I am sitting outside on a backyard deck of a gigantic house, listening to bird song. I want coffee but have a deathly strong anxiety about "making myself at home" in someone else's house, no matter how often they tell me to do just that. Plus they only have a french press and that is an involved and messy procedure that I would be hesitant to go through with even if it wasn't in the presence of a stranger feeding her baby nearby.
I am in Dallas, Texas.
A city I kind of hate, but keep ending up back in.
My main goal for the week that I am here is to finally really actually fucking write. I am at least writing on here, so that's a good start. But people, they want to see you when you are in town. They want to do things, because a person visiting is an opportunity and an excuse to blow off work and see the stuff nearby and eat at the nice place. Which is good and fun and I always say yes, but they don't realize how exhausting it is to always be in a new place doing things with someone new.
But only a few people know I am here and though there are already several chunks out of every day reserved for spending time with folks, I at least have this whole morning with nothing to do but sit out here and look at these trees and listen to those birds. And that is lovely and I will take it.
I believe today marks day 39 of being a full-time nomad. Tomorrow gets me to that nice Biblical number. But then I'll keep going, so that number feels less significant.
There is much to say about the journey. Outside of when I am staying with friends, all of my time has been spent alone. Just me ruminating on everything, taking in so much beauty and mystery and misery with no one at all to share it with. So many thoughts about so many things. And the only time I have internet access is when I am with friends, so have little time to myself, or the occasional hotel stay, which I use primarily to just get real high and watch movies and not think about a single thing other than what to eat and what to watch. A necessary thing sometimes, escaping from the world. But I always check out feeling a little guilty. Could have been writing. I am desperate to write when I am driving. I am desperate to sleep when I am not.
Yesterday on the drive in, I wrote wonderful little poems in my mind about the long shadows on the highway from trucks and trees. All of which forgotten by the time I arrived at the rapidly darkening street.
Oh, my headlights stopped working well over a week ago. That's something worth saying. I have had to be parked for the night by sunset every night. Not exactly good news for a photographer that loves sunsets and the golden hour. Not exactly fun hanging out at a rest stop or a walmart from 6 at night to 7 the next morning. But I have gotten by. I get by.
Now I am not sure whether to discuss where I've been or to focus on where I am. I'll do both in (attempted) short order.
Left Tulsa with my...well, I don't know what to call her and she deserves her whole entry anyway. But I left with her and for the first ten days we made our way to St. Louis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Amish country, and then Philly. No big fights or any real problems. She was unaccustomed to the hard life of constant travel, but that actually was helpful as it slowed me down and made me rest.
I dropped her off at the Philly airport and spent two days alone driving down the Jersey shore. Atlantic City, several boardwalks. All in the off season, so virtually desolate. I felt lonely and unsure of myself most of that time.
But I arrived at a big rented beach house in Ocean City, Maryland (where I wrote my last entry). My friends there feel more like my family than my actual family. They took good care of me, I enjoyed playing near the ocean with the kids. I enjoyed good weed and better conversation with the adults.
Then back to Philly for dinner with some of the oldest friends I have. The wife was my childhood crush, the husband my childhood friend. I'm glad they have stuck it out. They are more suited for each other than any other couple I know.
Then onto to Long Island where I stayed with my part-time nomad friend who is there now staying with his brother. We took the train into the city one day, I took it in by myself the next. Exhausting and delightful, New York in the fall. I went to the Met. I hung out in Central Park. I had some pizza, bagels, and hot dogs.
Then out into real solitude.
Upstate New York was indescribable how beautiful it was. Timed it perfectly to be there at peak fall colors. But that's when my headlights broke, so it created a sort of ticking clock. I had to start rushing to see what I could see and still have time to make it to a place where I could park for the night before the sun went down. So way less hiking than I anticipated. There was also a ton of rain that kept things chilly. I still got in as much nature as I could. And the drive itself was amazing.
Then Vermont for a day or two, then Maine. All very quiet and beautiful and sometimes a little lonely. I downloaded a few dating apps and did have some good conversations through text but didn't meet anyone in person. I was traveling so fast that the people I matched with were always in the town that I had just left.
I made it to Salem, Massachusetts on the night before Halloween. Found a place to park as the sun was setting. Walked into the center square to see thousands of people milling about, all mostly waiting in line to see a tourist attraction or get food. But then a torrential downpour hit rather suddenly and I had to walk back an hour in rain so intense it hurt my face when it hit me, completely kept me from seeing or being able to reference the map on my phone. But was rather nice to watch the storm from the van once I got all wrapped up in blankets.
Halloween itself was just more crowds and more lines. It felt like a mixture of a Renaissance Faire (boobs on display everywhere and anything to do cost money) and Mardi Gras (but without booze, really. And a lot of kids everywhere).
I took the train to Boston the next day and really began to feel burnt out. Cities start to blur together. I felt without purpose. Just wasting my savings on a subway ride to Harvard Square. I needed to find a place to write. I needed to slow down enough to actually take in everything I was seeing. But I had locked in the place where I am staying now, as long as I could arrive by the 8th. Or really rather before the 14th because that's when a new person is moving in to the room I am staying in. I made it the goal to be here by the 8th so that I could have time to rest and write and hopefully fix my headlights and some other persistent problems with the van.
But to meet that deadline, I had to move. So Massachusetts through Connecticut and Pennsylvania into West Virginia (my first night in the van where it was below freezing. It wasn't so bad). Then Kansas City with a poet friend and his wife. Both homeschooled church kids like myself, trying to figure the world out like myself. Then a 3 hour drive to Nixa, Missouri with a different couple of homeschooled church kids trying to figure out the world.
While waiting for a table at a breakfast restaurant in Nixa, my friend got the word that his dad had died of Covid. He now had to deal with both the grief and loss of that but also deal with the rest of his family who still eat Ivermectin paste and refuse the vaccine even with them seeing the clear and fatal consequences of that decision. Similar moments were happening with other friends I have stayed with on this trip. Only the one death, but lots of hospitals and near deaths of the friends and family of my friends. Heavy stuff.
But then back to Tulsa briefly with my old roommate and their dog. Enough time to do some laundry and have a fitful sleep on the living room floor.
And then now in Dallas, where for a few days I have a room in an "intentional community." This house is huge and I don't even know how many people live here. My friend Justin, another former pastor turned artist, had hit really hard times. Lost his business and his wife and then right at the beginning of Covid his house and spent the whole of 2020 living in his car with his dog, bouncing around from place to place. But then a month ago or so heard of this widower used the insurance money from his wife's death to buy a seriously gigantic house that he has opened up to people who have hit hard times. It's a wonderful place and I like that so far at least there are plenty of places to be here where you aren't in anyone's way.
I will be here until this weekend, where I will go back to Tulsa, drop off my van with the old roommate, meet up with the woman that I traveled with at the beginning of my trip and drive a moving truck full of her belongings to Cincinnati where she has decided to move. I have no idea at all what to do after that. I plan to stay there for at least a couple of weeks, though she has asked me to stay longer. Stay forever if I want.
But I don't know about that.
There is something driving me to travel. I feel there is much I need to learn from the road still. Maybe this is just me running away from love and commitment and stability, I don't know. But I feel like running, that's for sure.
We'll see what happens next.
8:38 a.m. - 2021-11-09
Recent entries:
In a Basement on an air mattress, freshly showered - 2021-12-20
A Pattern, A Purpose (so sorry all my entries have been so long lately) - 2021-12-10
Three Weeks a Boyfriend - 2021-12-06
Turkey Day - 2021-11-25
a rumination on sex and love - 2021-11-20
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