Blog

I sit at the small booth towards the front of the bus spreading brie on crackers and eating them in between sentences – such delicious punctuation. It is a muggy space, here inside the bus, and there are not enough windows to let in the cool Orlando night. So we rig fans to circulate air, everyone drinks lots of cold water, and Sam falls asleep in his new spot on the floor beside our bed, sweat dampening the hair around his ears.

Our bus sits in a vacant lot beside a church outside of Orlando. We could be the last people on the planet, with our dark window shades and the generator beneath us that drowns out all sound. But then my phone lights up with an incoming message, like Morse code or a pulse from deep space, and I know that we are not the last.

I can see Maile at the end of the long hall, her face glowing white while she writes.

* * * * *

A picture surprised me today, a photo of our chickens’ secret egg stash at our old house. For perhaps three minutes I stared at that pile of riddles, like an archeologist finding proof of some long ago culture hidden amidst the chaos of vines and beetles. That had been our life once. And not “once” as in ten years ago, though that’s what it feels like. This “once” meant simply three weeks and two days ago. Not even a month. Not even a lunar cycle.

It scares me, how fast things can change. We build our little castles in the sand and we dig and we sweat and, with painstaking tedium, we articulate the details. We carve out the moats and areas to carry away the water we know will come.

But the tide always returns, pulled in by a moon we can barely see. And the sand we have accumulated can never withstand it.

* * * * *

Yet somehow we must find the space inside of us to build anyway, to construct these castles in spite of what we know, regardless of their fleeting nature. Because as we build we will begin to realize it’s not about the sand. It’s not about the way the walls melt under the first crashing waves. It’s not about the losing.

It’s about the strength we gain in our fingers. It’s about callouses that begin to layer on our palms. It’s about the creativity and the perseverance and the fortitude infused into each new structure.

It’s not about the castle. It never has been. It’s about us.

* * * * *

The kids hold their books out over the edges of their bunks, showing each other what they are working on or what they are reading. Abra’s hair floats around her flushed face in wispy ringlets. Cade and Lucy keep each of their curtains open to feel the cool air from the fan.

I turn out the lights and follow the single-eyed leading of a flashlight back to bed.

There are days, and then there are days.

We squeezed the bus into a narrow, conventional gas station (as opposed to the truck stops we’ve been frequenting). Maile got out and peered up to make sure we didn’t clip the overhang. I put on the parking break, then filled the tank with $400 worth of diesel. Ouch.

My main concern at that point became our exit route: used cars lined the back of the gas station parking lot but I couldn’t cut the corner too close or the minivan we towed behind would hit the gas pump and blow up the entire city of Orange Park. It’s become interesting to me on this trip, though, how just when we think we have all the potential pitfalls in life identified, something completely random happens. Something we never could have imagined. Something immeasurably random.

Something like the entire ignition falling into the dashboard.

* * * * *

I sat in the driver’s seat holding the bus key in my hand, staring at the new hole in the dash, perfectly round. I would not have felt any more shocked if a rabbit disappeared in there after the ignition (“I’m late, I’m late”).

An empty hole. Where the ignition used to be. My first response (not usually the smartest one) immediately shouted, “Quick, reach in there and grab it!” So I stuck my index finger into the hole. And my finger got stuck.

Maile stood outside the bus, waiting to help me navigate the minefield of used cars and gas pumps. She looked at me impatiently. What was taking me so long? Why hadn’t I started the bus? Laughter crept up on me like the wind, or an inconsequential birthday, and I waved her inside. She opened the bus door.

“What?”

“The ignition just fell into the dashboard, and now my finger is stuck,” I said, laughter erupting out of me. She looked at me like I may have lost touch with reality.

“What?!”

Just then I gave a mighty pull and yanked my finger out. A thick layer of skin around my knuckle fell down into the dash, joining the ignition. Now what?

* * * * *

I aimed the flashlight down the hole. The ignition and its accompanying wires rested three or four inches below where it should have been. I got on my back below the steering wheel and peered up. I could just about see it. Maile gave me a chopstick and I tried to push the ignition up – she sat poised with tweezers, a Mr. Miyagi, waiting to snag it. Not working.

Eventually I found a few small screws and took them out. That particular piece of dash popped off. The ignition fit right back into its rightful place.

* * * * *

Laughter.

Improvisation.

Cooperation.

All things to keep in mind when the unexpected take place.

Bats. Long walks. Sunburn. Alligators. Graffiti. Rejection. Writers. Coffee shops and wine bars. Meeting internet friends in person for the first time. Even a poet laureate.

I’m not sure how much more goodness I can handle in one week.

* * * * *

Monday morning. A young lady drove up next to our minivan, rolled down her window, and peered through the passenger side.

“Shawn?”

I got out of the van, walked around, and gave her a big hug, because even though we’ve never met in person, I feel like I know her. This was Tamara Lunardo of “Tamara Out Loud” fame, and I was happy to meet her. She’s just as full of life and kindness as her writing makes her out to be.

What a day she had in store for us.

We walked for miles through a beautiful park, the kids searching for alligators and cranes while Maile, Tamara, and I talked about life and parenthood and writing. From there we had lunch at The Swamp, a Gainesville institution. And if you read Tamara’s blog, you know the day wouldn’t be complete unless we did something illegal, so we went to this huge wall in Gainesville that everyone paints. The kids added their own layer of graffiti.

That night we waited until dusk and then watched thousands and thousands of bats fly from a bat house to the lake, right over our heads, each of them trying to avoid the lone hawk picking them off one at a time.

Tamara took me to a coffee shop that night and introduced me to three of her writer friends. We talked about our goals and what keeps us from reaching them. We talked about the importance of reading well. We didn’t realize what time it was until the barista turned off the lights, a not-so-subtle hint that we had stayed past the 11pm closing.

* * * * *

On Tuesday, Willie took to the road, headed south to Orlando, Florida. We spent the afternoon getting situated, and then at 6pm I drove into Orlando to meet my writer friend Stacy Barton in person for the first time.

Again, what a night! We met at a wine bar, and as soon as I saw Stacy I felt like I was seeing an old friend. We talked for about thirty minutes before the others arrived, here and there, one at a time. Even my good friend Janet Oberholtzer, in town for a race and some book talks, was able to be there. We drank wine and ate cheese and bread and everyone was so refreshingly honest about their recent disappointments, their hopes, and their pending potential successes.

Not only that, but I got to meet Billy Collins, 2-term US Poet Laureate and a recent TED talker. He told me stories of when he joined Garrison Keillor on “Prairie Home Companion,” and what it’s like to write in Florida versus writing in New York, where he grew up. One of the most encouraging things he said to me last night came after he asked me how old I was.

“35,” I said. He sort of looked at me as if I had just been born last week.

“Well,” he said slowly. “I didn’t really make it anywhere as a poet until I was in my mid-40s.”

“That’s every encouraging,” I said.

“It should be,” he replied with a huge smile.

“Isn’t that where we used to turn?” Maile asked.

We were too late – the sun had already set in Orange Park, Florida. Still, we followed dark roads through the vaguely familiar neighborhood.

“I think that’s the road,” Maile would say, or, “Wait, that looks familiar.”

Then, as if emerging from a dream, clarity. Turn right at the stop sign. Straight through the next intersection. Then finally left on to Papaya Drive.

Even without the sun, the sky maintained some kind of cobalt blue against which the inky outlines of palm trees made everything feel very foreign, very faraway, and very long ago. I stopped the van and put it in park. Maile and I stared across the street at the single story house.

Eleven years had passed, but nothing had changed. Oh, maybe a tree was missing from the front yard. Maybe the grass looked better cared for. I doubt they had an anemic vegetable garden behind the house.

Memories popped into my mind like Polaroids. Pulling up all the carpet in the living room during our first day there and then sleeping on the rolls of old carpet that night. Me coming home from a long week on the road to find light peeking around the edges of the curtains, knowing the person who loves me most on this earth sat inside that house. Bringing home a little puppy that totally cramped our style but to whom we could not say “no” at the pet store.

And they just kept flashing through my mind, these instants.

* * * * *

But sitting there in the minivan, with four kids crying or laughing or arguing in the back seats, it felt like maybe all that stuff never happened. And if it did happen, it was so long ago – maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe all those memories would eventually just evaporate from my brain, and then from Maile’s brain, and then all would be forgotten.

Then Maile reached over and grabbed my hand.

“It’s been a crazy 12 ½ years,” she said, and I knew exactly what she meant. And suddenly it did matter, every little moment, even the ones I’ve already forgotten, because all of those moments are what brought us to that moment, parked in the dark in a minivan with our four audacious children having their own Barnum and Bailey’s three-ring circus in the back seat.

So we just sat there, our headlights shining down that old familiar road, and we stared at that house the way you stare at an old friend when you pass them at the county fair, and then you walk on without saying anything because words would only ruin the ground around the memorials of those good times.

Some things are best left in the very long ago.

Saturday morning. I sat down in Willie’s huge driver’s seat and took a deep breath. We had about three hours to our next destination, Orange Park, Florida, and all the little zoo animals (aka children) were fed, watered, and ready to go. We had spent the night at a truck stop and were parked between two huge 18-wheelers. It was actually kind of a cozy spot.

The storms that went on to wreak so much havoc later in the day were passing through – the hurricanes stayed to the north of us, but heavy bands of rain pounded the roof and windows of the bus.

I turned the bus key to “on” and pushed the red button. Nothing. Uh-oh. This had happened once or twice before, and all I had to do was jump-start it with our van, but I did not want to go outside. I looked at all the buttons again, wondering if I had left something running overnight that drained the battery. I turned the key off and on again. Pushed the button. Not even a click.

Oh, man. The ran was pouring down in sheets. I couldn’t find my raincoat, so I put on a heavy, corduroy number created more for cold, dry, Pennsylvania winters than for warm, humid, tropical storm-like conditions. I put on a baseball cap. I tried to put on a good attitude.

Fortunately the jumper cables reached from the mini-van we are towing to the bus battery. I did all the hooking up, turned on the van, went back into the bus, and turned it on. Pushed the button. Nothing.

I went back outside and did what my driver’s ed teacher told us never to do: I banged the live ends of the jumper cables together to see if I had a spark. Nothing. What is going on? I’ll tell you what was going on – I was getting more and more wet. Soaked. I went back in to the bus to try one more time. That’s when I noticed something.

The bus was still in drive.

So the night before I must have parked, turned off the bus, and put on the parking brake. But I never put it back into neutral (there is no “park”).

I smiled to myself. Really, I did, right there on the over-sized driver’s seat with water dripping from the bill of my baseball cap, right there with my fake wool coat that weighed as much as an entire sheep. And this question entered my mind, right there at a truck stop in South Carolina.

How often is my life in drive when it should be in neutral?

I know, I know. All the big life gurus talk about how important drive is, how indispensable the go-get-’em disposition. And of course there is always a time for that dogged determination to make something happen.

But sometimes I feel like that’s all I’m ever doing. Drive, drive, drive. Push for this book deal, make another call about that project, write, write, write. Then I wonder why things don’t start up the way I want them to. I wonder why nothing happens, no matter how many ways I try to jump-start an idea, or a business plan, or a direction in life.

Maybe I just need to put things back in neutral.

What do you think it looks like to occasionally put your life in neutral?

Today around 10:30 we’ll be hitting the road. It’s been a nice layover here in Charlotte, but it’s time to shake the dust off. Due to a few changes on one of the projects that I’m working on, we’ve decided we need to get to Sarasota earlier than originally planned, so we’re going to have to skip Savannah this time around.

Next stop: Jacksonville, FL. So far we’ve traveled about 1000 miles, and from here to Jacksonville it’s 400 miles, so we’ve got some ground to cover in the next day or two. Thankfully I’ve just purchased a 41 song album compiling all of Willie Nelson’s greatest hits (don’t tell Maile): “The Essential Willie Nelson.” We’ve gone way too far in this journey, in his bus, not to pay homage to Willie.

By the way, there’s a little gold plaque under the speedometer, just behind the steering wheel, with this inscription in black:

“This dog will hunt.”

Makes me smile every time I see it.

(I’ll post a picture of it on my Facebook writer’s page at some point. Become a fan by “Liking” my page, and you should be able to see it HERE later today.)

Anyway, enjoy your weekend! And pray for Tamara Out Loud, since our family will be descending on her family’s residence sometime Sunday night or Monday morning!