The end of a year inspires me to look past the daily grind of living to the broader panorama of my life. Maybe you could say I'm looking under the hood to see if my engine needs an overhaul. It's barely eight o'clock in the evening here in Tucson, and already I hear fireworks in the distance. Sometimes people like to set off rockets in the wash behind the trailer. If we're really lucky somebody will set something on fire (preferably not this trailer), and the sirens will inspire a coyote chorus. Nothing says you live in the stupid cold desert like hearing a bunch of howling coyotes.
Oh, woe is me, I'm alive. What a tragedy.
Being alive beats the alternative, but it's hard sometimes. The air pressure ebbs and flows, which means my vestibular system is swamped at least once per minute. The noise in my right ear is deafening. My neck aches from valiantly trying to hold my head straight, to keep my sightlines steady. When my eyes are closed, I lean to the right, so I try not to close my eyes when I am standing up. Walking in the dark is difficult. Dangerous, probably, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. I don't think this vestibular paroxysmia malady is getting worse, but it's not getting any better. I am waiting impatiently for my visit to the neurologist in February. Maybe she'll have some answers about this downed powerline in my head. It's just as possible she will tell me to quit whining and send me home.
Home. I still hope such a place exists. I plan to continue my quest. I could give up, surrender to Tucson, admit defeat, tell myself it doesn't matter if I live in a place that doesn't feel right to me. I could just suck it up, along with my physical maladies. But with the housing situation the way it is, I can't afford even the roach-ridden gun-infested sleazebag apartment I rented the first year I came here. My options have dwindled, and I don't think it's my fault. Rents have gone up all over the nation, and low-income seniors are being hit hard. I feel it. It hurts.
I was forty years old when I left Los Angeles to move back to Portland. I had parents then. I had a long-distance relationship that quickly fizzled and morphed into another quasi-committed relationship. In other words, I had multiple safety nets, the lowest and most moldy of which would have been my parents' basement. I never really worried about being homeless. It was kind of a cool bohemian dream, to be a vagabond. The nomad vanlife wasn't a thing yet (because YouTube hadn't been invented yet), although people did travel and live in motorhomes. I remember thinking it would be cool to live in a living room on wheels. I had a vision of selling paintings of mountains and waterfalls from the back window of my peddler's art wagon. My partner at the time was equally enamored of the possibilities of the nomad lifestyle, probably because he hoped to fly under his ex-wife's radar, maybe avoid paying taxes, skip out on child support, that sort of thing. Me, I just wanted freedom.
Speaking of freedom, I'm headed out to Quartzsite in a week to hang out with the vanlifers, nomads, RVers, and schoolies. It will be crowded. I will not be alone. I will not be lonely. I will find kindred spirits. Or I will enjoy my solitude—just one small minivan among many travelers—cook food on my butane stove, and catch up on my sleep. I'm not sure what the internet situation will be. I don't really care.
After that desert rendezvous ends, I'm planning on visiting my demented friend in Los Angeles. She's in a place now for nutty seniors. I complain a lot about my cognitive abilities (and I'm sure I'm dropping typos in my blogposts like my mother used to drop used tissues from every pocket), but I can still think and make decisions. Not great ones, sometimes, but I have autonomy. My poor friend has lost her ability to think, just like my mother did over the last few years of her life. But my friend is not even seventy. My heart is broken.
Well, whose isn't, these days? If you haven't had some heartbreak in the past year, lucky you. I hope 2024 is better for all of us, no matter what kind of year we had. For those of us who struggle, I offer the familiar maxim, so 1970s but still true: not all who wander are lost.
