The Journey Part 43

RANDOM MEETINGS

I wish I would have known then, back in the day when I couldn’t buy a date, what I know now.

Dogs are chick magnets!

I’m laughing hard at this very moment, just thinking of those days when late-teens Billy couldn’t get a girl to look at him if he were on fire.

Although partially true, what is true is that Maggie, Toby, and Puddle Walker, have a way of drawing people into my circle, and from there conversations begin.  It literally happens every single day I am on the road.

“What kind of dog is that?”

“How do you like living in a bus?”

Those are easily the two most-often asked questions, serious ice-breakers, and from those questions sprout actual conversations.

I met Larry, from Victorville, CA, yesterday at the county park.  Met Kim and Trey at Cape Disappointment. Met Marie at the Chinook Country Store. Shared some smiles, a couple laughs, an exchange of information about hometowns, and answered the aforementioned questions.

“Beautiful dog! I love her fur and her eyes.”

“Never been to Olympia. I just retired, used to be a heavy machinery operator. Been thinking of getting a short bus myself.”

“I see your bus all over. Stay here much longer and they’ll have you attending town meetings.”

Here’s a secret I don’t mind sharing with you.  People are incredibly easy to talk to once you open the door and show some interest in them. I’ve had conversations with young women who rightfully should be wary of strange men. I’ve conversed with old farmers, young clerks, men, women, gays, transgenders, blacks, whites, and browns. I’ve asked questions which genuinely show them that I care in the answers, and I listen to those answers attentively. I do not dominate conversations with tales designed to show how cool I am.  A good conversation is a give and take, a relationship in the adolescent stage, a chance to really affect a life, if only for a short time. I have the power, in five minutes, to make someone feel important and to improve their day. I also have the power to make them feel miserable, or unimportant, and to send their day spiraling.

And I just think that is so cool, each and every time I opt for the former rather than the latter.

Talking to my two friends, Mary and Judy, about this topic, and they told me there were hikers on the trail who would not even make eye contact when they passed them on the trail.  Just Judy, Mary, and another hiker, out in the middle of the wilderness, not another soul in sight, not another soul, probably, for miles, and those hikers did not feel it was important enough to even look at another hiker as they passed.

I simply do not understand that way of living.  I’m sorry if that sounds critical, but it’s how I feel.  God help me if I’m ever so self-possessed that I do not have time to acknowledge the existence of another human being.

I’ll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anyone else.

Are you laughing yet?

Okay, seriously, here it is: there was a time when I would not look at a homeless person when they were sitting at a street corner with a sign, asking for money. I was embarrassed that I didn’t give them money, and I really didn’t want the sight of them to bring me down. I know, down in the core of my being, that I’m not the only one who has avoided making eye contact with the down and out, but this is about me.

Today I look at them, as I’m driving by, or as I’m walking by, I look at them. I want them to know that someone sees them. Yes, I think that’s important. I think every single one of us, breathing and moving through this thing we call life, has a need to be noticed, recognized, and counted as among the living.  Wall Street or gutter dweller, makes no difference; drug addict or upwardly mobile yuppy, makes no difference; young or old, single or married, gay or straight, healthy or infirmed, it makes not one damned difference.

It’s the absolute least I can do as a card-carrying member of the human race.

TAKING CARE OF MUNDANE TASKS

Here’s the thing about mundane tasks: although the word “mundane” does not really sound important, the fact of the matter is that many mundane tasks are quite important in the grand scheme of things.

I helped my friend work on his fence today.  My friend Jim has Alzheimer’s. It’s his driveway I’m parked in while we inch closer to take-off day again. Anyway, because of his disease, many of his homeowner chores have fallen by the wayside, so while I’m here I think it’s kind of important that I help him, as he’s helped me.

Fixing a fence . . . mundane task . . . but so very important in this particular situation.

Bev and I tore the bus seat out of Puddle Walker this morning. A job I have wanted done since I bought the bus, four months ago, is finally finished.  It took two hours of grunting and yanking and pulling, but that mundane task is off the board, and with its completion I now have a renewed sense of pride in my domicile. Mundane and yet the production of a smile upon my face.

Took the garbage out, swept the bus, aired it out, thanks to gorgeous weather, and washed the windows, every single one of those tasks mundane, but once again a sense of accomplishment accompanies each.

Walked Maggie four times, visited with Bev, made my favorite baristas laugh, watched a Mariner game with my best friend, said hello to five strangers while walking Maggie, yes, you guessed it, mundane all, but to my way of thinking quite important, thank you very much, and I’ve already got another mundane day planned for tomorrow.

I wish you all were a part of it, each of you reading this, I wish part of my mundane day involved sitting down and talking to you.

TURN THE PAGE

I love the road.

I don’t know how it is for you, but what follows is how it is for me.

Shift into drive, and slowly pull away from the day, and/or the night, before, a general direction in mind, one of the cardinals, east, west, north, south, unsure of anything, really, the options too many, preventing any certainty whatsoever.

Pull onto the two-lane, or four, shift around a little to find that driving comfort level, take a deep breath, and feel the asphalt connecting with the Michelins, gravity your constant friend.  Five miles pass, ten, random thoughts shuffle for the exit door, and then the road invades, conquers, and ejects all conscious thought.  It is mindless and it is laser sharp.  It is subjective and it is objective, it is illogical and it is diabolically focused, it is useless and yet so very crucial as I shift from inane to emotional, from the silly-willies to the smothered beauty of friends and family long passed on.

In the zone, that’s the way I think of it. I see most of what I’m passing, but it’s a see it don’t see it kind of Zen thing.  I think of matters, I don’t think of matters, again with the Zen.  Life comes to me at fifty-five mph, finding a slow-motion sort of existence, where life slows down for me, I’m able to keep pace with it, and I don’t feel overwhelmed by it at all, sort of like I belong, you know, and ain’t that just the most remarkable realization . . . like I belong!

Mothers playing with children, business men, and women, squeezing the buffalo nickel until it defecates (see how I cleaned that up for y’all), busy sidewalks, busy streets, lonely backroads, farmers doing that farming thing, ranchers with divining rods, all manner of domesticated, and some not-so-domesticated, animals . . .

Weird thing is, I remember most of what I see, in that zone, paying attention without really conscious of doing it, I must because I write about it at the end of each day, blowing my antiquated mind with my playback of the day’s events and scenes and, well, that’s just the way it is for me.

And, at night, I jot it all down, and then turn the page as the sun sets among the fir trees, the birds grow silent, my dog and I talk about our day, and we lay down in anticipation of tomorrow, and a new page.

Life is good!