If things were going to plan I would be right now driving through Kentucky on my way to Tulsa where I had a few days worth of work lined up at a dispensary. Then on Sunday, I would head to my old hometown in New Mexico, before making my way to my parents in Arizona, followed by my brother's place in Colorado.
But as good ole' Johnny Lennon said, life is what happens when you're making other plans.
The van (my home) started making some noises, started having trouble accelerating. Thought it was the fuel pump (which is costly, but I could swing it). Turns out it was the engine. The brand new engine that my brother put in the van last August.
The whole thing is shot.
Could be worse, I know. It could have been today that I discovered the problem and would have ended up stranded in St. Louis or something.
As it is, I am writing this in a comfortable bed of a woman's apartment. A woman that adores me and cares for me and is happy to have me stay.
But also, I no longer have a vehicle. Which in a certain sense means the future that I imagined for myself is no longer. What stretches before me is nothing but a long blank slate.
I don't know what will happen. I don't know what to do.
I will admit that my whole dream of the hashtag vanlife wasn't really working out for me anyway.
The idea that I could instantly go from full on agoraphobic locked in a dark room unable to think or write or connect with humans to bold and daring adventurer living solely by my wits does seem a bit naive now in hindsight.
I did have some moments though. October and November were incredible months. I saw the beautiful colors of New England in the fall. I made it to the edge of America and then back to its center and then back to the East Coast again.
I want to say I was fully free, but it was a struggle even then. A few weeks without headlights. Only could afford one meal a day. Never comfortable going into public places. Pouring through money like sand through my fingers.
When I landed with Joey and their family in December, I thought it would be a temporary respite. A chance to rest and regroup and recenter. A place where I would figure out how to live on the road for real.
But I was more depressed than I acknowledged at the time. Passive, uncertain, exhausted. Same here with my now two months in Cincinnati. Every day I tried to rally myself and figure out work and figure out a way to keep moving.
All the big day dreams about moving up the California coast to mystical Oregon. Silent solitude by ocean waves. And somehow writing. Somehow living off of art and the pursuit of meaning.
But now I see that I never really escaped my dark room. Depression and disassociation kept me blinded. I was lost in fantasy, lost in thought.
Always with "tomorrow I will do work, but today I need to rest" as if there is ever such a thing as tomorrow.
And now I have a van that cannot drive filled with my belongings that have no place to go.
And I do not know what to do with myself. I have never known what to do.
Still lost in fantasy. Still lost in abstract thoughts about God and morality and other such impractical things.
I dream now that this opens doors for new ways of travel. Where I am even more simplified and pared down. A true vagabond lost amongst the people. Perhaps transcendence will find me there at last.
Or, I guess, there is always normalcy. Stay here, get a job, be a boyfriend, eat dinner in front of the tv. That doesn't sound so bad. I don't know why I can't stomach it for long.
I guess we'll see what happens.
If I knew what to want, I would want it. I would claim it as my own.
But I don't know what I want. I'm not sure I want anything.
Which I guess means that I float on in this mystery. Observing and welcoming and loving all that is.
Or trying to, at any rate.
What else is there to do?
10:46 a.m. - 2022-03-16
Recent entries:
She and Tulsa and Me - 2022-05-22
The Sun and the Moon - 2022-04-15
Forest Paradise - 2022-04-07
The Glorious future, The Tragic Past - 2022-04-02
On Time in Arizona - 2022-03-23
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