Leg 4 - I got hit with a tidal wave of Grief Processing on an Island

This is a long one. Grab a cup of tea and sit for a bit...

Right after John died, I read every book I could find about grief, every article, listened to every podcast.  What I know now is that I was looking for someone, something, anything…to help me.  Also what I know now is that nobody and nothing could help me.  Nothing could help me get through the grief any quicker or easier.  I had to experience it on my own.  Kind of like traveling on my own – I had to do it myself.  I had to navigate the moonscape myself.

That being said, I found many pieces of information that at least validated my feelings as I was going through them.  Sometimes grievers think they are going crazy as they navigate grief.  It does strange things to our brains.  It literally rewires the neural connections in your brain.  Here is a good article that talks about how grief impacts the brain:  Healing Your Brain After Loss: How Grief Rewires the Brain (americanbrainfoundation.org).

I began to see that travel was teaching me the practice of living in the moment.  I couldn’t think of John and cry if I was bouncing over a rutted road, trying not to crash my van.  And I couldn’t cry if I was navigating hours of driving through unknown lands.  It was only in the evenings, when I arrived at my location that I could allow myself to grieve again.  But that was okay.  It was a baby step in the recovery process.  It gave me bigger and bigger chunks of time each day when I wasn’t crying. 

I read in one of my many grief books and articles that being present and listening to your intuition can lead to surprising and enriching moments that help you process the myriad of emotions that arise while grieving.  I was finding this to be true for me.

Balmorhea, Texas to San Antonio, Texas

I think I might have gotten heat exhaustion in Balmorhea yesterday.  I really didn’t feel well.  Can’t eat much – my stomach definitely has the post-nasal-drip feeling.  Nothing to eat sounds good.  And I have a cough.  And I feel like I am breathing through straws.  Trying to at least keep drinking liquids but am having a hard time getting things in – everything is upsetting my stomach. Unfortunately, the thing that I can get in is soda – diet coke and Dr. Pepper.  The bubbles help, and the sweet seems to work.  I can’t get Gatorade down this morning – too sweet.  No tea, no water.  Oh, well…I’ll just put in whatever I can.

I just need to get out of this heat.  I have a hotel room reserved in San Antonio.  I’m not sure I will be able to walk around and tour the city like I had hoped, but if nothing else, I can sit in the air-conditioned room and shower and wash my hair.  I’m looking forward to washing my hair and taking a full-length cool shower.

I think you always appreciate what you don’t have.  It doesn’t have to be big or fancy, just whatever you don’t have.  I laugh that I am craving a cool shower, because all I have in the van is a hot shower.  Funny to say that – me who loves hot showers.  There is no cold water - my freshwater tank is probably close to boiling in this heat.

I got to San Antonio, took a cool shower, then headed out to see a little of the city.  It was still 100°, so I knew I wouldn’t see much.  I headed to what they call the Riverwalk. San Antonio River Walk (thesanantonioriverwalk.com).  This is a man-made canal that runs through the city.  I think it is on the site of what was an original river.  It was lovely.  Huge trees shaded the area, and the walk itself was on a level below the street, so it was nice to not have cars to walk around.  I stopped and had Texas barbeque.  I figured that was important.  It wasn’t great.  But I was in a touristy place, so it was no doubt not authentic.  I didn’t know that my cold-influenced taste buds would have appreciated anything, anyway.

Got back to the hotel and tried to sleep.  My cough kept me up most of the night.

San Antonio, Texas to Padre Island, Texas

I woke up in an air-conditioned room in a hotel in San Antonio.  It was a wonderful break from the heat.  And I took a cool shower – the second in a 12-hour span.  I discovered that the drive to Padre Island was only three hours, so I took my time heading out.  Anything outdoors I do in this heat needs to be done in the morning.

I went to visit the site of the Alamo.  I booked a guided tour, which I enjoyed.  The guide was energetic, knowledgeable, and told a good story.

I headed out of San Antonio around 12:30 p.m.  The drive was easy and short (relatively), except that it was windy most of the way, so that was a bit stressful.  The wind blows the van around a bit.  It feels top heavy, so not really stable on its base.  I’m sure it is stable, but this is a new feeling for me.

I arrived at Padre Island National Seashore – Malaquite campground around 4:00.  There are 23 spaces, and only three other campers so far.  Woo hoo!  No hookups at each site, but there was a dump and freshwater station in the front, if I need.  $14 a night, so that is a bargain, as well.  A shower and restroom for the campground, and a camp host.  I was pleased.

I went to the visitor center, to see if I could get any information about a turtle hatch.  The kid at the desk couldn’t tell me much, except there “might” be one in the next two weeks.  I could envision hanging around that long. 

It is peaceful here.  I am parked right next to the beach.  I fell asleep and woke up to the sound of the waves.  People are far enough away that I don’t hear them, and I don’t feel like they are infringing on my personal bubble space. I didn’t use the air conditioning or fan when I went to sleep, as there is enough of an ocean breeze that filtered through the van.  I woke up around 2:00 a.m., however (when the Nyquil wore off and I had a coughing fit) and felt like I had gone swimming in my pajamas.  Not from a hot flash sweat, but from the humidity in the air.  Had to laugh.  So I closed my windows.  Slept fine the rest of the night.  Slept until 8:30, so I know I was wrung out from too many nights of not enough sleep.  I’m planning on hanging out here for a few days, at least.

Second Day at Padre Island

I feel better today.  I just sat around all day yesterday.  So odd for me.  I think the heat and all the traveling just knocked me out.  I slept late in the morning, then took a hefty afternoon nap.  Slept well last night, and now I am feeling better.

I finally saw a sunrise!  All this time on this trip, I kept trying to catch a sunrise, but was struggling to get up that early.  It isn’t even early, for me!  But I just wanted to be able to sleep as long as I wanted.  For almost 40 years I have had to get up early to get to work.  I wanted to see how it felt to not have an alarm go off.

I am camped on Padre Island.  The other side is apparently called Madre Island.  Ironic that I ended up on the father side instead of the mother side (I’m a very female-centered person).  But it is lovely.  It is peaceful, and with (so far) minimal people.  I am sitting on my bed, looking out at the sea.  It is about 50 yards from me.  I have the back door of my van open so the sea breeze can reach me.  The temperatures here are 81° for the low, 87° for the high.  I chuckle at the small spread between the low and the high.  The sea breeze helps to cool it down.  Yesterday I sat outside, in the shade, to be kept cool by the sea breeze.  It was too hot in the van to sit.  Plus, why would I sit inside a camper when the outside is right here!

Could I live here?  It is everything I have dreamt of – I have the lapping waves out my back door, there is the greenery of the dune shrubs surrounding me, the birds sing their songs.  I have my little house; I am self-contained.  I will stay here for six days.  Let’s see how I do.  I can tell already I will need something to do.

Yesterday I “did” quite a bit, actually.  Even though I just sat all day.  I figured out the bike lock that had me puzzled the day before, I fixed the bike rack so I could open the back doors, I fixed the beach chair that I couldn’t get closed the day before, I cleaned the house, I took a shower.  See…I did stuff.

Blue, purple, green stars on the water, diamonds in the grass.  I see what I think are spider webs stretched out across the tops of the grasses.  As the breeze blows them, they catch the dew from the sea breeze, then a ray of sun turns them to sparkling diamonds.

The humidity is something I hope to get used to.  I feel wet, even when I haven’t been in the gulf or the shower.  My clothes feel like they are constantly damp.  In New Mexico, I could wash my clothes, hang them to dry, and they would be dry in about five minutes because of the dry heat.  Here, I’m not sure they would ever dry.  But it is okay…I like putting on the damp clothes.  It cools me a bit.

As a child, I used to fantasize about living out in the wild, surviving on my own, and building my own house and everything in it.  I need a side table for when I am sitting outside.  I think I will walk the beach this morning and see if I can find some driftwood sticks that I can build a side table with.  That would be fun.

What do people who live here call this body of water?  Ocean?  Sea?  Gulf?  I’m not quite sure what word to use for it.  To me, words are important.  You need to use the right word. 

Third Day at Padre Island

Don’t forget, Reba – this trip IS to process grief.  You keep pushing it away, but that is why you are on this trip.  You have felt since the day that John died that you need to make this trip.  I don’t know why, but something has been pushing me to take this.

Grief is why I am here.

I need to re-write my life story from here going forward.  Re-write myself.  Reinvent myself.

I was married, had five kids who were all launched, living in a beautiful home with a man I loved.  John and I both worked long hours and made good money.  The kids came over for barbeques, and John and I spent time together and time separately doing the things we enjoyed.

It was a good life.

Then one Saturday at 6:30 a.m., it all changed.

It is interesting to look back and see how events unfolded.  I am only 2 ½ years out.  That’s what our kind calls it - ”years out” - as if we don’t want to say the actual word for it.  We don’t.  I don’t.  I am still in the early stages.  But I look back and understand more about grief now.  I understand things I had no idea of before.  Don’t ever judge someone who is grieving unless you have been through it yourself.  You have no idea.

Death of a dream.  That is what they call grief.  It is the death of not just your person, but it is also the death of a dream that you had of a certain life you were going to lead.  I had a dream of a stable life with John.  We had barbeques with the kids, we had a business we were starting, we were going to take weekend trips.  Eventually we would travel.  We would play poker together with our poker group once or twice a week.  We sat out on our back patio…our beautiful back patio and had wine and ate good food.  We went out to dinner now and then and liked to try new restaurants.  We sat on the couch together and watched tv.  He held my hand.  We sat in front of the fire on weekend nights and…okay…watched tv.  Watched movies.  Watched Lord of the Rings.  Many times.  I love LOTR.  John loved LOTR.  I could still watch those movies over and over.  We had Joe come visit and sit around and drink beer.  Those were the things that made us happy.

Then it was gone.  That dream was gone.  In the space of three hours on that Saturday morning.  I watched my dreams dying as the color changed in John’s face.  There came a moment when I knew that he wasn’t going to survive.  And in that moment, my entire life and its trajectory changed.

So now what?  Where do I want to be?  Who do I want to be?  Where do I want my path to lead now?

I worked really hard not to do any of the crazy things you want to do in your raw stages of grief, and I had people around me helping me not to do the crazy things.  I waited a year.  Heck, I waited two years.  Then I did them.  I did them all.  I quit my job, I sold the house, I sold the fancy car, I had a garage sale and sold as much stuff as I could, I bought a camper van, and I am now traveling.  My first task was to see more of the U.S.   But I have other things I want to see after that.  I want to travel and see the world, then I want to find a little house in the country and grow apples.  That is always the picture I have had of myself when I am old.  I used to wonder, when I saw that picture in my head, where John was.  Now I know why John was never in those pictures.  I should have known then.  The women always outlive their men.  Mostly always.

I need to acknowledge that there is another component to this grief, and this re-writing of myself:  the kids grow up, move out, and don’t have time for you.  I wish I was better about spending time with other people.  I keep being solitary, and I’m not sure why.  Maybe grief, maybe just who I am…?

I do have to say – in grief, you always feel like the third wheel.  You are the extra, and you get the small seat, or the seat at the very end, or the chair that someone hurriedly pulled up to the corner of the table when they found out you were invited because someone felt sorry for you.

And you - I am always jealous and therefore angry at you happy people.  At the people who are married and happy (or pretend to be).  At the people who celebrate their anniversaries and post on Facebook: “Happy Anniversary to my love of 35 years.  You are the best.  Love you.”  Fuck you.  At people who post pictures of their family all gathered together for Sunday barbeques.  Fuck you.  At the woman who posts that she just got a great promotion to head up the Whatever Department of her company.  Fuck you.  I like it when I read or hear stories of people who are sad.  Or alone.  Like me.  It makes me feel better.  It makes me feel not so alone.

So I ran away from all the happiness.  I don’t get cell signal much out here in my travel world, so I don’t see all the happiness.  I like that.  I needed to be out of that world of happiness and sit with my sadness. 

Yesterday I went “into town” to stock up on groceries.  I took my laptop with me and connected for a while to take care of some business.  While I was there, I picked up a magazine and was leafing through it.  It showed pictures of beautiful women in beautiful dresses and makeup and jewelry.  And how this woman was sad and was in a very trying time of her life because…something.  I don’t even remember why she was sad.  But I slammed the magazine shut.  She still has her beautiful life and her beauty.  Don’t talk to me of sad.  You have no idea.

Not only have I lost John and my home and my children, I have lost my looks as well.  I look in the mirror, or I look at videos of myself, and I wonder who this old, wrinkled woman is.  I remember Mom saying the same thing to me.  As a young person, you don’t understand how significant those words are.  You brush them off – “Oh, Mom, you are beautiful” you say.  But you don’t understand what she is really saying.  She is saying “I’ve lost myself.  Can you remind me who I was so I can find myself again?!”  Except…she will never find that self.  She has to find a new self.  Not every self has to be beautiful.  Not every self has to keep up with the Joneses and be a doer and a shaker.

Before I left on this trip, I sold everything.  I sold my house, my furniture, my knick-knacks, and most of my clothes.  What I couldn’t sell, I gave away.  It doesn’t mean anything.  It was the symbol of the life that I no longer have.  I’m in search of a new life.  On this trip, I keep looking around, trying to find a place to live this new life.  Each place I visit, I ask myself if I want to live there.

Fourth Day at Padre Island

What am I going to do today?

Yesterday was a good day.    I felt a little better, so I was active.  First off, I walked the beach for an hour and picked up trash.  There is a LOT of trash on the beach!  Then I walked up to the visitor center.  I was hoping they had diet coke so I didn’t have to go into town.  Putting my little house into travel mode sounded like a lot of work.  They didn’t have diet coke.  But I talked with the ranger about the turtle hatch that is pending.  I would really like to see this.

Next activity:  I drove into town.  I needed to take care of some consulting business.  I ate lunch at a sports bar and went through emails while I was there.  It was air conditioned, of course.  I sat there for a good two hours.  I needed to re-stock, so went next door to the grocery store and bought some supplies.  I felt pretty good coming back, so when I got back to the campground, I finally set up camp.  I washed the dishes and did laundry and tried to fix the legs on the barbeque.  Then I cooked dinner – flank steak and grilled veggies.  It turned out yummy…not always do my cooking adventures turn out that way.  That made me happy.  I fixed the bike tire, too.  I feel so accomplished when I fix things that I’m not sure I can fix.  I also dumped the black and grey tanks on my way back to the campsite.  When I first started living in this van, that was an intimidating task.  Each time I do it, it gets less scary.  So far, no explosions, as I have read about in the many online groups I follow.

I think one of the reasons I am on this trip is needing to prove to myself and to the world that I can survive on my own.  Maybe just prove to myself.  I bet all my family and friends already understand that I can survive on my own.  But I need to show myself that I can.  I DON’T WANT to fix things.  I want John to fix things.  I DON’T WANT to plan the trip.  I want John to plan the trip.  I want John with me so I can boondock and not be afraid that a mountain lion is going to kill me.  I want John with me when I camp alone at the farms so I am not afraid that they are going to kill me in my sleep and steal my van.  I want John with me so I can share the amazing sunsets and sunrises and the blue jellyfish.

But he isn’t here.

So I go forward alone.

Maybe I will never be happy again.  It is possible.  I read somewhere recently that there can be joy in grief.  That is a pretty strong statement.  I will say there can be moments of happy in grief, but I’m not sure that joy is possible.  Ever again. But happy is possible.  I felt happy when I saw the sunrise.  I felt happy when I felt the soft sand under my feet.  Even as I was processing my grief.  So happy inside grief is possible.  I don’t think I will ever stop missing John.  And that makes me feel sorry for myself.  Me and all the other widows and widowers in this world.  It is just what happens in the natural world.  Partners die.  That is what John would say.  He was a hunter, so he understood the natural world.  Beings die.  It is part of the cycle.  “But” I would retort, “it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

After John died I was talking to a couple men who were tradesmen, like John was.  I was trying to figure out where to put a memorial object for John.  I asked them if they ever thought about where they would want a memorial when they died.  They both said they didn’t care…they would be dead.  I said “did you ever think that maybe your wife and kids would want one?”  They stopped suddenly and just looked at me.  There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, then they turned around and went back to what they were doing.

Fifth Day at Padre Island

John has gone from being a real person to being a memory.

Chuck and I check in from time to time about our grief.  He always says he is doing well with his grieving, but he always cries.  I don’t pretend that I am doing well.  I just cry.

I want to ask him if Zahra is now just a memory.  If he can remember the way the skin on her arm feels.  The way she smells…the way she walks.  Can he look at pictures and not cry?

I was looking at pictures of John last night, and they didn’t make me cry.  Some even made me smile.  The videos of him.   It was so good to hear his voice again…to see the way he moved.

I suppose it is good that John has gone from being real to being a memory.  It was so hard when I remembered the way the skin on his arm felt.  It was gut-wrenching.  Now I can picture his arm in my mind, but it is just a picture.  Not so gut-wrenching anymore.

 The Re-making of Reba

Who do I want to be now?  What do I want to do?

Once upon a time, there was a girl.  She wanted more than she had.  She wanted to touch the sun.  So she set off one day to see the world. 

She went to the bluest of oceans, the whitest of snows, the deepest canyon, the tallest mountain.  She saw the fastest raging river and saw the meanest raging lion.  She saw wildebeests and kangaroos and grizzly bears and coon cats and alligators and gazelles.  She saw flowers and grasses and trees and shrubs and rocks and things.  There were plants and birds and rocks and things, there was sand and hills and rings.

And the people – she saw the people.  They were short and tan skinned.  Then they were tall and fair.  They were redheaded, blond, and raven-haired.  And they all had stories.  Oh my, the stories they told.

Human Interest Stories

Blaze (or Blaise, I don’t know how she spelled it, but Blaze sounds much more interesting, don’t you think?) was 65 and the camp host.  She was a petite blond woman with false teeth and a tattoo.  I think she had lived a hard life, but looked quite good, all things considered.  She had sold her Harley to buy the r.v. with her husband and had been living the traveler lifestyle for two years.  Her husband had almost died 10 years before in a motorcycle crash.  He lost a leg, but seemed to be in good spirits, mostly.  They wanted to follow the sun.  She understood the need to live the life she wanted.

Sarah was the camp host after Blaze.  She told me she had been sick two years ago, so needed to travel and re-map.  I haven’t yet asked what the sickness was.  Cancer, I assume.  She set up a teepee tent next to her van and said she was going to invite her friends to come visit her here.  She looks young.  Late 30’s, possibly.

Then there is the man who drove up to the campground in a beat-up old car.  The back of the car sat low, like there was something heavy in the trunk.  He drove in and out a few times before finally settling in a campsite a few down from me.  I heard him yesterday morning telling the campers next to me that he was heading into town to get ice, and did they want anything while he was there?  They said “No but thank you for asking.”  Then I saw him all day sitting at the picnic bench with a towel over his head, looking like he was reading.  The couple next to me was cooking dinner, and when they were done cooking, I heard him go over to their campsite.  I didn’t hear the first exchange between them, but I heard the man offer him some of their dinner.  He said “thank you very much, that would be great.”

I wonder what his story is?  Does he just wander campground to campground like a Stellar Jay, looking for food?  Being polite and offering to help in return for food?  He has money for gas, obviously.  I wonder why his car rides so low in the back.  At first I thought a dead body, but it would be stinking by now, in this heat.  Maybe gold bullion.  He robbed the treasury and is hiding out here.  That would explain the beat-up car.  Needing to fly under the radar, you know.  And the towel over the head.  That’s a good way to hide – put a towel over your head.

We travel this way alone.  So many women hear that I am making this solo journey, and they are so…envious, jealous.  They say they would give anything to be able to do what I am doing.  Anything?  Would you really give ANYTHING?  Would you give what I gave?  Would you pay that price of admission to travel solo? 

I was talking with one woman who was with her husband, and when she heard my story, she said “I’m so jealous…”  Then she caught herself and realized what she had just said.  Or maybe she caught that she had said the words out loud to another person.  Then she quickly said, “I mean, not jealous…” and she let the words trail off into silence.  Was she embarrassed that she said those words because she didn’t want me to think she was jealous because she didn’t want me to think that she wanted her husband to die?  Most couples have their moments of hating each other.  Or wishing they weren’t together.  Or being lonely and wishing they could find someone who could see them.

That’s the secret, isn’t it?  We want someone who can see us. Someone who, when we say “I’m jealous of that woman traveling alone”, understands all the subtleties of what you are saying – that you wish you were with someone who doesn’t make you feel lonely in a relationship.  Because, if you are going to be in a relationship and still feel alone, then you might as well be alone and travel the world in search of…what?  Companionship?  Turtles?  What ARE you in search of? 

Truly, I want to see the beaches.  And turtles, and the sunrise and sunset in all different parts of the world.  I’m not looking for companionship.  If I was, I would be talking with the people I encounter.  I don’t talk.  But I listen.

I would like to find someone who, when I talk to them, looks into my eyes and sees that there is something in there that either I’m not saying, or I don’t yet have the words for.

But I don’t ever want to find someone.  I don’t ever want to go through that again, and I will, if I find someone.  No siree Bob, not for me, thanks.  Never again.

All my life, I have read other peoples’ writings, searching for the meaning of life.  I have listened to other people talk and I have read and listened and read and listened.  It is time now for me to just listen to myself.  I have much to offer and I have my own ideas of the world, and it is time that I listen to me.

I don’t believe in being mean.  I don’t think it helps anyone – the giver or the receiver.

I think women need to be listened to more in this world – in the corporations.  I think we are collaborators and our super power is finding a way to help people live in harmony.  Men are all about winning and beating all the others.  I think we need more collaboration.

Sixth Day at Padre Island

Back to the Travel Story

It is so hot here at 8:00 a.m. that even I had to shut the doors and turn on the AC in the van.  Well, truly, I wouldn’t have done it except all the power had gone off in the van.  I opened the butter and it was soft.  I don’t want all my food to spoil, so had to turn it on to charge the battery.  I have to admit that the cool air from the AC feels REALLY good.  I don’t like to run the AC.  I don’t like the noise.

I didn’t sleep well the night before last.  I had left both windows open on either side of the van so I could get a cross breeze from the ocean.  I coughed and coughed all night long.  And got woken up by headlights and the trash collectors.  I woke up at 2:00 a.m. feeling like I had just gotten out of a swimming pool, my clothes felt so wet.  Last night, I closed my windows at about 10:00 p.m. because someone had built a fire and I could smell it, and it was triggering my coughing again.  I was thinking that I would never be able to sleep because it was so hot.  When I woke up this morning, I realized that I didn’t cough all night, and I didn’t wake up with wet clothes in the middle of the night.  Maybe the ocean air actually ISN’T helping my cough.  And the wet air makes it harder for me to sleep.  I’ll have to try again tonight.  I’m curious.  But I’m so thankful for a good night’s sleep.  It makes everything better, it truly does.  This morning I can think, and I have energy and I am ready to go for my daily walk to collect garbage, whereas yesterday I just did it because I thought it would be good for me.

I have mapped out a daily walk.  It takes me 60 minutes, and it is an out and back.  I walk up and most of the way back, then I pick up garbage the last 10 yards of the walk.  Yesterday I did this (keep in mind I was low energy because I didn’t sleep well) and got all the way back to the finish only to discover that I had lost one of my sandals.  Now…I really like those sandals.  They are perfect for here – they are plastic, so don’t get damaged by the water, and they slip on and off easily.  Very important for the beach.  And I can wear them in the shower.

So I HAD to go back and find the itinerant sandal.  Also, how ironic would it be that here I am, picking up plastic garbage on the beach, only to have tossed one plastic sandal on to the beach…?!  So, I turned around and started backtracking.  At some point, I decided to track myself because, as I sweep the beach on the way out, I wander from side to side, and it is pretty wide in places.  I didn’t want to miss seeing the sandal because I was only looking on one side.  My tracks out were easy enough to track, as the sand was soft.  Mostly.  There were parts of the sand that were hard, or sometimes I would wander down to the wet sand and the sea.  My tracking was turning into a very focused, intense game.  I really enjoyed it, and the harder it was, the more I enjoyed it.  Sometimes, when my footprints disappeared, I would think about what it was I had been doing then, to figure out where the next footprint might be.  And sometimes, I was so focused on the ground that I couldn’t see the footprints, but when I pulled my head back and squinted a bit, I could make out the footprints easily.  Kind of like an artist does with their paintings.  I did this all the way to the point where I turned around, and no sandal.  I was so sad and discouraged.  I thought maybe I had dropped it all the way back toward the start point where I had been bending over to pick up trash.  So I headed back.  I decided that tracking took too much energy for me to do now, so just started walking.  Voila!  About 20 yards down, there was my sandal.  Sitting all alone on the beach.  Don’t know HOW I missed it on my way up, except I was so focused on the details that I couldn’t see the full picture.

Which leads me to:  sometimes you need to take a step back and look at the full picture in order to see the details.  And sometimes you need to squint to see your path.

Seventh Day at Padre Island

I gathered another person story yesterday.  I went to the laundromat to do my laundry…

Oh, and by the way, I really enjoy doing simple things now:  laundry, dishes, organizing my little house.  Once you slow down and don’t have a million things to do all at once, the simple things become enjoyable.

Back to my story:  a man, I would guess to be in his mid-30s, was at the laundromat while I was there.  I think he had long hair, but had a hat on, so couldn’t quite tell.  He had a straggly beard that was peppered with grey, and he had a tooth missing – the one right next to the front teeth.  He came up to me and started talking.  Chatty people crack me up…just walk up to a stranger and start talking.  That takes a lot of energy, in my opinion.  But Scott Riley once told me that talking with people energizes him.  They are different than me, chatting exhausts me.  I didn’t use to be that way.  But since John died, I am.

I don’t even remember how the conversation started, but we were talking about food.  I think I had asked him for some restaurant recommendations.  He lit up and told me that he used to be a chef.  “An executive chef”, he clarified.  I’m not sure what that means…is that the second chef to the head chef?  Is that a chef to company executives?  He said it like I should have been impressed.  He said he did that for 10 years, then got bored so decided to become a butcher.  He said, as a chef, he always wanted to know more about the cuts of meat.  I admire him following what must have been passions.  I told him my tale (the telling of it gets briefer and less emotional with each stranger I tell) and said I was traveling to see all the things I haven’t yet seen.  He said he has traveled quite a bit.  He said he takes his son, and they go on road trips.  I said that people should do those things they have always wanted to do, and he followed that comment with, “I do.”  So he is one of those people who does what he wants.  I keep saying to myself that men do what they want to do.  I think women just do things for their people because it makes them happy.  Then they end up not doing things for themselves.  Then they forget what they like to do.  Then their husband dies, their kids leave home and suddenly they are left with themselves and have no idea what it is they like to do anymore.

It isn’t men’s fault.  They know how to follow their dreams.  It isn’t women’s fault either; they are caretakers and get joy out of taking care of others.  But at some point, they are left alone.  Then they need to rediscover themselves.

I like the ocean.  I used to like to swim in it.  Now I’m too worried about the things in the water that I can’t see.  If the water is clear, I can swim.

I like eating good food.  Except when my stomach doesn’t feel well.  I like trying new foods.  Except chicken feet and dog.

I like movement.  I really like this.  Walking around towns and cities and seeing all the sights; hiking; collecting golf balls at the golf course (almost more than golfing); tracking; building fence.

I like exploring.  I like seeing new things.

I like wine.  And bourbon.

I don’t like sitting and watching t.v. every night and eating food just as sustenance.  I’d rather just not even eat than eat bad food.  I don’t like being around someone who just talks and talks and talks and doesn’t say anything interesting.  I don’t like being in the same place all the time and seeing the same things, eating the same things, walking the same path time after time after time.

These thoughts are a start.  They can be a guide as I am re-mapping.

The night before last I slept really well.  I started out with both side windows open so I could catch the breeze.  I was coughing like crazy, and still felt hot.  Then I smelled campfire smoke, so I closed the windows.  I fell into a deep sleep and didn’t feel hot the rest of the night.  I thought that must be the answer. 

Last night I closed all the windows and drew all the blinds.  Tried to go to sleep.  I felt like I was strangling, the air felt so heavy.  And I was so hot, like I was covered with three comforters.  I opened both side windows to catch the breeze.  That was much better, it cooled off and I could breathe.  So closing everything up isn’t the answer.  Ugh.  It is so hard to know.  Maybe the campfire smoke was what was making me cough, not the ocean air.

I walk the beach every morning for an hour, looking for turtles that may have come in the from ocean overnight to lay eggs.  So far, I have seen none.  I walk the first 50 minutes, then pick up trash the last 10 minutes.  I fill two bags in about five minutes.  So much trash.  It is sickening.  SO much plastic.  We need to stop using so much plastic.  I should organize a work crew from the city to go to Padre Island and pick up trash on the beach.  I think that would help people understand how much plastic we use that just ends up in the ocean.

As I walk the beach, I like to feel the soft, sugary sand under my feet.  It isn’t hot yet (I’ve been starting my walk around 9:00), so the sand still feels good.  In some cases it is cooler than the air, so it feels like a soft cushion of coolness as my foot touches it.

I zig-zag.  I zig down to the water.  I like to shuffle my feet so that I splash the ocean water up higher on my legs.  It feels cool like rain on a hot day.  Then I zag back up to the dune area, just to see if there is anything interesting to look at there.  Then back to the waves over the seaweed.  Sargassum, they call it.  I learned that it is important out in the sea – it feeds the living things out there, then it is important on the beach, as well.  It feeds living beings, as well as protecting them from predators.  I have a new appreciation for this seaweed now.  This particular kind doesn’t smell bad like the one up on the beaches in Northern California. 

Back and forth, forth and back.  Like I’m looking for something I lost.  Excuse me, ma’am…can you help me find this thing I lost?  I miss it terribly and would love to be able to find it.  It has left a hole in my heart.  It is hard to be a human being with a hole in your heart.  It limits your compassion when you don’t have enough for yourself.

Everyone says you can’t love others until you love yourself.  Maybe this is what they mean.  With this hole in my heart, I am angry at people who are happy.  Who have their person.  Who haven’t been touched by tragedy.  I just want them to have tragedy hit them with a sledge hammer like it did me.  Just try to get back up, motherfuckers.  Let’s see how you feel after you’ve been felled.

I’m looking for something to patch the hole in my heart.  Do you think gum might do it?  I could chew a kazillion pieces, then stick them in the hole.  Maybe duct tape.  They say duct tape fixes everything.  Maybe wine.  Wine fixes a lot of things.  For an evening, anyway.  Maybe sunrises.  If I see enough sunrises, do you think that will fix the hole?  Do sunrises fill heart holes?  They are so transitory…they don’t stay in the hole.  They fill it for a moment, but then the sun comes fully up and blazes you with its heat, and suddenly the hole doesn’t feel good again.

Talking to people doesn’t fill the hole.  I just want them to stop talking.

Maybe if I wander for a year, the hole will heal over.  Then it will just be a scar, tender to the touch, but not gaping open, at least.  Maybe I will wander and keep my brain busy with new things, and that will give the hole time to heal over.

Eighth Day at Padre Island

I’m bored.

I’m waiting for a turtle hatch that is supposed to happen in the first two weeks of July.  I’m not sure I can wait around for it.  I told myself that I needed a break after all the driving, but I think I have had my break, and I think I need to move on. 

I really would have liked to have seen the turtle babies.

It would cost me $425 a month to live here.  At this campground.  Although, you aren’t supposed to stay any longer than 14 days.  Very affordable.  Even so, what would I do all day?  It is too hot to be outside doing anything except wading in the ocean.  You can’t garden.  You can’t do woodworking.  It looks like this temperature is fairly normal for this time of year.  I can’t walk much more than I do.  By the time I’m done with my 1-2 hour walk, I’m tired.  The heat really saps my strength.

Yesterday I had a conversation with the new camp host, Sarah.  She is a delightful woman.  I bet she has some great life stories!  She mentioned in our 30-minute conversation that she has been married twice, and the first husband beat her, she has a son, she has ulcerative colitis, and she is 65.  WTF?!  65?!?!  I had no idea – she looks so young!  I really had thought she was about 45 because her face has so few wrinkles.  The first time I talked with her, though, I didn’t take a good look.  This time I saw her more closely and saw the wrinkles, so revised my guess, but to only about 55.  She looks really good.  And she glows.  She seems to have a sunny outlook on life.  I had guessed that was because she had been so sick that she almost wasn’t around anymore, but maybe that is just who she is.  She gives off an aura of happy.  She feels good to be around.  Some people are like that – they make you feel good just being around them.

I picked up a book at the laundromat the other day, and decided I would read it yesterday.  I had the whole day ahead of me, and nothing else to do.  It is called The Seat of the Soul.  I was intrigued.  The author’s basic premise is that our soul is a separate part of us, and is infinite, therefore is reincarnated.  This is a very simplistic paraphrase of what he was writing about.  Some parts of the book I liked, and I think I got something from, the other parts were a bunch of hooey, as John would say.  The thing I didn’t like about the book is that the author wrote all his ideas like they were tested and proven.  He “spoke” with authority about his crazy ideas.  Made me think that this is how the Jim Jones’s of the world start.

But the premise that I liked and will take with me is one I’ve heard before, so he didn’t invent it.  And that is that we…I… need to stop trying to help others or fix others.  I may be getting in the way of their karma.  Each of us has lessons we need to learn, and karma is helping us learn those lessons.  I have often thought this, and that is – if I can understand the reasons behind why someone is behaving badly, then I can have compassion for them.  I have a friend.  He is so angry.  I am pretty sure this is because he has been hurt and he is actually very sensitive, so he puts up a wall of anger around him so nobody will come close and hurt him even more.  But he needs to learn how to open his heart.  So karma keeps putting people in his life, giving him opportunities to open his heart.  So far he hasn’t learned the lesson.  Maybe he never will.  I don’t know.  But I can’t get in the way of his karma.  Karma sent me to him, to help him learn, but apparently isn’t ready to learn the lesson yet.  Or…maybe I am supposed to be learning from him.  Learning what – how to accept a grumpy old man?!  Probably.  How to accept others as they are, no matter if they are likeable or not.

Oh, I have my lessons.  Don’t worry, I don’t think I’m a perfect incarnation yet.  I have stuff I’m working on.

A story…let’s have a story…

She was born into a poor ranching family.  As she grew up, her playground was the hills and forests around her houses.  You don’t notice poor when you are a kid.  Or…at least she didn’t.  At first.  She explored.  All day, every day, she would leave the house as early as she could, and she would go out to see what was out there.  Hills and sagebrush and dead cows, or streets and puddles and one-eyed cats.  It was all exciting to her.  So much to see, so many new things to explore.  New smells and sounds and sights and textures.  The sound of the frogs in the pond, the smell of sagebrush on a summer morning, the sight of a cow that had foundered, the feel of newly cut alfalfa under her bare feet.  It was all exciting.

What I just reminded myself is that I love to explore.  This trip is about exploring.  I am sitting here waiting for turtles to hatch, but I need to go.  I need to explore.  Whenever I read about new things to see or hear or feel or taste, I get a ball of energy in my stomach, and a rush of excitement.  I had downloaded a sample trip from Austin to New Orleans when I was in town the other day, and I was reading it this morning and got all excited again.  I need to remember that – this trip is not about sitting still, it is about exploring.  I thought I needed to sit still, but I don’t…I need to wander.

I just am having a hard time figuring out how to plan my wandering.  I feel like I can’t make reservations, because then I am tied into a schedule.  I want to be able to come and go on my own timeline.  That was the point of the van, so I could stop whenever I got tired, and go whenever I wanted.

The other problem with this idea of wandering is that I had planned to park the van in cities and walk around, exploring.  It is just so damn hot that walking around isn’t really an option.  It would have been better to have done this trip in September and October.  Everyone told me that.  But I needed to go.  Sometimes I get an itch to go, and even I can’t stop it.  It drives me.  It is stronger than me.

So here I am, in July and August.  I just need to figure out how best to explore and wander.