After an interminable week of debilitating pain, it seems my clenched jaw has finally relaxed. What a relief. There's a thing called TMJ, who knew. Like TMI, but a lot more painful. My cheekbones are dented from my desperate attempts to grind my fingers into the pressure points (I learned that on Dr. YouTube). Pressing on the jaw hinge was a bad idea, I discovered. However, kneading my cheekbones as if my face was made of bread dough really helped relieve the tension. A twice-daily ibuprofen also helped. I'm happy to say, last night was my first night sleeping without a pill.
Speaking of masochists, I continue my headlong hurdle toward the edge of my personal housing cliff. In anticipation of my impending free fall, my friends and family are sending me Wikipedia links to Arizona towns they think might suit me. I dutifully check them out. Safford, Globe, Payson, Coolidge, Eloy. Lot of cool names. Like any place, each town has pros and cons. Too small, too hot, too cold, too near fire danger, too near a federal prison . . . But lots of interesting history, if you like mining.
The thing about parking yourself in one place is you are stuck there. I don't know how you live, maybe you go out all the time, but me, I'm prone to hunkering in my burrow, immersed in my isolation. Being alone is my happy place. However, if the burrow I have rented is too hot, too cold, too noisy, too expensive, or otherwise not suitable, then picking up and moving to another burrow is not easy. I know this from experience.
Not so when your burrow is your car.
My generous friends in Scottsdale, the ones with the little dog, apparently feel bad that I might be living in my car for a while. This summer they have trips planned to exotic places. Would I like to take care of the small furry creature while they are gone? Of course, I said yes. I love that little dog, and the house has all the mod cons (plus, the pool got fixed). Lots of reasons to say yes.
However, when I'm living in someone else's space, I am not inhabiting my own. You might think, oh, vacation, how nice. That is not how I see it. I see myself as neither guest nor employee, but some third thing. Friend, maybe, but a friend who is willing to leave half her life in her car in order to be at the beck and call of a dog and so my friends can enjoy their trips knowing the dog will be well loved. How they can leave their dog for so long is beyond my comprehension, but that's just me. I miss my cat daily.
Another drawback to saying yes to dogsitting is the season. Summer in Phoenix is brutal. In fact, summer is life threatening. It is not possible to live in a car during the summer in Phoenix. Activities are constrained to early morning. The rest of the time, except for brief excursions to the back yard to make sure the dog pees, I have to stay indoors. I tell myself, I will get a lot of writing done. I will get a lot of dog love (and we all know that will be good for a person with early stage heart failure). But I will be stuck in Phoenix at a time when anyone with the means to leave does.
Where would I be if I weren't in Scottsdale? Camping in the national forest outside of Flagstaff with all the other van life nomads, finding sunny places to set out my solar panels and listening to the wind riffle the tall pines.
Dog love or tall shady trees?
