Home is a state of mind

A new freedom can lead to a new happiness. So they say. I was skeptical. The hardest part, I discovered, is launching from the familiar into the unknown. However, the fear of staying stuck finally outweighed my fear of change, and now here I am, free to start a new chapter. You could call it homelessness. You could call it an epic journey of a lifetime, a quest for my heart's desire. I don't care what you call it. It's not your journey. It's not your life.

Should I tell you about the challenges of living in a vehicle? No, you don't want to hear about the sordid realities of refilling water jugs and dumping plastic bags of poop. You just want to be reassured that I'm okay.

Don't worry. I'm okay. I'm actually more than okay. I'm starting to feel like myself again. Autonomous, independent, free to make my own foolish choices, unconstrained by the shackles of a temporary life that wasn't mine. Now I'm free to search for a new life, maybe a new place, I don't know. Time will tell.

When you don't have a lot of money, freedom requires a small footprint. My mission is to live within my means; hence, the car thing. For now, it's the only way to maintain a semblance of my preferred lifestyle without blowing through the last of my savings. You might be reassured to know I have everything I need (literally) at my fingertips. I can get almost anything just by reaching for it. That's one upside of living in a car. On the other hand, smells. 

Right now, I'm parked on BLM land north of Tucson. The rain that just soaked California is now soaking the desert. The sound of rain on my car roof is oddly soothing. I peer outside my windows through a veil of raindrops. Everything is so green out here. Spring in the desert is pretty amazing. I get why people come here. And I get why they leave along about mid-May. Words don't describe how hard it is to live here without air conditioning when the mercury soars past 95°F. Living in a trailer with metal awnings was hard enough, even with AC. Imagine how much harder it is to live in a car. 

Ah, but living in one's car means freedom to move on! As long as I have gas in the tank and the engine cranks and runs, I'm mobile. Like all nomads, when the season shifts, I will drive away to cooler climes. 

So far, all my moves have been about getting somewhere so I can finally start living. Now I live where I am. This lifestyle is about the journey, not the destination. I can't get lost living like this, because no matter where I am, I'm where I belong, in that moment. Maybe home isn't just one place. Maybe home isn't a place at all. Maybe home is a state of mind rather than a point on a map. 

At the end of the world, might as well be nice

In spite of the general and specific terrors of living with other humans, for some reason, I have been enjoying my interactions with people. I think it has something to do with the what-the-heck feeling I've been having at the prospect of my life imploding. I can afford to be magnimous. After all it might be my last chance to live my mantra, which last time I checked was to be loving and kind to others. Opportunities to practice abound.

Last week I bought a slab of foam rubber for my car camping bed. It took about an hour on three freeways to find the foam rubber place way out on the west side of Phoenix. Blogbots, we aren't in Scottsdale anymore! I always feel more at home when there is a pawn shop on every corner. My poor white trash roots showing, probably. Anyway, I pulled into the wayback parking lot of a big square concrete building and went in the tiny door next to the big garage door. It was clear by the looks on the faces of the workers that they didn't see many customers like me. Nevertheless the young woman behind the glass pane spoke enough English to understand my request for the firmest foam they had. She showed me a foot-square sample of 4 inch foam, almost hard as a rock. 

"That's the stuff," I said. 

She figured out the price for the size that will fit my bed platform. I was thrilled. It was a fraction of what I would have spent ordering online. Plus, I got to see the inside of a foam factory while I waited for them to cut my little piece of foam. I stood at the edge of the waiting area (no customers allowed past this line) and perused the big open space with the same delight I might have eyeballed a lovely waterfall or the cliff dwellings of Montezuma Castle.

Foam was stacked to the ceiling in places. A couple of really young women in tight jeans wrapped huge sofa cushions in plastic and stacked them in a pile near the loading door. Two men were running slabs of foam through a giant metal contraption. One of those slabs probably turned into my mattress, but it was too far across the factory for me to see. 

After about ten minutes, a short Latino man approached carrying what was obviously my specially cut mattress. 

"You want wrap plastic?" he said. I could tell he was hoping I would say no, and I did. No plastic for me, I like my slab of foam commando. I thanked him, grinning like an idiot. He probably thought I was mental. I took my new mattress out into the sunshine and loaded into the back of my car on top of the scrap wood I have to return to my storage unit this week. The van configuration is almost complete. 

So now I have two foam mattresses, one firm and dense, the other twenty year old mush that never was particularly firm, even when it was the new cushion for my home-built couch at the Love Shack in Portland. It's lost its mojo, after twenty years, if it ever had any. I'm sitting on it right now, actually. It's not an ideal typing situation, according to my arthritic hip, but it's not terrible to sleep on, even though I've violated it with my bread knife a few times, carving it in stages into something that could travel with me to Tucson. 

More interactions. Today I was at the store picking up a prescription for one of the drugs that makes it possible for my heart to refrain from murdering me. I smiled at the pharmacist and got a mildly pleasant response. I let shoppers with their carts go ahead of me and got smiles in return. I smiled at the cashier at the self-service register and she gave me a wide, gap-toothed grin and told me to have a nice day. 

I got in my car, ignoring the check engine light (my nemesis reappeared yesterday on my drive from Phoenix to Tucson). As I was maneuvering toward the exit, I saw a little car with a flat tire. An elderly woman was at the wheel. I pulled around and rolled my window down. 

"I have a flat tire!" she said.

"I see that!" I said. "Do you have someone coming to help you?" I tried to imagine me parking my car and attempting to help her change a flat tire. Right. I've changed, what, like one flat tire in my life? That was not recently, as you can imagine. 

"I'm calling Triple A," she nodded, letting me off the hook. "I have a car full of frozen food!"

"Oh, no!" I commiserated, adding some appropriate hand gestures to express my sorrow at her plight. 

We smiled at each other. I wished her luck. I pulled my car around in a circle and headed out of the parking lot, feeling like I'd connected with another human, even though I was completely useless as a potential solution to her problem. I offered her empathy rather than actual help, but sometimes just knowing someone cares enough to check and express compassion can be enough to help us show up with courage. She was in no danger. I just hope Triple A didn't keep her waiting too long.

What if I approached all my interactions with a caring heart? Good Samaritans don't always survive their altruism, sadly. But what is the point of living if we are always circling the wagons to keep ourselves safe? Total safety is an illusion. 

Free falling in the California desert

Greetings, Blogbots. I hope you are well. I am blogging to you from the lovely town of Rancho Cucamonga. At least, I think that is where I am. Can I really be sure? The map says this is where I am, but I’m feeling a little out of body, which I think is normal for a person on a road trip with many detours, wrong turns, and back tracks. All I can say is, thank you for a patient GPS lady who never yells at me even when I fail to follow her directions.

I’ve been on the road for seven days. It sounds kind of romantic when I say it like that. “On the road.” There is nothing romantic about being homeless, and that is what this resembles. Unfortunately, unlike a true homeless person, I tried to bring everything with me, which means I’m spending a lot of time rearranging boxes. It’s been a learning experience.

So far, I’ve spent a night parked at a casino, a street in Venice, a residential neighborhood, a grocery store parking lot, and a rest stop on I-15. The only location that gave me pause was the street in Venice, parked between two campervans that had clearly not moved in some time. I’m guessing only street cleaning day forces them to vacate their prime location just blocks from the beach. Does parking near the beach make up for living in a car? Maybe when you are young. If you are under 40, it’s a bohemian lifestyle. If you are over 60, it’s down and out in Venice, California.

The weather in Tucson was just getting hot when I left. I drove west in lovely sunshine and hit a wall of gray clouds about 30 miles east of San Diego. The clouds followed me north. Venice was cold and gray. I drove up the PCH to Oxnard and Ventura, dodging rain drops. On Day4 I walked out on the Huntington Beach pier, huddled in my jacket and warm hat, hoping it the clouds would blow out to sea with the oil tankers. On Day 5, I headed northeast, desperate for heat and light. On Day 6, I spent about five minutes in Las Vegas, long enough to know I hope I never have to go there again. Today is Day 7.

What have I learned? First, I learned it’s okay to drive in circles, to get lost, to take an exit to avoid traffic jams or just to see where it goes. It doesn’t matter where I go when I have no firm destination and loose timetables. Second, wild camping in the city means I can’t heat water on a butane stove to make my coffee. Starbucks coffee is not great, hot or cold, but you do what you have to do. Third, meeting friends for food will eventually make me sick, fat, and poor. Finally, I learned that going up in elevation is not good for my head.

I learned other stuff, too, but I’ll save those tidbits for next week. This is just to let you know, I am alive, somewhere in the low desert suburbs of southern California. I hope you all have a good week.

Driving into the wild blue yonder

The day has arrived. The leap into the unknown is about to begin. Do we ever know what awaits us, though? Isn't every day we choose to get out of bed a leap into the unknown? All kinds of events, both good and bad, could happen. For instance, a meteor could hit your neighborhood two doors down from you. Didn't see that coming, did you? Or you could win the lottery! Hey, it could happen. On one hand, you could get shot at the mall food court. Or maybe you'll meet the love of your life at Panda Express. It could happen! Although the odds of the latter happening are probably much less than the former. 

So, here I am beginning my pilgrimage, my journey, my adventure, my leap of faith, and it could be a total catastrophe or it could be sublime. Probably somewhere in between, as life usually is. In my typical fashion, I have prepared for the worst, because I'm a Debbie Downer, but remember that people like me who stomp around with their head down are the ones who find the stray twenty on the sidewalk. Just saying. 

I've packed way too much stuff. Some I will jettison along the way, delivering things to friends and family. I should be traveling lighter on the way back. Still, I'm sure I have packed too much, because I don't yet know what I won't need. 

Along those lines, this might be my last blogpost. Not because I think I'm going to die, although that could happen, but because I don't know what my internet access is going to look like for the next month. That means if you don't hear from me, please don't worry. I will stay in touch by other means, assuming I'm alive and I am not stranded on BLM land with no cell service.

Speaking of BLM land, I don't expect to be doing much dispersed camping. When I'm not staying at a friend's house, I'm mostly going city stealth, or as stealthy as a novice car camper can be. I've seen all the YouTube videos, but that doesn't mean I know what I'm doing. Truck stop? Walmart? Cracker Barrel? What accommodations will I find in the wild blue yonder?

On my move to Tucson from Portland two years ago I slept in parking lots. The first night was at a casino in Winnemuca, Nevada, and the second, at a hospital in Las Vegas. I moved during Covid, one of the many rounds of Covid that made us all wary of being around other people. I was almost denied entry to use the restroom in the hospital. (That was before I learned how to poop in a bucket.) Now we don't care much about Covid, do we, even though people are still dying from it. People my age, I might add. I'm bringing my mask, and I will wear it into public places, but I don't know what I will do about going into friends' homes. If they want me to mask up, I will. But how do I know where they have been? This might be the time I finally get Covid. Hopefully it won't kill me, and hopefully I won't infect any of my friends or family. More of those dang hopefullies.

My route is basically west, then north. I generally know which way is west, and once I get to the ocean, I know which way to turn. I have some interim destinations tentatively planned along the way, but it's quite possible I will get lost and not find them. This is how I roll. So, if I tell you I planned to visit Temecula to eyeball the Winco store there, but I ended up in Podunk, Idaho, well, don't be surprised. Although I would be too embarrassed to admit I committed such an egregious failure to comprehend a map. I can't blame Google Maps for everything.

Think of me occasionally over the next month or so, will you? I will think of you. I will imagine your lives continuing apace, as if you knew for sure what tomorrow would bring. I will picture you rolling out of your comfy bed, brewing your beverage of choice, check your emailing, and yelling at politicians, if you are so inclined. I hope you will not take your modern conveniences and comfortable routines for granted, because tomorrow they could be removed. Nothing is guaranteed, except death and the tax returns I hope you have already submitted. 

Meanwhile, I will be driving and pooping in a bucket, hopefully not at the same time. 

Happy trails to me. 

Dreaming of hopefullies

I had a topic in mind for today's blogpost, and then I took a nap and had a dream that I lost my cellphone. I woke up in tears, blaming myself for my carelessness, and when I looked inside my brain, all remnants of my previous topic idea had vanished. I hate it when that happens. I know better than to shut my eyes without writing the thing down, but there it goes, off into the ether to find a writer who is less careless with her ideas. It was such a great idea, too, one of my best. Really pithy and poignant. You would have been impressed. To tears. 

Meanwhile, in other news, the planning for the epic car camping journey of a lifetime continues. I guess I'm ready to drive off the cliff. Or wherever the road takes me. Hopefully not off a cliff. There are a lot of hopefullies associated with this trip, I'm noticing. Hopefully it will have stopped raining (and snowing) by the time I drive through California. Hopefully floodwaters and landslides will have receded. Hopefully I won't be dumb enough to rely on Google Maps this time. On my last trip I almost ended up in Salt Lake City.

Let me tell you about that dream. I was at somebody's big fancy house. There were movie stars! And an indoor pool! Somebody said, Carol, why don't you go for a swim? I peeled off most of my clothes and laid them by the poolside. Then I got distracted by something else in the dream. Next thing you know, I go back, all my stuff is gone. Stupid! I berated myself into wakefulness, and woke with great relief at finding I hadn't actually been that stupid. My cellphone sat silent nearby. I don't think I would have been so trusting in real life. But you never know. Movie stars! Indoor pools!

I'm not starstruck. In my former days as a custom clothing designer, I had occasion to meet a few movie stars. A few people whose names you would probably recognize. With one minor exception of somebody who held my hand just a wee tiny bit too long, they were all polite and professional. 

Hopefully I will find safe places to sleep along the route. Hopefully there will be cell service in all places so I can text my sister before she calls the local sheriff to send a search posse. Hopefully my car holds out. A lot of hopefullies.

I feel like I'm going off to summer camp or something.

Is it normal to feel trepidation? Hm. I was going to write that I am not used to undertaking big adventures on my own, but then I realized, hey, how do I think I got to Tucson in the first place? Epic car adventure! Three days of driving through Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona on tiny roads both gorgeous and godforsaken (because I missed my turn and ended up almost in Salt Lake City). Getting lost is how you see cool things. Hopefully I can seek out cool things to look at intentionally and get to actually appreciate their coolness, instead of berating myself for not being able to read road signs in the dark. I mean, I need to cut myself some slack: good eyesight is nice but perhaps slightly overrated when there's no one else on the road.

Hopefully somewhere along the journey, my head will settle enough to hear myself think. Hopefully I'll find a place that feels like home. Hopefully I won't lay my cell phone down somewhere and drive off without it. 

Home. That was the topic that floated off into the ether. Something to do with home. Home. Ho um. Ho hum. 

You wouldn't believe how many people would be happy to take my money in exchange for telling me what losing my cellphone means. Apparently, I am feeling disconnected and out of touch. My communications with others are broken, at risk, not going through. Hm. A good day for me is when the phone doesn't ring. 

I remember days before cellphones, do you? Color TV, cordless phones! IBM PCs, Macintoshes, and floppy disks! I remember life before the internet. It's hard to imagine life without it now, although I get to experience the tiny but excruciating loss frequently. The blazing fast internet here at the trailer is a bit temperamental. It goes out once in a while, usually for about three minutes. During those three minutes, do I sweat? Am I anxious? Do I watch the little circle representing the entirety of my existence and pray for the moment the happy broadcast waves return? No, because I know I cannot petition for restored internet with prayer. Duh.

I wonder how I will feel when I'm parked at some rest area or truck stop or Walmart in podunk California, debating how much data my hotspot would chew through because I felt compelled to check for nonexistent email from friends and scour my inbox of all the political entreaties, Pinterest clickbait, and Duolingo reminders. I guess I'll find out (assuming I'm not parked in a dead zone). 

Speaking of dead zones, I sent away for a USB tuner stick that will hopefully let me get broadcast channels on my laptop while I'm on the road. I tried it here at the trailer, and it worked. Unfortunately, it didn't get me any more channels than the bigger antenna does on my Mom's television. I guess broadcast airwaves is a physical thing. There's no magical USB device that will magically attract all those shy waves that are blocked by mountains, buildings, and stupid metal trailer awnings. If I could petition the broadcast airwave gods, I'd ask for a giant roof antenna. Some days, you need more than just ABC, PBS, and Univision.

There are so many criteria for a new home. What criteria do you consider important? Proximity to good schools? Safety? Green spaces? I'd already considered proximity to Winco as a dealbreaker, but now I think I should consider airwave reception. You might say, well, Carol, there's this thing called cable . . . I hear you, but I'm ignoring you. Meanwhile, I have one more blogging Sunday before go-live, go-big-or-go-home, drive-off-the-cliff time. See you then.

Elevation is not the same as transcendence

Who knew elevation matters? Maybe you know all about elevation and air pressure. I'm a slow science learner. The experts tell me air pressure decreases the closer one gets to sea level. I associate low air pressure with S.A.D., clouds, wind, and rain. In most places I've been (which isn't all that many), air pressure drops when crappy weather moves in, which is why I prefer not to stay in places with crappy weather (like Portland). So should I head to sea level or not?

I don't understand the mechanics of vestibular disturbance. When the air pressure decreases, subjectively my inner ears sometimes feel more stable. However, when clouds roll in and rain starts pouring, my emotional health tumbles. (I think probably Hawaii is the place for me, but where would I park my home on wheels?) 

Last night around 11 p.m. a strange thing happened. I had a five minute respite. It took me a couple minutes to realize what was happening, so I missed enjoying the entire five minutes. Five minutes of not being off balance, of not hearing the crackling in my Eustachian Tube. It was a surprising phenomenon, to be set free. I felt normal. I couldn't believe it. I had to test it, of course. I bent over. I moved around. My head behaved normally, that is to say, I was not dizzy or off balance, and my crackling ear was silent.

Ah, blessed silence. 

I could hardly believe it was while it was happening, and I knew it wouldn't last, because why would it suddenly resolve after all this time? I hadn't done anything to warrant a miracle. That would definitely be evidence of god, and I'm not going there. Thus I was not surprised or disappointed when a few minutes later, as soon as I went to bed (which means getting horizontal), the pressure and noise were back, my old nemesis, the recurrent chronic oscillating freight train in my head. 

Oscillating is a new word I found to describe the intermittent recurring pattern of this chronic affliction. There is a thing called persistent oscillating vertigo. It is associated with mal de debarquement syndrome, which is a vestibular malady some people get after traveling by plane or boat. I don't have that, because I haven't traveled for years except by car, but apparently it's possible to have POV without having traveled, so maybe I've diagnosed myself. Kudos to me. According to Dr. Google, ETD and MDD are both rare and poorly understood disorders that ENTs would rather ignore. Which is probably why my ENTs proposed solution was to poke a hole in my eardrum. 

The remedies for almost all the vestibular maladies are the same. Drugs, therapy, and vestibular rehabilitation. For now, I'm choosing to soldier through on my own, doing my best to ignore the whole annoying mess.

You might say, well, Carol, you clearly aren't ignoring it, because you write about it every damn week in this stupid blog. Well, you would be right. I complain here in this blog because I'm not taking drugs, getting therapy, or doing physical rehab. I think if I were doing any or all of those things, I might be a happier (but poorer) person and therefore less inclined to complain here (about vestibular issues, there's always more to whine about). 

Speaking of complaining, the road trip to Quartzite has been delayed a day due to inclement weather. The storms destroying California are moving into Arizona, bringing high winds, rain, and chilly temps. I'll get there eventually. I have to find out for myself what it looks and feels like in other places. Quartzite is about 1,000 feet lower in elevation than Tucson, so it is possible my head will be happier there. I doubt it. I don't want to assume anything. However, the five minutes of respite I had last night gives me reason to hope.

Happy holidays from the Hellish Hand-basket

Another year plods to a close. How do individual moments seem to drag when days, months, and years speed by so fast? The moments of 2022 blend together into a big blur of terror and boredom. 

I'd recap but memory fails.

My friend asked me if I was depressed. I said, I don't think so. After our call, I looked up the symptoms of depression. While I was at it, I looked up the symptoms of anxiety. You'll be relieved to know, I don't have either one. I might have signs of dementia, but it's too soon to know for sure. 

I'm pretty sure, though, that I am still grieving.

Just plain old garden variety grief, not so much for what I’ve lost, although that lingers, but more like grief for the idea of home that didn’t manifest for me since coming to Tucson. I sought a safe affordable home in the desert, and I got a temporary fix, which is grand, but long-term, Tucson did not turn out to be the answer for me, and that makes me sad.

As long as I'm grieving, I might as well add other losses to the list. I’m sad that suddenly I have to take so many meds. I’m sad that my heart is glitchy. I’m sad that my ears won’t settle. I’m sad I will end up joining the vast numbers of "car camping" nomads while I look for my new home. It's going to take a miracle. In other words, luck and persistence.

As long as I'm sad for myself, I might as well add my tears to the universal mix. I’m sad that so many people around the world are suffering. Near and far, life is hard and people suffer. Life has always been hard. People have always suffered. On a suffering scale, is it better or worse now, compared to decades past? I have no idea. How do you define and measure suffering? Can I say I suffer more than you suffer? To me, being cold is suffering. Hothouse flower.

Today is Christmas day. Two of my siblings got on the Zoom today with their respective significant others to do the obligatory monthly family Zoom, which just happened to fall on Christmas day. One sibling was absent. He has always blazed his own trail. Even as I send him texts (where are you? Family Zoom happening now!), I envy him his detachment. There's freedom in remaining unattached.

My family detached from Christmas years ago. When the parents were alive, we'd go out to eat. No cooking, no cleaning. Then we detached from the season by adopting a round-robin secret Santa gift-giving exchange among the immediate family members. Before long, we stopped giving gifts all together. Dad died, Mom became demented, I was broke, my younger brother was busy, and my older brother didn't care. 

Only my sister seems interested in carrying on any sort of family tradition or ritual. Channeling Mom, she sent me a toothbrush for Xmas 2021. This year I asked her not to. I can buy my own toothbrushes. But I think she was trying to hold family tradition together. As we get older, traditions have tattered. Memories have faded. We are widely scattered with no parent to glue the family dregs together. Interest and energy are circling the drain. 

Speaking of family rituals, next spring I'm planning to take a road trip to Oregon. If all goes according to plan, my sister will fly out from Boston. We will drive down to the coast and scatter Mom's ashes on the Columbia River at the same place we scattered my father's ashes, if we can find the place. It might have been washed away by time and tide since 2005 or whenever we did that ritual. Mom's been in a box for almost two years. It's time we set her free. Not that she would care—Elf on a Shelf, Mom in a Box—but I suppose my brother could use the shelf space.

It's possible that I will discover my next home somewhere on that road trip. Fingers crossed.