he’s using my line.
He asks us both to sign it. I add to mine, ‘thanks for the wine!’
He and I move over the the edge. He shares about the radio show he had in college on the campus radio station, based on the experiences he and his co-workers had delivering pizza. “To the middle of a football field. To a strip club and getting tipped in a stack of ones. Once I had to help rescue a lost cat.”
His voice sounds sexier to me as I imagine it caressing the airwaves with his slice of life stories. Pizza slices of life.
We point to things from the rooftop–church steeples, the haunted Artist’s House B&B, sailboats bobbing on the Gulf. He’s open, inviting. Present. Truly interested. He travels like I travel–totally immersing ourselves into someplace new, becoming intimate with the unknown. He makes some jokes and keeps putting up points.
The rooftop portion closes and we go down to the second floor where the theater is. Like many places in Key West, it’s said to be haunted. It was once a masonic lodge, the chairs with members’ names, numbers and various decals still remain. In trying to decipher their meaning, I guess the double eagle with a ‘32’ is the highest rank. “Eagles are regal,” I reason.
“Thirty-three is the highest number in Masonry, so, yeah.” He says it like he’s saying ‘The sun sets in the west.’
Seriously, who is this guy?
Walking to my bike, the regret of missing Arida’s reading tugs at my heart. It’s followed by the replay of running into Will at the elevator. Would I still have ran into him if I’d arrived earlier? Maybe. But one little change sends out ripples. Swap out one of the puzzle pieces and the big picture won’t come together the same way.
I settle once again into the comfort of Gandalf’s quote. I had arrived precisely when I meant to.
Some things are best mended by a break. ~Edith Wharton
I know I promised last Throwback Thursday to write about the three things that led to my gypsy life on the road. But there was one big thing that cleared the way for them–I’d better talk about that first.
I bought a house (this probably sounds like a move in the opposite direction, but stay with me). A broken house bought with a man I was in a broken relationship with. Perhaps I thought I could fix them both.
The house was a foreclosure, the deep neglect of it assaulting my nostrils with a stench of mold so strong I thought it must’ve opened the door itself, to escape. A small pond had gathered in the basement, black mold climbing the walls like velvet wallpaper. Wires and plumbing hung from the rafters where the furnace and hot water heater had been ripped out. If a house could be raped, this one was. Plugging my nose and holding my breath, I couldn’t see any potential through my watering eyes as I ran back out to the motorcycle waiting for our ride to resume.
But M could. He convinced me we could flip it, make a profit.
A few months later, when the lease was up on my apartment, I moved into this work in progress–everything I owned in the garage, an air mattress on the floor where spackle would fall all around but thankfully never on. I hung drop cloths for curtains and aligned my transformation with the house’s–knowing when it sold it would send me somehow…somewhere. I’d been escaping winter more and more and for longer and longer, leading to the realization: the world was too big and beautiful to keep living in one place. With each trip, my grip around the only place I’d ever called home loosened.
I was living on a launchpad.
Searching through paint samples prompted the searching of my mind–I was looking for what spoke to me on both fronts. “Caribbean Aqua Blue” and moving to an island. “Afterglow” and afterthoughts; all the things I’d miss, leaving all my friends. Could I do it? Would I be miserable? I painted walls and contemplated possibilities, altering us both. Designing the bathroom while searching new designs for my life. Out west? I loved the Zen feel of Sedona and her hundreds of hikes. Farther? The part of California where some of my dad’s family lived had a chic vibe with laid back surfer towns a quick drive away.
Into this reverie and renovation came an invitation to attend the wedding of M’s cousin in New Zealand.
Our feet were dangling from the chuppah where a freshly minted marriage had vowed “til death do us part,” but my relationship was dead on arrival. No, nothing had happened. There hadn’t been a fight, none of the usual drama. Just an insight breaking across my heart, as soft as the mist beginning to fall–that’s how I knew it was true. We’re not going to make it. This will never be us.
An inconvenient truth only three days into a trip on the other side of the world. The timing was weird, ditto the location. Our vintage dress and the black and white photos would show us having a great time, our inner demons distracted for a while. But there was no mistaking it. A chasm was opening between us. M was sitting and talking right next to me, but he felt farther away.
The mist turned to a soft rain, drops hitting my skin like punctuation marks. Okay, I get it. To make sure, it rained harder–in exclamation points. We ran into the big tent and joined in celebrating the newlyweds’ love with a night of drinking, dancing and laughing. Everyone was happy. We were happy. I pushed the chuppah revelation away, back to the inkling it typically was.
But the next day, it started to develop, like a photo appearing in the darkroom. Faint at first, then becomes more defined with time. Finally, as we traveled to the tip of the north island–officially named the Far, Far North–I could see it clearly and had to call it.
Each linoleum square on the kitchen floor represented the intermittent intimacy in our six year on-again-off-again relationship. Both had fallen out of fashion. Both took time, strength and deep determination to rip up, my motivation rewarded by what I was uncovering. The original design. Hardwood floors and a heart ready to shine.
I learned mistakes could be corrected, sanded out, painted over, re-measured and re-cut–no one was going to look at my results as closely as I did. We took chances on a lavender accent wall in the living room. The belief everything was always getting better carried me and a trust in the outcome–for the house and for the new direction of my life–gave me inner peace (and power). There was a divine designer in charge.
PS I like to sleep on everything I write, editing it the next day before posting. I’m on my way home and quickly pop into a Mexican restaurant for some guacamole to go. Without knowing why, I decided to dine-in instead. Amidst chips and salsa, a song M used to sing while strumming guitar comes on. It’s old and obscure, I’d never even heard of it before him. And it’s no mistake it’s playing now, in the hang time of this piece being published. Now I know why I felt pulled to stay, and I’m glad I did. M and I may not have been good romantic partners, but we’d been great business partners. And the house venture is what opened the way for me living on an island in January.
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.
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.
We sailed for so long that second day, I felt the motion of the ocean while lying in bed–a joyous sensation. While my body rocked, my mind rolled back over the events of the day. The wind had been wilder this time, calling for more engagement from the crew. We began to keel and it took a lot to not fall over while filming as they rapidly trimmed the sails. The snorkeling was better–we got the last mooring ball by the reef and visibility was clear. Red coral, angel fish, parrot fish with pastel iridescent scales and light blue lipstick, some needle nose fish looking like a syringe with fins.
I was also thinking about J. He’d grabbed the check at the Happy Buddha Bar in the marina once we got back on shore–the unexpected move had evidently left an impression on me.
Part of me thinks if he’s leaving soon, I should just throw myself at him and have a quick romp, riding it for all the good times I can–while I can. Part of me thinks I’m safe within his escape plan and I don’t need to do anything because why even start what’s got an expiration date stamped on it already? I’m off the hook. Besides, I’m off the market.
The next day, my Facebook feed fills with sailboats for sale. After vetting them (okay, and picturing myself on them) I do my own little circumnavigation and text Pat about a few of my favorites. They work together, so I figure he can tell him. Pat tells me to friend J and tag him in it. “He can be kind of shy.” Feels like too big a step to take.
I’m not sure what I’m doing when I reach out to him about coming to trivia at Waterfront Brewery the next night. It seems pretty benign I tell myself, as I open then close Instagram. Then open. Then close.
Then open.
Pat had texted he’d be late, so I was preparing to wing it solo until he arrived. Seeing J come around the corner of the bar truly startled me. Since he hadn’t written back, and Pat didn’t mention him coming, I didn’t expect him and it caught me completely off guard.
“What’s our team name?” Pat says when he arrives a little later.
“Sailor’s Delight,” I say.
He laughs, “Leave it to the writer!”
“Actually, J came up with it, but I loved it.”
The TV screen with the questions is above us. The scorecard on the bar below, I’m leaning over to write an answer when the next question comes on. Fingers softly graze, then slightly rest on the inside of my arm, gently requesting my attention. I lean back into this tender move as it withdraws. Again I’m thrown. It’s one of those moments you can feel getting recorded in the story of your life
J himself is a soft touch. No big ego driven song and dance, no verbal billboard conversations. His light teasing, when I make some comment about not minding mornings as long as no one’s telling me what to do during them, is: “Is that why I always beat you to the boat?” and a kidlike smirk. It was more to say Hey, we have a history than, Let me use this to elevate myself.
After we come in fourth from last, Pat goes out to smoke and J and I swipe on the sailboats on my phone. Island Woman. Another one with a name we can’t read. Again, I picture myself on each of them. Again, I’m not sure what I’m doing or wanting to happen. Left alone with him, I think I just panicked.
Walking out into the humid locker room of a night, J makes another subtle move I find impressive. Pat’s first and we’re both in step behind him. Being closer to the door, J reaches out his arm and without missing a beat in word or step, he holds my gaze while he holds the door open for me via side arm.
I try to fall asleep for an hour, but I can’t because words keep coming, demanding to be written down. I write on three different pieces. Time with him hadn’t pinch off my muse, like I’d feared, it was doing the opposite.
Solo Chick Traveler 