I was sitting in mediation this morning, trying to focus on the recorded reminders about “impermanence, impermanence, the universal law impermanence,” and “change, change, change.” I’m supposed to remain “aware and equanimous.”
But my mind keeps screaming: WHERE AM I GOING TO PARK THE TINY???
As it stands now, unless I chicken out and completely abandon my dreams, I’m set to drive The Tiny across the lake in a few hours to camp for two weeks. This is meant to be a test run to see how I might fare during a longer trip, perhaps for a year or longer.
Can I travel around the country in The Tiny and continue to do quality work for my awesome clients and occasionally visit my beloved family and friends and enjoy state and national parks?
That is the question. This is the urge I felt since taking possession of The Tiny three months ago. Camping across the lake will help bring about the answer.
But the resistance is HUGE! The Tiny is pretty much all packed, sitting in the driveway, awaiting its hitch-up to the Durango. Surprise! Nobody stole them last night! I’ve made lists upon lists, printed out instructions for packing up, hitching up, setting up at camp, setting up the new side tent. I’ve made an online order at the closest Walmart to the campground, and will arrive there at 1 p.m. to have them load up my groceries and goods.
And still . . . the fear is ENORMOUS! It’s irrational and unfounded. Maybe I’ll drive out of the driveway and a sinkhole will develop, and the Durango and The Tiny will be swallowed up and me and the dog will barely escape. Or maybe the bridge across the lake has been altered overnight and it doesn’t really reach the north shore, but goes straight into outer space and me and the Durango and The Tiny and the dog will be suspended out there in the cold, bleak darkness, untethered, with no way to get back home, and no home to get back to, like Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in the movie Gravity (which I saw in 3-D, so maybe that was a bad idea). All these things are possible. Highly unlikely, and not probable, but in my terrified mind, they are possible.
I felt a similar fear before I took my first solo cross-country driving trip in 2008 in my mighty Ford conversion van. It felt so dangerous. It seemed like I would drive out the long dirt driveway of the home I lived in then, and be immediately picked off by a sniper. This is the kind of rural area where you lock your car only to keep the neighbors from filling it up with homegrown zucchini. Of course, I didn’t get shot. It was somewhere around west Texas when I saw yet another woman traveling alone, and it occurred to me that is really quite a safe and welcoming country. Where I had once felt that all the spaces were taken up and my only rightful space was at home, it seemed like the molecules and energy of the universe simply shifted to make space for me wherever I wanted to be.
In the run-up to this test campout, I seem to have forgotten all that.
Of course, I’ve taken all precautions. I’ve reserved my campsite, so theoretically I will have somewhere to land after my 30 minutes of driving. What if that campsite has disappeared? What if the Reserve America website malfunctioned and there actually is no such site and never was there one? What if it’s been double booked and someone is there with a better trailer? What if I get there and it’s a big mud hole surrounded with snarling, rabid, wild boar?
Yes, being a creative person with a creative mind definitely has a downside. I imagine the most unlikely scenarios and then live in fear of them. As the old adage goes, “I’ve worried about many tragedies in my life, most of which never happened.”
And to top it off, my happy and normally hungry dog is lethargic and hasn’t eaten anything but a can of tuna in the past 24 hours. Why, why, why? Should I stay or should I go?
I suspect I’ll get up off this overstuffed, silk-slipcoverd chair and get showered and complete my packing and eat some lunch and hit the road. The fear of heading out is at 50 decibels in my brain, but the pain of abandoning my dream would hit 1,000 decibels. So the 50 must be endured. It’s simple math.
If that bridge indeed remains attached to the north shore, and I don’t end up within spitting distance of the International Space Station, I’ll be back here with an update.
Otherwise, send George Clooney. I’ll need his help.