Three weeks technically homeless, the bus ran out of funds, I broke off the 8 week engagement and slept on the bus in parking lots, the car, two sailboats, many floors, blessed hotels (which slept the worst), and a handful of couches and for near a night, a sandy lake beach. I am back to work until the season ends. I am again in the same situation I wanted to avoid, but I can't be happier about it - afterall I was the one who said I learn best through first hand experience.
I have learned that I need much to learn, and I have also seen the opportunities to learn things appear out of nowhere, constantly. I guess, just like all the mauve-colored cars you only notice around you right after you purchase one yourself, that these lessons and knowledges were all around, the entire time. I was just having too much fun, and too much distraction with such things as appearances this summer and my life the 15 years prior, to pay attention. Such wasted moments, but in my present realizations, no, not really.
So this clarity of thought, clarity in explanation, this is my downfall, or rather, my newest opportunity now. As I half-way have gone back on what I feel is one of the difficult options for single-parents - to go back to school - I am finishing up my Yale application for their graduate nurse-midwifery program - as I read over the instructions for the essay questions, and the manner in which they would be evaluated, there was another gem I found in simple instructions - who would have thought - Oh! the wonder! - the essays will be evaluated on "clarity of thought". Dang! I had such cloudiness that just that description was a blessing - that's my focus - is to have clarity of thought. Not updating the blog since August and re-uniting with friends of years ago both share in that lack of clarity of thought once I try to catch up - just look how this entry was begun - what a whale of a mess.
Clarity of thought and an invariable passion, trying to make sentences make sense. If you're reading this because you saw the address of the side of my bus, you know it's parked in an empty lot. The kids don't know why we aren't sleeping there every night. Go figure, God gives them that peace we sing and preach about and then the folks at church instill fears when someone has the faith enough to put it into practice. My mom calls it testing God. I call it having faith. Society call it unstable and inappropriate, I say society is unstable and inappropriate. Did you notice I'm not doing a good job with clarity or a smooth, easy to read flow of thought? Good. That's purposeful. I watched 5 hours of the history channel the other night when I had the chance to sleep in a hotel and act 'normal'. There's no gold in Fort Knox, this world is disasterously beautiful with life and death and innumerable mysteries and wars and Gods and gods and rainbow serpents. That's just THIS world. I didn't even mention the universe. It's pretty dang confusing, but with my second long night of philosophizing on a sailboat with a new friend, we agreed it's still all pretty damn simple - there is energy, love is energy, God is love - love. There's too many people trying to complicate things.
And I'm not about to sell the bus. Just think that maybe that bus wasn't meant to travel too far. Not sure what it's meant to do. But keeping our eye on the ball, human rights, responsible and peaceful hearts, well, let's just keep it simple. I'll learn how to slaughter chickens hopefully and then I'll be in a primitive way, with a smaller, quieter vocabulary, thus - I will stumble upon my elusive clarity, I know it's there. . .
peace, love, and clarity on the road discovering my community in strings of random acts of love, kindness, and. . .clarity
In 2001 I bought a 26-foot yacht. I was going to sail around Australia, alone. I worked lots on that yacht, spent lots on that yacht and fixed it up. She was a seaworthy lass called Stella.
ReplyDeleteI had a girlfriend. I told her I was going to sail away. She seemed ok with that. When I went to sail away she finally believed in my dream and wanted to join me. She's not the sailing type but I reluctantly agreed to take her with me.
She didn't like it much but she stuck with it because she liked me. Two weeks and 2 ports later she had a hypothalamic cavernoma. We left the boat. It was a 2-hour drive back home. She had major brain surgery. She's ok now. We went our separate ways a year later.
A broker rang me many months later to tell me he had sold my boat. I had forgotten about that boat. Goodbye boat.
You might think that trip sounds like a failure. I don't. I prepared a boat for the journey of a lifetime and I set off on it. I don't regret a single minute or a single cent I invested in that. Voula, wherever you are, I hope you're still doing well.
My 4-month old daughter is also called Stella. Thus begins a new journey of a lifetime.