It was decision time.
I was back in the Florida panhandle where Marigold had graciously opened her home to me once again. We had quickly settled back into a routine of cook, clean, tend to the little ones, walk the dog, and repeat. But this time there was an edge to it… the programmed part of my adventure was complete and I had nothing on the horizon. So it was cook (three times a day? plus snacks? seriously?), clean (how is it possible for three small humans to generate this much laundry?), tend to the little ones (including the budding physicist*), and…
One big part of this sense of foreboding was that my car registration was due in less than a month, and this re-registration required a legal permanent address. I had expected this to come naturally, an extension of opportunities that would present themselves during my journey, but so far… nothing. All I had was physical exhaustion from my travels, and compromised sleep cycles from my time in France. Florida had me glowing constantly in the heat, and any inadvertently exposed skin was covered with itchy bug bites. It was decision time, and I wasn’t sure I would make a good one.
The plan had been to spend time as a monastic, either in Santa Fe or Marin, but during my time at the two Zen centers I had encountered a deep hostility towards the military and veterans, the same hostility they claimed to be against and above. As I criss-crossed our nation, other possibilities had presented themselves as possible places to land: Albuquerque, home to the Jolly Green schoolhouse** and a University of New Mexico professor whose research interested me; Paso Robles, its rolling hills close to my family and childhood friends; Mojave, the west coast home of the commercial space program; central Florida, hotbed of military and civilian user experience design and familiar from my grad school days; Okaloosa county, near Duke Field, Hurlburt Field, and friends from my time at Nellis and Osan; and Las Vegas, so many good memories and great hikes. Now it was crunch time and I had to pick one. I went down the list: no existing support structure, too expensive, too meth-y. Orlando and all its ‘lakes’ was too wet; Hurlburt and Duke, once sources of support, now felt gloomy. Left on the list was Vegas, the home I had promised to return to once my grad school adventure was complete.
My bones ached and wobbled as I carried my boxes to my truck. I was tired of driving, long hours of black pavement, vibrations from the road fatiguing my body. I wanted a bed to call my own, a kitchen to create in, a space that didn’t change from week to week. I had gone to monastery hoping to re-connect with my true nature, expecting to find a gallant adventurer. Instead I had found a deep homesickness, but for a place and time no longer available. I felt lost and broken, in much the same way as I had sixteen years before, when my life had been torn apart on a hill just outside Area 51***. I was going home, not in triumph as I had expected, but in what felt like defeat.
Once the truck was full, Marigold’s dog, Zipper (who had entertained me with walks each evening), did her best to block the door, registering her opposition to my departure. With tears in my eyes and a kiss on her cheek I placed her behind the baby gate so I could leave.
I pointed my truck west, and drove towards the next leg of my adventure.
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/58th_Special_Operations_Wing
*** https://lasvegassun.com/news/1999/mar/16/few-answers-in-crash-cause/