It’s officially Spring. The earth turns, nature shifts into Spring gear, and I feel myself sliding. The winter job is over, there are decisions to be made. For a gypsy with no fixed abode, life is a series of transitions; there is no standing still.
Times like this I keenly feel the lack of a Significant Other. Such a relationship would offer an anchoring. In fact, I am set adrift with no home port, this is my life. It is not for everyone—I believe that’s the appropriate expression here. In weak moments I think perhaps it is not for me, either. But I know I am called to this life, a unique calling, of course it seems lonely at times.
The options that seem most viable to me are three. First, I could go back to China and earn some money. Money is important; no faulting that choice. Second option, go to India where I already have a visa, and live cheaply while focusing on Writing for Publication. Or, third, stick around for another winter season at the ski resort. That seems the least practical, the most expensive. At the moment, it seems to be my choice.
Now that I have a ‘new’ car, the road beckons me. I have unsettled business in Florida that I ignore at my own financial peril. Once on the open road, my diasporic community beckons me. My old friend in Kentucky and the Phoenix Institute calls for a brief visit. There is another newly unearthed old friend in Ohio, just three hours away from the Kentucky friend. She invites me to come and stay for a few days. An elderly aunt in New Jersey, who has an ancient claim on my heart but whose reclusive ways have kept me from her for far too many years. I will no longer allow her to keep me at a distance. Time is too short for us both. And then, of course, there are my siblings. For obvious reasons, it is for me to visit them and not the other way around, if we are to keep in touch. Their homes are on the path south to Florida.
It is simpler to take the trip first, then come back and resettle my meager possessions. I have put energy towards preliminary packing and sorting. This road trip should be less encumbered than previous ones, when I would carry all my possessions with me. Just one suitcase, my laptop, and a bag full of food. I was moving towards the point of departure, targeting Tuesday.
On Sunday I took a trip to the ski town in order to return Sylvia’s rental skis; we had rented them for the whole season. Knowing that Old Ron was feeling homebound, suffering from shingles, I offered to take him along. Late in the day we noticed that when I turned the steering wheel, a loud clicking or snapping noise rose from the front end. I dropped him off at his house with his groceries, plowed through the deep mud of his driveway, and just as I swung into our driveway the clicking turned into growling. A churning, mashing noise grew louder, so I shut down the engine half parked and left it.
I am happy that the CV joint decided to declare itself rotten at this moment, and not another. Still, I thought this mechanical drain on my purse had been shut off when I got rid of the ’92 Saturn. I was counting my pennies as it is, thinking to sleep in the car rather than pay a motel on the long hauls from north to south. I have to get over the affront. It could have been a lot worse, if indeed it had been a transmission problem. And I must remind myself—it is only money. Though at times it doesn’t seem so, in truth it is a renewable resource.
April will unfold itself outside my shuttle window. At times I will stop, leave my craft, sink into the damp green earth and enjoy the riot of colors and balmy breezes. The celebration of renewal and regeneration of friendships, of human bonds, will last for weeks, and leave a fragrant bouquet in my heart. With this green bounty I will settle on the mountain for the summer, and generate manuscripts that might produce some of that precious renewable resource.
Those are my tentative plans. Rent a condo on the ski mountain in the off season. Write. In the Fall, find a cheap apartment in town a mile or two from the mountain, and hope that I can work again at the ski resort. I think to provide myself one more season in which to learn to ski, and to enjoy the company of my grandchildren. These are my thoughts, my plans. In the end, another expression is appropriate: Man proposes, God disposes.
The Abiding Never Ends
18 years ago
