5/30/2013. - Day 65 - Take Me Home, Country Roads, To The Place, Where I Belong...
I'm comin' home, I'm comin' home, tell the world I'm comin' home,
Let the rain, wash away,
All the pain of yesterday...
“It wasn't necessary to win for the story to be great,
it was only necessary to sacrifice everything.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
I am both excited and slightly saddened by today. This will
be my last day of spending unstructured time with friends and enjoying the open
road. I’m going out with a bang and have a full day planned from morning til
dusk and I don’t anticipate pulling into my garage at home until nightfall or later.
The morning begins with breakfast and some brief writing
time with Lancelot, Jaci's parrot, who eyes me suspiciously as always. Jaci is already at work, so I settle into a corner near his cage and get some typing in
while he stares at me and puffs up his body to show me who’s boss. Brynn, Jaci's sister, appears from downstairs ready for the day, and with that we are off to see Jaci and Hope at Lot 2029.
It is only 11AM but Lot 2029 is busy already with shoppers eagerly
seeking out trinkets and treasures. We browse the selections and then assist
Jaci in the back with some of her media duties. We participate in a quick fun photo shoot for some new products, and then prepare to depart. Goodbyes are said, and peering out the display window at the front of the store we can see a treacherous downpour in process outside. Given that we spent a fair amount of time on our
hair this morning, we sprint for the car as though we are being chased by
killer bees. We drive several blocks blindly as both of us frantically try to
figure out how to turn the wipers on in the unfamiliar vehicle we have
“borrowed” from the Stofferahn brother, Seth. Luckily we make it back to their
residence safely and part ways from there.
My first stop from here is the Floor the Ceiling store to
deliver a bag of saltwater taffy to my aunt Karen. My aunt Donna, upon giving me the taffy in Texas, instructed
that the two bags be split between Karen’s household and my other aunt, Linda’s
household. I arrive with the package and explain the instructions to Karen. I
cannot be responsible if she does not follow through with the sharing.
I spend a couple hours hunting down last minute items and
such as Fargo is a shopping oasis the likes I which I may not see for awhile,
and then hit I-94 and head West for Jamestown. I have several parties to see here, including
a dinner date. As I drive I reflect on
how strange it is to be coming home after all this time, driving familiar roads
and seeing signs and trees I have seen before. I think more about the return
home and realize that the house will be empty as my roommate Tammany is almost all moved
out, and neither of us has spent much time there in the last couple months. The apartment will be barren. Thinking along these lines I conclude that a pit stop will
be squeezed in before I make my last visits as I want to arrive home with both
food and toilet paper, in case there is none when I get there. I take fifteen
minutes to stop and load up necessity items, and then point the truck towards
the Rohr residence.
Eva and David Rohr, dear friends of mine who are both retired, are both outside polishing a tractor to display
for the upcoming Rib Fest event. We sip cool beverages outside on the patio and talk about life.
Eva tries to see if David will make me a short term loan due to my impending
poverty and homelessness, and offers my motorcycle up as collateral. David
bites and asks if he and Eva will be able to use the motorcycle until the loan
was paid in full. Eva then retracts her statement. There is some conversation
about how they met which follows. David describes a situation of how they met, claiming Eva was lying
in a ditch and he found her there. A bicycle enters the story and then the story becomes unclear. Several options appear, including that Eva
fell off the bicycle into the ditch, David was riding the bicycle and collected
Eva and she rode home on the handlebars, or David found her in the ditch and promptly ran
her over with said bicycle; the exact tale is not specified but it is becoming
clear that they may all be a farce. Needless to say no more two wheeled vehicles are coming into their relationships.
I comment on how romantic their love story is and David mutters and says something about how Eva think’s his “tractor is sexy” as he walks away. I love Eva and David and I want to be just like them when I grow up.
I comment on how romantic their love story is and David mutters and says something about how Eva think’s his “tractor is sexy” as he walks away. I love Eva and David and I want to be just like them when I grow up.
Now it’s on to Nicole’s house where I am excited to meet her
family and enjoy my last home cooked meal. Dennis also joins us with his
mini-me’s, Addison and Macy, in tow. Nicole and Travis’ son, Aiden also joins
us but Abbie is not home so I will have to meet her another day. The family dog
is also present. I previously worked with Nicole and Dennis through my social work role. They work for juvenile court, which seems to be where all of the fun people are employed...
Before dinner we get a grand tour of Nicole and Travis's new house and get to
see all the hard work they have been doing. I love seeing the different ideas and unique
traits of all the homes I’ve visited.
It’s a lovely night out so we dine in the gazebo outside. We share some
amazing food, including grilled to order steaks courtesy of Travis. Before we know it, we’ve talked and laughed
our way to 9:00PM and it’s time to hit the road. How can our visit have flown by so quickly?
As I drive the last hour and a half home to my apartment, the whole thing seems like a dream. It feels bittersweet, returning to the familiar, almost as if the trip never happened and I simply drove down for a quick dinner with friends.
Was I lost? Did I "find myself?" Did I find happiness and purpose? Did this trip mean anything--did it even happen?
What is this happiness we are all searching for? Can we buy it if we have the right amount of money? And even then how do we find it or reveal where and what exactly it is. What brings true meaning to our lives, takes our breath away, and lights up our faces with this much sought after happiness? I feel like two months was not enough time to figure everything out that needs to be. To fill in the blanks and to fill in the holes that I couldn’t dig myself out of. What have I been doing all this time while I was a tiny speck moving at a snail’s pace across an infinite stretch of highway on a map that you fold up and put back in your pocket at the end of the day. All the driving in the world won’t take you where you need to go if you don’t know where that is, or how to get there.
But if you don’t have anywhere to be, no set destination, does it matter? Will you never find what you are looking for because you don't have a set mark? Or will it come to you in the most unexpected ways, unplanned and astonishing: That spark, that twinkle. The feeling you get driving hilly dirt roads that tickles your tummy and makes you laugh. The way it feels to lie in the grass on the first warm day of the year and stare up at the sky that is finally bright after so long. The way the ocean sounds as it breaks against the coast and crashes onto the beach before rushing back out again to gather itself for another strike. I can’t describe what I went out for but maybe I know what I came back with, or at least what I had when I was gone that I will forever be fighting to hold onto.
You get a strange feeling when you leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love, but you miss the person you are at this time and place because you’ll never be this way ever again.
I
am not the same now as I was when I left, though I can’t tell you how. Now
driving on autopilot the last hundred miles I wonder if it was all just a
dream. Did I drive across the country, with my arm hanging out the open window
as I rolled down the coast, with my hair whipping behind me as I descended the
Grand Canyon, with my heart beating wildly as I saw the dolphins start to
approach Kiawah Island. There was joy in that. There was happiness in that. I
couldn’t have bought it because for all the richness of my experiences,
monetarily I was quite poor. Then perhaps it can’t be bought. Or maybe for some
it can. The modern conveniences of life may suffice to fulfill the shallow
wells of need in the lives of few and for that perhaps they are fortunate. Not
needing more, not needing the depth or the understanding or the answers to the
why’s and how’s. Accepting more easily, and finding a more simplified peace.
But for those few who are brave enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to look behind the curtain into the
unknown it is not so easy. We ask why,
we ask how, we ask for more and expect more because we are willing to give that
much. We step forward when it’s hard and reach when it’s far and speak in the
silence when no one else will--and all the while choosing not to be satisfied with the modern and
material comforts of this Earth alone. Our well is deep and cannot be filled with money and things, but only with true feelings and rich adventures. It’s the harder way. Sometimes it leads
to unpleasant experiences, to pain and betrayal, and torture of the heart and
at times it makes us want to recede inward and turn back to the place where the
path forked and we chose the less traveled route. But we reach farther and
farther, staring up into a bright dream, a glowing sun that seems impossible and unreal. We feel it and
see it, but our minds are too inferior to conceptualize our need for it wholly. We feel it’s
warmth and by it we see everything in our world; and by our faith we wrap a
blanket of comfort around us, and it illuminates the path we are to take mapped
out for us in the same manner that the stars were planted in the sky. Not
haphazardly or sporadically, but exactly as they should be, as we should be,
where we are now, and where we will be. We can't know beforehand where we are going, or see the entire plan, but we can feel we are taking steps in the right direction by the way it sets our hearts on fire when we aim our vessels into the wind.
“Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.”
― Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road
My happiness comes from being free from constraints that tell me who I am or put me in a glass box. My faith keeps me grounded in the person I know I truly am, yet allows me to stretch high and tease the wind as I sway and turn with the seasons, the storms and the curve balls and the sunny days. Staying faithful, and trusting Him to lead me, I cannot stray from the path. The hardest part will be to remain honest, to not let everything else that the world says is important cloud my vision of what I know to be the truth. It doesn't matter where I am, California or North Dakota; what matters is where my heart is.
If I have the courage to stay true to myself, to find joy in the sand between my toes and the shells in my pockets, to enjoy the open road now and then and be blown along wherever the winds takes me. To not only go along but enjoy it and accept it and not worry about planning it out—then I need not want for anything more ever again.
Was I lost? Did I "find myself?" Did I find happiness and purpose? Did this trip mean anything--did it even happen?
What is this happiness we are all searching for? Can we buy it if we have the right amount of money? And even then how do we find it or reveal where and what exactly it is. What brings true meaning to our lives, takes our breath away, and lights up our faces with this much sought after happiness? I feel like two months was not enough time to figure everything out that needs to be. To fill in the blanks and to fill in the holes that I couldn’t dig myself out of. What have I been doing all this time while I was a tiny speck moving at a snail’s pace across an infinite stretch of highway on a map that you fold up and put back in your pocket at the end of the day. All the driving in the world won’t take you where you need to go if you don’t know where that is, or how to get there.
But if you don’t have anywhere to be, no set destination, does it matter? Will you never find what you are looking for because you don't have a set mark? Or will it come to you in the most unexpected ways, unplanned and astonishing: That spark, that twinkle. The feeling you get driving hilly dirt roads that tickles your tummy and makes you laugh. The way it feels to lie in the grass on the first warm day of the year and stare up at the sky that is finally bright after so long. The way the ocean sounds as it breaks against the coast and crashes onto the beach before rushing back out again to gather itself for another strike. I can’t describe what I went out for but maybe I know what I came back with, or at least what I had when I was gone that I will forever be fighting to hold onto.
You get a strange feeling when you leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love, but you miss the person you are at this time and place because you’ll never be this way ever again.
I
am not the same now as I was when I left, though I can’t tell you how. Now
driving on autopilot the last hundred miles I wonder if it was all just a
dream. Did I drive across the country, with my arm hanging out the open window
as I rolled down the coast, with my hair whipping behind me as I descended the
Grand Canyon, with my heart beating wildly as I saw the dolphins start to
approach Kiawah Island. There was joy in that. There was happiness in that. I
couldn’t have bought it because for all the richness of my experiences,
monetarily I was quite poor. Then perhaps it can’t be bought. Or maybe for some
it can. The modern conveniences of life may suffice to fulfill the shallow
wells of need in the lives of few and for that perhaps they are fortunate. Not
needing more, not needing the depth or the understanding or the answers to the
why’s and how’s. Accepting more easily, and finding a more simplified peace.
But for those few who are brave enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to look behind the curtain into the
unknown it is not so easy. We ask why,
we ask how, we ask for more and expect more because we are willing to give that
much. We step forward when it’s hard and reach when it’s far and speak in the
silence when no one else will--and all the while choosing not to be satisfied with the modern and
material comforts of this Earth alone. Our well is deep and cannot be filled with money and things, but only with true feelings and rich adventures. It’s the harder way. Sometimes it leads
to unpleasant experiences, to pain and betrayal, and torture of the heart and
at times it makes us want to recede inward and turn back to the place where the
path forked and we chose the less traveled route. But we reach farther and
farther, staring up into a bright dream, a glowing sun that seems impossible and unreal. We feel it and
see it, but our minds are too inferior to conceptualize our need for it wholly. We feel it’s
warmth and by it we see everything in our world; and by our faith we wrap a
blanket of comfort around us, and it illuminates the path we are to take mapped
out for us in the same manner that the stars were planted in the sky. Not
haphazardly or sporadically, but exactly as they should be, as we should be,
where we are now, and where we will be. We can't know beforehand where we are going, or see the entire plan, but we can feel we are taking steps in the right direction by the way it sets our hearts on fire when we aim our vessels into the wind.“Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.”
― Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road
My happiness comes from being free from constraints that tell me who I am or put me in a glass box. My faith keeps me grounded in the person I know I truly am, yet allows me to stretch high and tease the wind as I sway and turn with the seasons, the storms and the curve balls and the sunny days. Staying faithful, and trusting Him to lead me, I cannot stray from the path. The hardest part will be to remain honest, to not let everything else that the world says is important cloud my vision of what I know to be the truth. It doesn't matter where I am, California or North Dakota; what matters is where my heart is.
If I have the courage to stay true to myself, to find joy in the sand between my toes and the shells in my pockets, to enjoy the open road now and then and be blown along wherever the winds takes me. To not only go along but enjoy it and accept it and not worry about planning it out—then I need not want for anything more ever again.
 |
| 9,287 miles. There and Back Again. |
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