Fear and Leaving in... where am I again?

I know, everybody, I know!  I'm sorry.  In the great halls of Where the Heck Are Yas, it goes:

1. Carmen Sandiego
2. D.B. Cooper
3. Waldo
4. me

But don't think I wasn't paying attention this whole time.  Here's my life of late (so very late):

Chapter 1 - Oceanside (Portland to Arcata, CA)


Leaving the morning of the 14th was harder than I thought it would be.  Details to be attended to, all packed in (back window still visible from driver's seat - bonus!), making doubly sure everything was accounted for and in the car.  Minus the cat - that was a tough goodbye, to say nothing of the protracted farewells of good friends the night before, or the brutal 5am wakeup call to kiss my parents before they started their day.


I drove I-5, dull but straightforward.  Catnapped in the Safeway parking lot in Florence for about seven minutes before I thought better of it and bought two bottled Starbucks mochas.  After that, the drive and my music were much peppier.  I traveled farther than I had planned that day, and ended up passing through some familiar territory - the mighty redwoods, which I have twice traveled by the ghosts of roadtrips past.


At sunset, just south of the Elk Meadow campground, I pulled off the road and walked a beach that I had been to seven years and one month before (give or take a week).  That bygone day, the sun was a pomegranate stain in the gray sky - forest fires raged somewhere nearby, but far enough away that neither us nor the elk were that worried.  My friends and I had sat in the sand passing around a pita bread torn into the shape of a man.  We each named our distant fears and then (I believe) tore up the bread man, buried him, burned him - I don't remember which.  Now is not the venue to name those fears again, but I remember I was surprised by the truth of it, which stayed with me for a long while.  Standing on that beach again, more or less by accident, watching an orange disc sink through the cloud bank, I was struck by how I now had an entirely new population of fears - these much more mundane but all the more salient.  That night in a soulless Super 8 (they are designed that way, are they not?) those hobgoblins danced about while I made a sandwich, watched some TV, tried to ignore their hair-pulling, arm-pinching ways.  I slept through their ruckus, but the next morning was a sluggish one, and I blame them.



Chapter 2 - California 1 (Arcata to Berkeley, CA)


The car ride was interesting by myself.  There were times when the music couldn't be loud enough, times when all I wanted was to bury myself in Harry's feelings towards Ginny, times when I had a nice chat with myself, and most surprisingly - times when I just drove in silence.  All these happened in turn on this day, as I discovered just how disappointingly highway-y 101 is in California.  Craving better scenery, I cut back over to the coast by way of a curvy, hilly, winding road.  I mean really.  Along this narrow-laned carnival ride, I pointedly thanked my mom and dad for teaching me how to accelerate out of curves and not to ride the brake downhill.  I never felt more immediately imperiled on this trip than when I saw a sign here saying "One lane road ahead."


But it ended up being worth it.  I found a beautiful beach with little caves, a thin layer of mist, and surprisingly warm shallow surf.  I could've stayed all day, but a great city and good friends beckoned.  I went on through Eureka, CA- another place I could see myself in an alternate universe, replete as it is with herb/natural health store, tattoo shops and Alternative Recycling Center.


Then I was at Mandy's, watching The Phantom Tollbooth (appropriately trippy for San Francisco), thinking about Chuck Jones and the Terrible Trivium.  I so dig the personification of concepts in that work (book/movie) - if you can truly call these creatures persons.  A spectre whose pleasant suggestions that you dig a hole through a mountain with a pin, move a sand dune grain by grain with a pair of tweezers, just so you don't have to deal with anything more pressing?  Achingly, embarrassingly familiar.


Chapter 3 - If You're Going to San Francisco (circa SF and Berkeley, CA)

A wonderful, filling, touristy, catch-uppy day that still left me feeling strangely unsatisfied.  Like I cheated myself somehow by choosing what I did from my LONG list of possible awesome things to do.  A necessary evil, but I remained a bit out-of-sorts with myself all day, grumptastic until I decided with Mandy's help thatthat feeling just meant I'd have a full visit planned for when I stop by on my way back.


I didn't see any Mythbusters waltzing down a hilly SF street, *sigh*, but I did see some beautiful murals (and Murials), a foggy, backlit but very famous bridge, some prison on an island (on a Rock, some might say), the real-life inside of the Exploratorium, innumerable interesting folk and a bar with a sign over the front that read, "Itching to get away from Portland, Ore".

I also didn't: see Castro, go to City Lights, raid the People's Park Free Box, eat any Ghiradelli's, have nearly enough time with my friends.  Next time.  Oh, next time!

Chapter 4 - Hotel California (Berkeley to Mitchell Caverns, Mojave Desert, CA)



I woke to a very foggy morning then drove through to a very hot and sunny inland day.  I kept passing signs proclaiming "Congress Created Dustbowl!" and did, indeed pass some fallow fields and one very skeletonized orchard.  I got thirstier and thirstier, watched spiky and spindly plants begin to populate the vista, the trees dwindle and disappear and the heat haze grow from a puddle on the distant blacktop to a whole mirage sea off in the distance (this really happened - I now understand those Loony Tunes 'desert hallucination' scenes so much better.  No one I saw turned into a ham shank, though).  I ended up on part of Historic Route 66.  This happened when the GPS decided that it would make more sense to send me to the office headquarters of the Mojave National Preserve (on Main Street in a tiny town) rather than the Preserve itself.  No thanks.  The part of 66 I was on this time was very like a sine wave and I was not into rollercoasters that late in the day.  Back on the main highway I went. 


I arrived at Mitchell Caverns as the sun was sinking behind the large mountain my campsite was at the base of.  Still plenty of light for me to pitch my new tent, eat my leftover dinner, marvel at the tenacity of my old car and watch the shadows lengthen across the dry valley.  A sunset painted with the softest, palest brush led to a spectacular night sky, complete withgossamer Milky Way stripe, satellites and two shooting stars.


Chapter 5 - This is Not my Beautiful House (Mojave to Montezuma Castle, Camp Verde, AZ)

Bright sun at 7:30am in a totally stifling tent = worst part.  Opening said tent to aforementioned desert vistas = not so bad.  I walked a brief path (after being told repeatedly by the tour guide/maintenance guy to watch out for snakes) to peek in Mitchell Caverns - a defunct silver mine.  It was gated, and underwhelming, but the cool underground breeze was pleasant.  I couldn't stick around for the 1:30 tour, though: today was The Day!


I rejoined Harry and Dumbledore in the pensieve and we three got back on the road.  Gradually the trees came back, and to quite a height and verdancy.  Opening the window, I was happy to discover that the wind wasn't stiflingly hot, as it had been the day before.  Enchanting though hardcore desert is, I think it would've been difficult for me to call it home for the next few months.  No worries - the country here was green and inviting, and some thunderheads gave a token sprinkle of water just to prove it wasn't as desolate as I thought.

...And then suddenly, I was here.  Dazed and dizzy and not quite sure I had my land legs back, I met my boss (jovial, kind, laughs at all my jokes.  Surprised he doesn't have a beard.) who gave me keys to my temporary housing (huge! apartment all to myself), a government-issue notepad and pen and bid me call if I had questions.  Since my only pressing thought was not quite a question but a four-letter  exclamation of general disbelief, I said I'd get back to him.


And what did I do, dear readers, at the end of such a long and storied journey?  I cleaned.  I poked about for a while, opened all the drawers, looked in the bedroom-- where I immediately found the dried carapace of a scorpion on my floor.  Hence, I cleaned!  Swept down all the cobwebs and vacuumed up any other carapaces that might be about (I hope, I hope).  A good ritual, even if the apartment was certainly livable before I took the hoover to it.  Though now I wish I would've kept that first rude symbol of welcome from AZ, I'm sure there will be more where he came from, and I will once again find myself crouching on the bed poking at some crunchy shape with a wire hanger.


I walked the visitor's path along Montezuma Castle after the park was closed for the day.  I saw some kind of cat with a very bushy tail, lots of birds, some lizards, and really excellent prehistoric architecture - all of which I will come to know very well soon enough.  When I got back, a brand-new coworker(!) was knocking on my door inviting me out to dinner and drinks.  There, my instant community discussed bad concert experiences, where to go for good Mexican food nearby, new slogans for the state of New Hampshire, Serenity, and which movies we would watch to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Nerds!  I've found nerds in the desert!  God bless 'em.


Before, when I imagined this place, I was excited about the job part.  I know this work will be fun and engaging for me, and I'm looking forward to starting on Sunday.  But I feel reassured by the people I've met so far, and can now think that the day to day business of living here might not suck, either.


I think... I'll be all right here.  I'm willing to wait and see.