Advertisement
Published: December 18th 2022
Edit Blog Post
Sunday. Does that mean tomorrow we’ll have been gone two weeks? I’m feeling a bit unstuck in both time and space these days, so not sure. Maybe. I‘d check with the other half of my brain, but she’s busy writing an email and I don’t want to disturb.
While “surrender” we have, and joy we have tripped over, life appears to be set up such that the game continues, or new games begin every time an old game ends, and so we find ourselves still in the business of making moves. The trick, I guess, is to get better at knowing when to surrender and concede, and to do it more gracefully.
Friday morning, we awoke for the last time in our own Air BnB and got up and drove to the General Store for coffee. On the way, I told Sally of a thought I’d been thoughting as I lay in the pre-dawn darkness, how all of the stress and problems™ we were now trying to solve™ had been created by the single decision to sell Betty the RV in NC and fly home. Because Betty was, in one way, a giant suitcase on wheels, flying home meant figuring out what to do with a whole bunch of stuff, what to keep, what to try to take on the plane, what to give away, what to sell with the RV, what to ship home, how to pack it, what to pack it in, what to let go of, what to hold onto, and when to do these things, and in what order, and how and where to go and stay and live in the time between here and there. We were confronted again with the Tyranny of Choices and Decisions, and we were exhausted with the whole process, having spent so much time in that confusing state this past year. It was slowly making me a bit crazy.
It turned out that Sally had had a similar thought the night previous, and so we discussed the possibility that we might be better served by cancelling our plane tickets (Sally had purchased refundables), getting the engine repair done on Betty, and driving her home. While neither of us were all that keen on another three or four or five days on the road, when we compared that with the stresses of air travel and the connections we’d need to make on both ends and the work we’d have to do between then and then and how much of the stress of driving had been a result of Betty’s stalling, and then realized the amount of freedom it would give us, to just surrender to the situation, we both began to feel a great wallop of relief. We drank our coffee, went back to the Air BnB, finished our projects there and got the place ready for the next guests, repacked the Giant Suitcase as we had originally done, and made our way into Pittsboro, to meet the kids/grandkids for dinner before the opening night performance of the Play which had called us here. On the way, we stopped and did some shopping at the Habitat store, and noticed how much better we felt, having made a new and hopefully better choice.
What a fun play. What fun, to see young Grandson sing, dance, run, shout, nail his lines, hit his blocking, and so obviously and thoroughly enjoy himself. It’s a moving bit of theater, this
Best Christmas Pageant Ever thingy, and it was really nice to see it again after so many years, and to watch this courageous and dedicated band of “ragtag players” share with us this story around our modern version of the tribal campfire.
From the play, we made our way to our next parking space, a nearby, deep in the woods, Air BnB just getting up and running by an old friend, Doug. While we would sleep in our Betty bed while we were there, we’d use his space for bath and shower, kitchen, WiFi, and general hanging out in a warm space. We caught up with Doug around his wood stove, went to another performance Saturday afternoon, then caught up some more before going to hang out with the younguns for the morning, and are now back at Doug‘s, getting showers, doing a quick load of laundry, cleaning and packing up, and getting ready to go to the final performance.
Tonight, post-play, we head up to a hotel in Durham for two nights. Tomorrow morning we drop Betty off at the VW specialist, and hope that they’ll be able to make her run more smoothly for our return drive. As for that drive, we’ve vowed to only drive in the daylight, to take as long as it takes, and to stop wherever and whenever we need to. We’re going to take I-40 all the way to Salt Lake City before we turn north, or that’s the current plan, at least, hoping to avoid the worst winds and cold from the massive Arctic freeze we’ll be heading into. We hear we’ll be hitting thirty below in Whitehall on Thursday, which will surely test our winter prepping measures, but hopefully all will be well upon our return. I guess there’s little reason to hurry into that much cold, and understand that it will be warming soon after, with the forecast saying it’ll be warmer in Whitehall for Xmas day than it will be here in Chapel Hill.
Things have moved somewhat quickly here these past few days, with many human interactions and happenings to deliberate on and process as we drive. We’ve fallen behind on our routines, our Rumi, our Jesus book, our supplements and Clif Juice, our long morning talks, and we’re both looking forward to falling back into those habits and rituals, and to resting in the comfort of what bits of “the known” we can find. I’ve got Substacks to write in response to world happenings, and we’ve got clients to reconnect with as well. We live in a warm, safe bubble back home, and we look forward to climbing back into it.
We’ll likely sell Betty come spring, assuming she’s still in as much demand as she is now. We’ll complete a few more repairs and tweaks and pass her onto to someone who can put her to better use then we will. It was an experiment. We gave it the good ol’ college try. We’ve learned from the experience. Now it’s time for something else.
Wish us well on this last leg of our journey.
Take care, all.
Tim
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 9; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0502s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Kathie Breault
non-member comment
Wishing you well!
I'm happy to hear you're keeping Betty a bit longer. I was sad that you were getting rid of her. As a home birth midwife I've always felt like my car was my giant suitcase...it's funny to hear you call it that too. Safe travels during the arctic Blast!