I cannot move. Not yet. I hold a stopped watch in my hand, wait patiently for time to start again. Lingering here will be understood someday beyond the tediousness of truck shopping, money moving, and body healing. I wait. I wait for my transferred registration to arrive from Vermont. I wait for my neck to have full range of motion without pulling and pain. For my back to stay in alignment enough to ask it to dance and hike. I stretch. I make calls, tweak what needs tweaking, organize my belongings back into a new version of what was. Will the curtains still work? What about securing the bicycle upright? Yes, but with the front tire released so the bike settles down lower. I rework a clamp into a bracket to hold the bike in place for jostled road driving, backcountry ruts and rocks. I buy a replacement screen for the cap sliding window that was missing one. I create order out of chaos. I see a chiropractor, get some massage for my neck. Take Chinese herbs for pain and healing. I carefully consider what I lift and how I twist. I mark time and study the watch stopped by circumstance.
Swallowing Fear
Part of the first year on the road, and certainly continuing this time around, I bump again into that wall of concern, caution, angst, and at times, downright fear. I think it was last summer when I grumbled that I was tired of worrying about money. Always, and I mean, without a doubt, always, it comes when needed. It comes in forms I could never anticipate. It comes from places of friendship, community, compassion, and generosity. It comes from hard experiences and manual labor. It just plain comes. I try to keep blaming Pluto and its trickster carnage, but these types of lessons have always been with me. When will I learn? When will I trust?
My dear old truck was going down sometime in the next couple of years anyway. Why not have it happen here in California where the sun shines warm and dry inland away from the salty sea? Not a speck of rust on this baby! Less than 100,000 miles (my old friend was pushing 225,000). It comes with 4WD and a cap. It has a tailgate that works, and extra seats in the extended cab. Okay, a shorter bed length. But, it'll work for sleeping and later on, transporting materials and goods. I'll just start a new policy that, in my cabinetry business, I won't build anything longer than six feet long or high. The energy will shift.
But I hate debt. I did get some degree of a settlement on my totaled pal, but it would have never been enough to buy another truck without some financing. A setback. I hate this. And I step up to my wall again. Angst. I try the alchemy angle: There is still part two of the settlement.....body, pain and suffering. I have no idea what all this will look like, but it may help offset the time of the financing even if it doesn't erase the whole thing. I stand still in the wave of what will settle out. One step, one call, one day at a time. I swallow. No, gulp. Then breathe and hear a voice in my thoughts: "It always, always shows up. When will you finally get it!"
Is it that I forget to be grateful some days? Within the muck of overwhelming details, do I forget to stand at the point of vista? Panorama? Overview? Do I forget to be alive even though my body needs some adjusting?
Any yet, I get to have a better vehicle. I get to build community around Ojai. I get to spend more time with my dear friend who I came to visit. I'm making new friends, and progressing on my ukulele...I now can play a variety of chords, which means more songs. I'm getting invited to social activities.
With chords punctuating lyrics on someone's iPad page, I strum in practice of faster chord changes and the learning of yet more chord options. In the midst of several guitarists, the high pitch of my tentative Ukulele strings weaves in and out of dancing harmonics and picked melodies. I am happy to get lost in the sound wall of vibrating guitar strings and low vocalizations. Great success. Time has stilled around movement, but not around music.
Rain bears down on a drought ridden landscape and wind blows drops horizontal against window panes. Trees fall nearby, and roads flood. Mud slides. But not here where I am. I am warm, safe, dry, fed. And so, I celebrate. Let the rains continue to soak into the foundation below citrus trees, budding flowers and thirsty bushes. Let the birds sing from branches. Let the rivers swell.
Without twisting too much, I rub grout into the small shower floor tiles I mortared on yesterday. In exchange for room and board, my friend's house owners have embraced my knowledge of building processes. I have gently made shelving for a cabinet and closet, and now help out in this bathroom project. I feel no pressure to leave quickly— three weeks turned to two months here in the valley. T and his son do the grunt work as I protect my neck and back, post-accident. I do what I can, and supervise the son when T. is unavailable (because he is 30, I invite the teamwork aspect without asserting myself into a rigid power position). We organize our planning and divide tasks based on my body needs and cautions. We work well together. I feel welcomed by this family offering me this moment of sanctuary while regrouping my energies for the road life.
And once time starts to tick, and I begin to move again, the details running my existence right now will fade into the horizon behind me and I will sing a farewell to what has been and then an overture to what will become. I will lift on the wing of perspective, letting clarity arc it's rainbow across the bluest of skies and newly green land on the road beckoning me forward. This I trust for the day. May I be able to practice this trust Every day.