Montana – A Bevy of Books

Joy and Stillness

Flathead Lake, Montana, bevyofbooks.com — Flathead Lake, MT

Still.

I am sitting very still – metaphorically speaking. Day 7 in Seattle, and the stormy weather forecast has discouraged all the vague ideas I had about driving to the coast or going to visit people in Portland. And so I am sitting – with tea and a book – and looking back at the last few weeks in awe.

One week ago, I was driving from Hungry Horse to Seattle. Two weeks ago, I was on day three of driving from Cleveland to Hungry Horse. Three weeks ago, I was driving from New Hampshire to South Carolina. Four weeks ago, I was in New Hampshire. Five weeks ago, I was in New Jersey. Six weeks ago, I was driving from Cleveland to Philadelphia.

Somewhere in there, I visited New York City, a beach in Rhode Island and knocked four more states off my list. I spent time with both sisters and their families, two cousins and their families, one aunt and uncle and several great friends. I stayed in six different homes and 11 different hotels, traveling through a total of 23 states (nine of those in one day, thank you tiny New England states) and put more than 6000 miles on my car.

Manhattan, Staten Island Ferry, NYC, New York City, bevyofbooks.com — Manhattan from the back of the Staten Island Ferry.

No wonder I’m tired. No wonder I’m excited about getting a regular job and finding an apartment of my own. Even the idea of having to get up IN THE MORNING five days a week hasn’t made me question my decision to stay in one place for a little while.

I got to take public transportation to three interviews this week – someone else did the driving! I got to shop at Fred Meyer, where they have both my favorite tea and my favorite sausage! Street buskers, gorgeous views of Elliot Bay, funky residential areas, pedestrians! I actually unpacked my suitcase!

Tea and a good book. Stillness and joy.

Next steps: Searching for the YES.

Fireworks in the snow on New Year's Eve. — Fireworks in the snow on New Year’s Eve.

I’ve got a lot of things swirling in my head lately. Three weeks of downtime in Montana – where the area is utterly familiar (and beautiful) and the weather has discouraged me from wanting to go out – I’ve been evaluating my nine months on the road and what I want for the immediate future.

I’m not coming up with any good answers. I’m thinking about things like going back to work full-time or going back to work part-time so I can go back to school. Searching job openings in cities I’ve never been to.

It’s mostly just a mental exercise… a reminder that I really can do what I want, which means not traveling, if that’s what I decide. Nine months of travel is making it feel like a chore, when it was supposed to be a joy. Not enough time to myself means I’m moody and not always pleasant to the people around me.

These were my choices. Which means I can choose something new tomorrow. I don’t know why it’s so easy to forget that, but it is. Everyone I know does it, either occasionally or all the damned time. Some people even deny they ever had a choice (those people I mostly choose not to spend time with).

My biggest challenge this year has been choosing to spend money. It’s the biggest reason I haven’t spent enough time alone. Being alone almost always means spending money on lodging – the most expensive piece of most travel budgets. Yes, there are ways to save on the cost, and I’ve used them, but it’s hard to beat FREE, which is what it costs to stay with friends.

But I had seriously underestimated how living completely alone for five years had fed my love of solitude, making it even more important to my emotional well-being. Ask anyone I’ve stayed with this year, my favorite thing is to wake up in an empty house.

My lack of awareness, and later my denial of this need to be alone, means in the choice between saving money or saving sanity, I chose to save money. But that choice is no longer sustainable, so I must make new choices.

I don’t know what that looks like yet. Right now I have another opportunity to fill up my savings account, so that means I’ll be in Portland for longer than expected. Most of my mental swirling has been shifting from ‘how do I save money?’ to ‘how can I make more money?’

I know one thing. I’ve spent many years now trying to follow my heart, the voice in my head, the pull that tells me what I really want and what I can do. And every single time I’ve listened hard and believed that what I wanted was attainable, the fates have dropped that shit right in my lap. Jobs, career changes, housing, friends, travel. When my heart and mind would both give a big YES to a risk I was taking, it would all turn out even better than I’d hoped.

And on the flip side, every time I’ve ignored the big NO that comes with a bad choice, I’ve regretted it. I’ve spent years and tears trying to get back to a YES. I really have gotten much better at hearing that NO, I can tell you.

But you get busy with the day to day crap, and you forget to check back in with that YES and see if it’s still there. Make sure you haven’t wandered off, following shiny things, and lost track of what you were doing. To make sure that it’s not been fulfilled and time to find the next one.

So I’m looking for the next big YES. And looking forward to what will come my way.

Full Moon Over Montana

This morning I saw the almost-full moon as I left a friend’s house at 2:30am. I feel like I’ve noticed a lot of them lately… and I haven’t hit two in a row in the same location since I quit my job. I remember looking at the almost-full moon late last month in Portland, and then tripping on the sidewalk and skinning my knee like a kid learning to ride her bike. And then seeing the actually full moon in the darkness of rural New Hampshire (yes, I know, it’s mostly all rural, just go with it).

starts Googling, checks photos on computer and phone, checks calendar.

There were two full moons in July, so I was in Portland for the July 2 viewing (though I managed not to trip on the sidewalk that time). June I was in New Hampshire, dark and awesome, and May I was in Montana.

Lincoln City Oregon, moon, bevy of books — Okay, this not actually a full moon, and it’s fuzzy. But I think those are stars/planets next to it, and it was taken in Lincoln City, yet another place I’ve almost seen a full moon lately. And, let’s face it, lots of pics of a white moon on a black background don’t make for interesting blog accents.

April. Well, it seems that April’s full moon happened on Saturday, April 4 at 6:07am. That would be the first day of my brand new life. I swear I didn’t plan these things (first day in Montana was my birthday!).

The lunar calendar seems like a good way to mark time when you’re trying not to mark time too closely. Where was I 28 days ago? What was I doing, and with whom? And what kind of new and interesting things have I seen and learned in that time?

Since I last saw the full moon, I’ve driven my car 3,055 miles, through 12 states (including two new ones, Missouri and Nebraska), and stayed with lovely people, old friends and new, in places both familiar and newly discovered. I learned that NW Missouri is gorgeous, and Indianapolis is HUGE.

I’ve seen both sisters and all their children. I haven’t seen the ocean. I sat listening to cicadas in the sweltering heat of Warrensburg, and actually got a bit chilly in the mountains of the Bob Marshall wilderness. I re-learned that the appropriate wardrobes for these two places are very different. I spent four nights in the woods, and got out right before the fires ripped through the camp I was staying in (everyone, including the stock, got out safely).

Hungry Horse MT, full moon, bevy of books — Full moon in Hungry Horse May 2.

I discovered that, for some reason, 1500 miles in two days is easier than 600 miles in one (which I still do not understand). I got a massage. I added two new wifi networks to my electronic devices. I made choices about what to do with my 401k. I decided where I’m going to be for Thanksgiving.

And I was offered a short-term bookkeeping gig for good money – which I accepted, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be seeing the full moon from Portland once again in September. Looking forward to that one, too.

It’s not a mess, it’s my work flow

I’m not a ‘do one thing until it is done, then do the next thing’ person. Mostly, I think, because there is rarely just ‘one’ thing to do. If you are cleaning your room, that involves doing laundry and re-shelving books and realizing that you need to buy new socks, plus wondering where your favorite pen has disappeared to and thinking it’s time for new pictures on the wall. Cooking dinner means washing dishes, noticing you are out of butter and thinking about what to have for lunch tomorrow.

I’m most happy when I am in the middle of at least three things. I think this is likely frustrating for my employers and other people in my life, who look at my half-finished piles of whatever and wonder when I’m ever going to finish anything. The answer, of course, is usually that they’ll all be finished about the same time.

I remember moving out of my house a few years ago, and my then-boyfriend showed up to help me load the Uhaul. He was very much a one-thing-at-a-time dude, and therefore would get angry if you interrupted with a new wrinkle in the task he was performing. He saw each as a separate thing, to be addressed individually. The look on his face when he saw a dozen half-empty boxes and what appeared to be nothing ready to go was… well, not a compliment. But he changed his tune a half hour later when suddenly (to him) almost everything was ready to go.

Similarly, an average non-travel day means I’m likely to be reading a book, writing in my journal or typing on my computer, interspersed with making tea, eating a meal and changing the music. I’m pretty good at cleaning up after myself, but not usually in a ‘drink last sip of tea, get out of chair and put mug in the dishwasher’ kind of way. The mug will likely sit on that end table until I finish the chapter I was reading. The journal might sit on the table while I go take a shower, then work on my computer. At the end of the day, the dishes will be in the kitchen and the various books and electronics will be back where they belong – but in the middle of the day, they are usually strewn everywhere.

Which is fine if you’re in your own house… but not so great if you’re staying with friends. I try to be a good houseguest, which means certainly cleaning up after myself, and well as chipping in where I can with chores and errands. No one likes coming home from work to see that their company (who slept in while they had to get up early, and hung out at home while they dealt with work BS) has left their shit all over your house. At least – this is how I imagine they would feel. I try not to let that happen.

All of this to say: I’m quite happy this morning/afternoon, as I settle in at my sister’s house, where most of the residents seem to have much the same pattern of work, and where they know I will clean up after myself.

Eventually.

My First Travel Listicle

One way to drive 2500+ miles in four days (3 full days + two half-days = four days):

Don’t string all those days together – break for a day, or maybe a few days to hang out with your friends along the way.
Don’t bring food in the car you’ll regret eating later. In fact, if you only have healthy snacks in the car, you’re likely to eat nothing else until you stop for dinner – a traveler in motion tends to stay in motion.
RE: #2 – Good for making time, bad for really seeing the country you’re driving through. Also bad for your attitude by the end of the day.
Relearn how to pump your own gas efficiently.
This one has everything – poor framing, not enough zoom, streaks on the windshield and a bit of the steering wheel.
Notice all the billboards and road signs that say “Don’t Text and Drive.” (or alternately, “Don’t TXT & Drive,” because that guy was hip to the young people). Notice how none of them say “Don’t Take Photos and Drive.” Proceed accordingly.
80mph in South Dakota. Seriously?
Do not plan to see a national landmark at the end of a long day of driving when the weather has quite unexpectedly turned cold and snowy. You will not enjoy it.
Realize you should have gotten an EZPass for driving through the northern part of the Central and Eastern Time Zones. You’re spending a lot of money and extra time paying a ton of tolls.
RE: #7 and 8 – Acknowledge that the need to do research for a long trip does not completely go away just because you have Google Maps.
Notice how amazed you are when you recognize street names and realize you are able to actually drive all the way to Cleveland, that place you used to live. Marvel at the surprise you feel, though this was your goal all along.
Try to explain #10 to people and watch them be very confused by you. Be glad they are friends and like you anyway.
Send blessings to the Google Maps people for helping you navigate strange cities.
Don’t assume cool tourist traps will be open for business before Memorial Day just because they have the Blues Brothers out front.
Give yourself smug cool points for your Oregon license plate as you get further east, until you see the dude with the Alaska plates. Decide Alaska dude had his truck shipped out here and go back to feeling smug.
Notice how your car is downshifting to climb that hill and realize it hasn’t had to climb a hill in four states.
Decide that upstate New York looks much like the Wisconsin Dells.
Be surprised that some areas of Vermont and New Hampshire look much like the Matanuska Valley.
Curse the Google Maps people for being unable to locate your sister’s house in rural New Hampshire.