Category: South Carolina

Betwixt and Between: What do I do now?

Rhode Island, Atlantic Ocean, beach day, bevyofbooks.com
Probably my last beach day of 2016, Rhode Island coast.

I’m almost out of money.

The smart move is to head back to Montana and stay free with my sister, get a job and return to the story of work and home and a settled life. Or that same scenario, but back in Portland where I have a support system and more professional connections.

Winter is coming. No, not Winter is Coming, nothing ominous here. Just snow and cold and studded tires and windshields that must be scraped. Montana has winter, the real stuff. I will not be actively choosing to winter anywhere that knows what that word means.

Returning to Portland would feel like coming full circle – which wouldn’t be bad, but it would feel like the end of this story. And I’m not ready for that ending just yet.

I am a little tired of not having my own space to return to. I might be spoiled for ever living with anyone long-term ever again. I just want to wake up in a space where no one intrudes without invitation, regardless of how much I might love the intruder. That means some kind of place of my own, even if just for six months or whatever. But while I am looking forward to not being a ping-pong ball, I did still want something new.

So I’m going to Seattle in two weeks. West Coast feels like home, Seattle is on the water and near the ocean and has very little winter.  I have a friend there who’ll let me crash while I find work and I can take the train back to Montana for Christmas. And if it all tumbles down around me, both Portland and Montana are close enough to crawl back to and lick my wounds.

So here I am in South Carolina, sitting in a new place with not-new people, headed down a well-traveled road with a new adventure at the end of it. At least, what in my head seems like a new adventure. I’m looking forward to it.

 

Post-Road-Trip Slump

Zion National Park, Utah, bevy of books, rock hound, geology
Yet another amazing rock formation in Zion National Park.
Too much to do and then not enough? No, that’s not right. Over-stimulation and then the recovery period? Closer, but still not right.

I spent a bit more than three weeks alone with myself (a phrase that really doesn’t make sense, you can’t really be alone with someone, even if that someone is you. Right?). October 14 until the 22 was spent alone on the coast of Oregon. On 23 I hit the road, traveling 4,185 miles to North Charleston, South Carolina via Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, Nogales Mexico and New Orleans.

Colorado River, bevy of books, rock hound, geology
Colorado River in Arizona, north of Grand Canyon
It was mind-altering. It was sometimes boring (mostly the driving in Nevada and Texas). It was educational. It was a bit stressful (when my car broke down). I spent 3 nights and 2 days in New Orleans at this great Airbnb place… and then I was just OVER IT. I was ready to be done with the moving and the packing and the navigating and the learning and just STOP already.

So I cut the original two-day trip from NOLA to Charleston to one long 11-hour drive (which ended up being 12, thank you rush hour in Atlanta) and pulled into my cousin’s driveway at 11:25pm, November 6. And I’ve basically done NOTHING since then. Got chauffeured to see the ocean (which was great). Saw a movie. Ate a lot of great food that someone else decided on and cooked (which meant I didn’t have to!). Crocheted some baby hats and helped a tiny bit with a baby shower.

Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, New Orleans, bevy of books
This is not the ocean, This is Lake Pontchartrain, just north of New Orleans.
All the things I want to write about and share seemed to have evaporated from my brain. How did that happen?

I’m just now getting back to that stuff. Looking through the (just from the camera, after much deleting) 965 photos I have from that road trip helps. Finding videos I’d forgotten I had taken, which spark memories of specific times and places on the road. Little by little, it starts to return.

One of the best moments:

I’m driving across the widest point of Texas, the first full day back on the road after my car broke down. I had spent about 24 hours wondering if I’d have to ditch the car and spend a ton of cash renting something to get me to South Carolina, and then more cash to get a new car. I was over the moon to be out of Nogales and back on track to New Orleans. And it just hit me like a ton of bricks…

I am on my way to New Orleans.

For no reason at all, other than I wanted to go there.

No one who knows me actually knows where I am right this minute. I am not obligated to anyone to be anywhere for anything.

And I am DRIVING ACROSS THE COUNTRY.

And this is MY LIFE right now.

How can that even be true? That’s Amazing! Amazing like the clip below:

And it’s not over.