Category Archives: My True Life

Jan8

What a Long, Strange Shopping Trip It’s Been

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I spent the night in my van in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in a small (population less than 10,000) Southwest desert town. I woke before daybreak and bundled up for the long walk from my van to the store’s entrance.

After my visit to the restroom, I wandered through the store, trying to remember what supplies I needed. I took a shortcut through the men’s clothing department on my way to the propane canisters in the sporting good section. I ended up walking next to a wall of t-shirts and slowed down to see what was on display.

WHAT!?!?

There among the shirts featuring SpongeBob and Patrick, the Pink Floyd prism, and a kitten with a bandana around its head (captioned “Hug Life”) was a bright tie-dye with a spiral of Grateful Dead bears.

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One might think those Grateful Dead bears are all about dancing and joy and love. If one thought such a thing, one would be only partially right.

Bear (Owsley Stanley) was for a time the Grateful Dead’s sound guy. He was also, for a time, the Grateful Dead’s LSD guy. Yep, Bear was manufacturing lots and lots of delightful acid. (According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley_Stanley, Bear

was the first private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD.[1][2][3] By his own account, between 1965 and 1967, [Bear] produced no less than 500 grams of LSD, amounting to a little over a million doses at the time.[4])

And according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grateful_Dead,

A series of stylized dancing bears was drawn by Bob Thomas as part of the back cover for the album History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One (Bear’s Choice) (1973). Thomas reported that he based the bears on a lead sort from an unknown font.[103] The bear is a reference to Owsley “Bear” Stanley, who recorded and produced the album. Bear himself wrote, “the bears on the album cover are not really ‘dancing’. I don’t know why people think they are; their positions are quite obviously those of a high-stepping march.”[97]

Those bears–dancing or not–in their most basic sense represent Bear, and Bear represents LSD to lots and lots of folks. That LSD connection might explain the bears’ bright colors and the psychedelic backgrounds often seen behind them. (Whenever I see some little kid on the lot dressed in a tiny t-shirt with one of those bears on it I snicker to myself and wonder if the Deadhead parents–or grandparents–even realized they’ve made their precious darling a walking advertisement for lab produced hallucinogens.)

So there I was in Wal-Mart, faced with tie dye and dancing bears and the Grateful Dead–representations of drug culture, hippie culture, counterculture–all before 7am.

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I wanted one of those shirts! Lord, the price was only $7.50. I pawed through the display and found a size XXL. I really wanted one of the shirts. I put the shirt on over my jacket, and it felt a little too tight. I peeled off the shirt, then the jacket, put the tie dye on over my long sleeve t-shirt. I still didn’t like the way it fit. Damn!

I put the shirt back in the stack and went about my life. Even $7.50 is not a bargain if I don’t like the way the shirt fits. But I was sure sad to not be able to sport those bears and tell folks they’d come from Wal-Mart.

I took the photos.

Jan7

Declaration of Independence

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I was cleaning my vanhome recently and I found a fat envelope I thought contained old letters a friend had written to me. When I looked closely, I realized the handwriting on the paper was mine. On some of the pages I’d copied texts I’d written to friends soon after leaving my not-very-nice boyfriend. On another page was a poem I’d composed less than one month after leaving that guy. I want to share the poem today.

Declaration of Independence

I want to

sport hot pink bandanas,

sleep when the sun set,

and awaken at dawn.

 

I want to

laugh at my own jokes,

dance among raindrops,

then sit in silence and calm.

 

I want to

read paperback novels,

eat yogurt and apples,

wear pants and be strong.

 

Jan6

Santa Barbara

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I was feeling tired and on the verge of getting a cold the day we set out for Santa Barbara. I ended up lying in my bed napping wile Mr. Carolina drove the van. I thought the kids had a plan, an idea of where we could park so they could sleep outside. I was willing to let them handle the logistics.

I awoke to bickering, and it wasn’t just the Fighting Couple (FC) arguing. Mr. FC thought he knew where we should park. Sweet L and Mr. Carolina and Robbie didn’t like Mr. FC’s idea, but they didn’t have anything better to suggest. We could see the beach right over there, but all the street signs prohibited us from parking nearby.Park, Signs, Travel, No Parking, Transportation

Mr. Carolina got mad and said he wasn’t driving anymore. Robbie said he’d drive, but he was really bad at it, and we were soon telling him to pull over and let someone else take the wheel. Mr. FC got in the driver’s seat and headed out of town. There was more yelling, and Mr. FC relinquished the driver’s seat. Then Mr. Carolina was back at the wheel, and we were circling through the city again.

I asked about the plan, and it turned out the plan ended at get to Santa Barbara. No one had any idea of what we would do when we arrived.

California, Sea, Ocean, Pacific, Waves, Seashore, BeachSomehow, Mr. Carolina found us the perfect spot. We were on a residential street, although the residences to our left looked like mansions to me. To our right was a park. Bellow the park was a beach and the ocean. We could hear waves crashing below. Best of all, there was no sign regulating parking.

I climbed back into my bed while everyone else tumbled out of the van with their packs to sleep on the beach. Although in the light of day we saw signs declaring the illegality of beach sleeping, no on challenged the beach sleeping during the days we were there.

The next night Furthur played at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Furthur was the whole reason we were there. We didn’t have tickets, but we thought we’d just hang out in the lot. I planned to sell hemp jewelry, but that plan didn’t work out.

The official parking lot was small and the charge was $10, a ridiculously large price for a bunch of kids traveling with empty pockets. Like most of the folks arriving for the show, we found a free place to park on a nearby side street. It turned out to be a good thing we hadn’t scrounged up money for parking because the people in charge of the lot were not allowing vending.

We ended up walking back and forth on the streets between where we’d parked and the entrance to the venue. There were Deadheads everywhere, so there was something of a lot scene, but more dispersed. The Fighting Couple was hawking their hemp creations (necklaces with pouches for stones fashioned in such a way that the stone was removable and replaceable), hustling pretty hard to get money. Me? I just didn’t care much about selling hemp jewelry and quickly gave up.

As we walked through the clusters of Deadheads, Sweet L and Mr. Carolina repeatedly met people they knew, including three guys they’d lived with or near during some portion of the summer. Mr. Carolina had told me stories of these boys, called them his brothers, and that was good enough for me. Anyone Mr. Carolina trusted, I trusted too.

Mick, the eldest of the group, with dark hair and brooding dark eyes, was obviously the leader. When he spoke, everybody listened. The Viking, a young blond man with rocks wrapped in his hair and a reddish beard, was Mick’s right hand man. Karl was the quiet one, and even his birth-control glasses didn’t hide his pretty boy looks.

Some time during that afternoon I sat on the sidewalk of a side street away from the crowds and looked at shiny rocks with Sweet L and Karl and the Viking. Karl made pendants from shiny rocks and wire, and I gave him a piece of rainbow obsidian that had broken when the wind blew it off my vending table. I thought maybe he could wrap the stone in some way to hide the broken part. He was grateful for it and gave me a couple of cool shiny rocks in return.

As we sat there, I told them about my snowflake obsidian experience, and they they thanked me for sharing my story with them. I feared most people would think me a little too woo-woo if they heard that story, so I was glad the boys actually appreciated it.

Day turned to night and none of us had tickets or money to buy them. Maybe the Fighting Couple made money and bought tickets. I don’t remember. By this point in our journey, none of the rest of us wanted anything to do with them. In fact, with Sweet L’s and Mr. Carolina’s backing, I’d told them they’d have to get another ride out of Santa Barbara. In any case, the Fighting Couple (thankfully) wasn’t hanging out with me and the boys.

Mick did, however, have psychedelics, but when he shared them, none were offered to me. I thought that was a little unfriendly, but I figured since he really didn’t know me, he probably wasn’t obligated to make sure I got any.

Later, as Sweet L and I visited with other folks who weren’t going into the show, a friend of his offered us a bump of molly. I took my bit and felt exactly nothing. Later someone gave me what was supposed to be psychedelics. I imbibed that too, and over the course of the night realized it had no effect on me. Weird. I can accept that I ended up with a bunk hit, but having two different drugs from two different people in one night fail to work? No such thing had ever happened to me before.

As Sweet L and I walked through the neighborhood away from the crowds, we came across Mr. Carolina, the Viking, Karl, Robbie, and Mick standing on the sidewalk in front of one of the area’s nice houses. Mick was not having a good time.

The people the nice house belonged to joined us on the sidewalk. They were worried about Mick. They wondered if he were ok. They wondered if he needed medical attention. The wondered if he were having a bad trip. We relaxed when we realized these people knew the lingo, when we realized these people were cool. One of the boys allowed that yes, Mick seemed to be having a bad trip.

The strangers went into caretaker mode. They got cushions from their lawn furniture and placed them on the concrete in front of the house so Mick could have a comfy place to rest. Once we got Mick relaxing on the cushions, the homeowners brought us blankets. The woman brought out a jug of water and toasted English muffins smeared with peanut butter and jam. When the homeowners were ready to go to bed, they told us we could stay in their front yard as long as we wanted and even gave us a permission letter to show to any police officer who questioned us. The kindness of strangers indeed!

(Later in the night, a police cruiser did stop in front of the house. A cop got out of the car and began questioning us. Whoever was holding the permission letter showed it to him. The cop immediately backed off and drove away!)

I spent most of the night next to Mick, trying to offer him comfort. He was tired of this life, he said. He didn’t want to be here anymore. He wanted to float away and leave his body behind. I tried to keep him talking, keep him breathing, keep him with us. I was wearing a bracelet of rose quartz (the stone of unconditional love and infinite peace) on a stretchy cord. I slipped it off my wrist and onto his.

All the time, we could hear Furthur playing in the Bowl. The music was distant and a little distorted, but we could hear it, and it was ours.

We sat in front of that house for hours. I don’t know what the others were talking about while I tried to convince Mick to stay, but they were always nearby. Sometimes they’d come over and talk to Mick and me, but mostly they were doing their own thing.

At some point, Mick was mostly back to himself, and Mr. Carolina, Robbie, Sweet L and I went one way, and the other boys went another. I drove the van back to the spot we’d found the night before and settled in. We stayed there the next day and one more night before Mr. Carolina, Sweet L, Robbie, and I headed to Los Angeles.

 

Images courtesy of https://pixabay.com/en/park-signs-travel-no-parking-39412/ and https://pixabay.com/en/california-sea-ocean-pacific-waves-2666059/.
Jan4

Snowflake Obsidian

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After I was given a large container of stones and beads by an angel at a thrift store (read that story here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/01/02/bead-angel/), I started learning about the metaphysical properties of different shiny rocks from the Jewelry Lady’s copy of Love is in the Earth: a Kaleidoscope of Crystals by Melody. (For more information about Love is in the Earth go here:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/253102.Love_is_in_the_Earth?from_search=true&search_version=service.)

Among the stones I was given were bars of snowflake obsidian. I learned from Love is in the Earth that snowflake obsidian is good for helping to break patterns that are no longer useful. (The Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/notes/clubmojancom/metaphysical-descriptions-of-gemstones-descriptions-are-from-love-is-in-the-eart/150072162592/ gives short “metaphysical descriptions of gemstones from Love is in the Earth: a Kaleidoscope of Crystals.” The following is the description of snowflake obsidian given there:

It allows one to recognize the unnecessary pattern [sic] which remain in ones life and to re-design ones [sic] thought patters [sic] to provide relief from undesired conditions. It is the stone of purity and balance to the body, mind , and spirit.)

The book also said (although I haven’t been able to find documentation on the internet) the stone is good for helping a person embrace solitude when that’s the situation being faced.

I knew I definitely needed to break some patterns, and I needed to embrace my solitude, so I made myself a bracelet from some hemp and one of the snowflake obsidian bars.

I wasn’t really pleased by the way the finished bracelet looked, but I wore it anyway because I felt as if I needed the energy of the stone. I wore the bracelet all the time; I only took it off for my infrequent showers. As the days passed, I felt as if I were breaking patterns that no longer served me, as well as learning from and even enjoying my abundant time alone. Did the snowflake obsidian make those changes happen? I don’t know. Maybe the stone was simply a physical reminder of some areas of my life that needed improvement. In any case, I was glad for the positive changes.

One day I looked down and noticed that while the bracelet was still on my wrist, the stone had broken apart and was in two pieces. I thought it had broken along the line of the holes drilled in it, but upon closer inspection, I realized the break was nowhere near the holes. I could not determine the cause of the break.

Maybe you’ve broken your patterns, the Jewelry Lady said.

The next time I went to town, I bought some super glue. I glued the two pieces of the snowflake obsidian bar together and continued to wear the bracelet.

Days later, I looked down and again the stone was in two pieces.

Damn cheap glue, I grumbled, but when I looked closely at the stone, I saw the break was in a new spot. The original break was still held together by the glue.

I think the stone really was trying to tell me the no-longer-useful patterns were broken. It certainly felt that way to me.

(Later, my friend Em, who receives messages from angels and knows so much about spirituality told me I should have buried the stone the first time it broke.)

Jan2

Bead Angel

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I was homeless, living in a picnic pavilion at a busy tourist area.

I started earning a little money by making sage sticks to sell to tourists. To my surprise, people actually bought them. I took the money I earned and bought a couple of balls of hemp, some glass beads, a pair of scissors, and a tape measure. I made bracelets and necklaces from the hemp and beads, and to my surprise, people bought the jewelry too. In fact, I sold so many bracelets, I ran out of supplies to make more.

I hitchhiked into town early one morning. I walked through town to Stuff-Mart to get glass beads. The store was out of the jumbo pack of the beads with large holes that I wanted. Grrr! I found a smaller pack of beads with large holes, and while I wasn’t crazy about them, I decided they would do. I brought them up to the cash register. The cashier scanned them, and the register gave her some sort of message. She told me the beads had been recalled, and she couldn’t sell them to me.

I was furious and worried. I needed those beads. My livelihood literally depended on those beads.

I stalked out of Stuff-Mart and stomped down to the nearby thrift store, thinking maybe I’d find something there I could use. When I walked in, the women working there noticed my backpack and asked if I were a traveler. I said I was (which was close enough to what was going on with me) and then told them the saga of my day. I told them I sold jewelry to tourists at the Bridge and needed beads that Stuff-Mart didn’t have. I was the only customer in the store, and the ladies listened sympathetically to me.

One of the women said she had a bunch of beads her daughter-in-law had left behind when she moved out. She said she wasn’t going to use them, so she’d give them to me.

What an angel! What a miracle!

Several days later the Jewelry Lady picked up a big plastic container from the Bead Angel. At the Jewelry Lady’s casita, we sorted through the contents. In addition to glass and metal beads, we found many beautiful stones. There were large aventurine and turquoise teardrops, bars of snowflake obsidian for making bracelets, and an absolutely gorgeous piece of rainbow obsidian.

It was such a wonderful gift. Those nice stone beads helped me make necklaces for which I could ask higher prices. I was incredibly grateful

Jan2

Tallying Up My Happiness

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On this first day of a new year, I am going to follow up my own advice, and instead of tallying up my net worth, I’m going to tally up my happiness.

The van is running. The van, as far as I can tell, is running well. The van just took me 450 miles. Also? The van has four tires less than a year old.

I laugh a lot. I have friends who make me laugh, and I make my own self laugh. I see lots of humor in the world.

I pretty much go where I want and do what I want. I get to see things I’ve never seen before and revisit places I love.

Nobody’s yelling at me.

I have stacks and stacks of books to read. I probably have six months of reading stashed in bins and tubs. I love reading. I love, love, love reading, so having books on hand makes me feel secure.

My camera takes nice photos.

I live in a cozy, colorful environment. (The interior of my vanhome is basically an art installation.)

I’m healthy. I get myself out of bed in the morning without too much trouble. I can walk and bend and bike and reach and skip. I can breathe. My teeth don’t hurt, and I’m not having frequent headaches. Overall, this earthly container of mine is doing just fine.

It’s January, and I’m warm.

I have friends in fourteen different states. I have friends who invite me to stay with them. I have friends who miss me when I am gone. I have friends who love me.

There are dollars in my pocket.

My laptop allows me to access the internet, which lets me find jobs and stay in touch with friends and learn new things and connect with people all over world.

I didn’t lose anyone I love in 2015.

I am creative and imaginative. I can use my hands to create jewelry and hats and collages.

I spent over 5 months living with and teaching others about giant sequoias.

I can listen to music when I drive.

I’ve got plenty of clothes to wear. Most of them cost about $1. Most of them are bright and colorful.

My blog looks really, really good.

People read what I write.

I have a good life.

Dec31

Spending

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Last year I formulated a two-year plan. Part of the plan involved keeping track of every penny I spent. The other part of the plan involved visiting and writing about all of the New Mexico state parks. When I decided not to do the state park part of the plan, I mostly forgot about the keeping track of spending part of the plan.

The other day on one of the vandweller Facebook groups I belong to, someone asked how much money people “need” to live in their vans and travel. The same question came up at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous last year. I never know how to answer such a question. I’ve been on the road with no money in my pocket, literally living off of the kindness of strangers. If I didn’t have as much money as I needed, I did without or asked strangers for help.

But it got me thinking…How much do I spend? Can I spend less? How much (money, things) do I really need?

So I’ve decided to go ahead with the keeping track of every penny part of my original plan.

I’m not going to go out today and stock up on a bunch of things so I can spend less in 2016. (I’ve got some food in the van and three propane canisters, and I filled up the gas tank two nights ago because I needed to.) I’ll just buy what I need when I need it and note it down in my little black book. (I found an old, blank black book when I was organizing the van last week, so I didn’t have to spend any money to buy a new one.)

I think what’s going to happen is that #1 I’m going to see that I buy a lot of stuff (mostly from thrift stores) that I don’t need and #2 Some things I won’t buy because I’ll be embarrassed to admit to it in writing. (I don’t mean sex toys or tampons. I mean yet another skein of yarn or a book I’m not totally excited about or more postcards when I already have plenty of postcards.)

Every month I’ll post an accounting of my spending here. By the end of the year, I’ll have answers.

Dec20

Husband and Prayer

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Back in the early days of the 21st century, all the people I knew had a telephone in their home–what we now refer to as a “landline.” Those telephones connected with a cord to a phone jack, although some people–fancy fancy–had cordless phones where only the phone base had to connect to the phone jack; the phone itself could be carried around the house. We paid the telephone company each month to use their phone lines.

We also usually paid by the minute for each long-distance call we made. Some folks had long-distance plans where they paid a flat fee to make as many long-distance calls as they wanted, but those plans were costly and not much used by the college students and activists I mostly hung out with. But just about everyone had some kind of long-distance plan.

In those days, there was a lot of competition among long distance companies for customers. Companies were always trying to get consumers to switch from their current carrier. Each company promised their service was clearer (remember when you could actually hear and understand the person on the other end of the phone?) and cheaper. Each company  promised the consumer could switch to the new service with no hassle. Sometimes we fell for the pitch, especially in the early days of such competition, especially when  company promised that if we switched to their service, they’d send a check for $20, $30, $40, maybe even $50. But there always seemed to be some sort of hassle after all, and the new company always seemed to charge more (usually through unmentioned taxes and fees) than the representative had promised.

Annoyingly, representatives from those long distance carriers were always calling. We’d be eating dinner, taking a shower, having sex, reading a book and the phone would ring. Instead of being a cute crush or Mom or Grandpa calling, it was some poor schmuck working for AT&T or some new never-heard-of-before company wanting to talk about long distance service. Such calls became commonplace and irritating.

One night I was at a friend’s place, hanging out with several other folks while the lady of the house cooked dinner. The phone (and by “phone,” I mean “landline”) rang, and for some reason I no longer remember, I answered it.

I was hardly surprised to hear the caller was a representative of a long distance company. Of course, the representative assumed I was the lady of the house and wanted me to change my long distance provider to the company for whom he was working.

Change my long distance provider? I repeated aloud while the person who actually lived in the house vigorously shook her head no. Everyone in the room looked at me, interested in what I would say next.

I listened to the representative’s spiel. I listened to the representative extol the virtues of the service, the clarity of sound, the vast savings of dollars.

When the representative asked if I was ready to make the change, I allowed that everything he’d said sounded great, and I was very interested in the new long distance plan. However, I said, before I can make any decision, I have to discuss it with my husband.

My friends started snickering. They knew I didn’t have, had never had, a husband, and even if I did, I was capable of making a decision about long distance service on my own.

While my friends giggled, I continued talking to the representative. Once my husband and I discuss your offer, we’ll have to pray about it, I told him. My friends laughed harder, as they knew me and my imaginary husband were not the praying kind.

Once we pray about your offer, I continued to the person on the other end of the line, if we decide it’s right for us, I’ll get back to you.

By this point, the stunned company representative was pretty much speechless. Probably this whole praying over long distance service was a new response. Who asks for divine guidance in choosing a long distance provider? Apparently I did, which got a big laugh from my friends, gave the representative a good story to tell in the break room, and got me off the phone without being rude.

 

Dec19

How I Met Mr. Carolina and the Boys

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Sometimes I don’t know how much background I need to give in order for a story to make sense. Sometimes I can just start in the middle of everything and tell a story, but sometimes I have to give so much background info that I’m a thousand words in and exhausted by the time I get to the story I want to tell. That’s how I feel about how I met Mr. Carolina and the boys.

It all started with the Grateful Dead. Yes, that’s the place to start.

I was not a Grateful Dead fan when the Grateful Dead actually existed. I guess I’d heard of them in 1987 when “Touch of Grey” hit the charts, and my first true love did put “Sugar Magnolia” on a mix tape when he was trying to woo me in 1992. But I’d gone most of my life not being a Deadhead. Then I met the boyfriend who turned out to be not very nice. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but he was a Deadhead. We listened to the Grateful Dead all the time, and we started seeing a lot of Further, and I became a Deadhead too.

(If you didn’t know, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furthur_%28band%29

Furthur was a rock band founded in 2009 by former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. The original lineup also included John Kadlecik of the Dark Star Orchestra on lead guitar, Jeff Chimenti of RatDog on keyboards, Jay Lane of RatDog on percussion, and Joe Russo of the Benevento/Russo Duo on drums.[1] Named after the famous touring bus used by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters in the 1960s, Furthur was an improvisational jam band that performed music primarily from the extensive Grateful Dead songbook, as well as their own original music and that of several other well-known artists. In addition to the original members (with the exception of Jay Lane, who left the band in March 2010 to rejoin his previous band, Primus), the band’s lineup included backup vocalists Sunshine Becker of the a cappella ensemble SoVoSó and Jeff Pehrson of the folk rock bands Box Set and the Fall Risk.)

When I finally extricated myself from the not-very-nice boyfriend, I thought I had lost Furthur and the Grateful Dead too. I thought that part of my life was over, and I’d never hear those songs again.

I got over that silliness in a couple of months.

I realized the music belonged to me as much as it belonged to anyone else. My not-very-nice boyfriend might have introduced me to that music, but he didn’t own it.

I’ll fast-forward through the part of the story where I was homeless and living in a highway rest area (if you want to read about that, you can go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/06/11/hummingbird/.) I’ll skip the part where two friends from college who’d heard I’d disappeared found me and offered love and support. (That’s a story for another day.) I’ll go straight to the part where I used the money I’d earned selling hemp jewelry combined with money friends had donated to my cause so I could buy a van to live in and work out of. One week after I’d gotten the van registered and licensed, I was off to the big city where Furthur was playing.

I drove all alone for hours to get there. My new-to-me van didn’t have a working radio, so I had no music to distract me from my thoughts. Was this trip the right thing to do? Would the van make it? What if I ran into my ex-boyfriend there? Would I make enough money selling jewelry to even get into one of the three shows Furthur was doing? Would I make any friends?

I didn’t really expect to make any friends. In real life, I’m shy, and it’s not easy for me to make friends. And if you’ve ever been to Shakedown Street

(the parking lot, or large area, outside os [sic] Grateful Dead or Phish shows where everything from drugs, burritos, tie dyes, incense and clothing were sold. Shakedown was the place where one could chill before or after a show and find whatever it is one was looking for. Most known for it’s [sic] open air drug supermarket where cats would have nitrous oxide tanks in the back of cars and sell balloons of nitrous for $5. also [sic] people would walk around uttering “trips trips” or “kind bud, according to http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Shakedown+Street)

or a Rainbow Gathering or a music festival, you know those places are not hotbeds of middle-age, single women.

But I was excited to go, excited to be in the hubub of the parking lot, excited to (hopefully) make it into the show.

The first day on the lot was fun enough. I sold a few things, traded for a few things, gave water to thirsty kids and dogs, and generally hung out. That night I tried to sneak into the outdoor show, but I had no idea what I was doing and ended up surrounded by scratching, jabbing plant matter. As I tried to get out of the mess I was in, a security guy (who was probably young enough to be my kid), heard all the noise I was making and yelled, Get out of the bushes! I yelled back, I’m trying.

After I made it out of the cacti and trees, I sat out in the van until after the show, thinking maybe there would be some hanging out. Of course, the cops ran everyone out of the parking lot after the show, so I drove to the nearest Stuff-Mart and got some sleep.

I returned to the lot early the next day. Not long after I parked, a car full of people pulled in next to the van. More people joined them. Most of the people were young men, although there was an older-than-me woman with them and a man younger than her but older than the rest who seemed to dote on her. They hadn’t been there long when the older man offered me a bottle of water. I took it gratefully.

Several hours later when the late autumn sun was beating down, one of the young men asked me if I wanted some shade. He said they had a tarp and asked if they could stretch it from the car and attach one end to my van. I agreed and helped a little to get the cover in the right place. I didn’t spend much time in the shade, but did have short, pleasant conversations with the various people hanging around.

On Sunday, not long after I arrived in the lot, the folks who’d hung out next to me the day before got there without the car. (I believe they came riding in standing on the running boards of a pickup truck.) I went over to talk with them and we exchanged names. Sweet L admired a copper bracelet I was wearing, and I told him a friend of mine had made it. The dogs of the couple who I later found out spent most their time having whisper fights needed water, so I said we could fill the bowl from my five gallon water jug. One of the young men jumped up to help me. That young man was Mr. Carolina.

 

 

 

 

Dec18

She Talks To Angels

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The Okie and I were in Asheville, trying to sell the huge quartz cluster we’d been given at Coleman’s Miller Mountain Mine in Mount Ida, Arkansas.

The man who gave us the cluster only wanted points a couple of inches long to use in his crafts. He wasn’t interested in the chunk of quartz that probably weighed 50 pounds, so he offered it to Mr. Carolina and the Okie. When the boys asked me if I wanted to keep it, I said hell yeah! They hauled it over to my van and lifted it up into the space under my bed. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it. The Okie was convinced we could sell it to one of the downtown rock shops in Asheville for several hundred dollars which I could use for needed repairs on the van.

So the Okie and I were in downtown Asheville on the day after we delivered Mr. Carolina to his brother. When I parked the van, we had no money to feed the parking meter. I figured either I’d panhandle change for the meter or get a ticket I’d pay later. The Okie loaded the quartz cluster into a green army-issue duffel bag and hoisted it onto his back.

Before we made it to the first rock shop, we met some traveler kids hanging around on the sidewalk.

The Okie, who was not the least bit shy, talked to the folks and asked if they wanted to see the cluster he was hauling around. Of course they wanted to see it. While he was showing it off, I pulled out some of the smaller points I had found and traded them to one of the kids for change to put in the parking meter. If I hadn’t needed to feed the meter, I would have given him the crystals. Since he offered the change and I needed it, I took it.

When I got back from putting the coins in the meter, the Okie introduced me to the oldest of the kids, a guy who actually had a girlfriend and a house just outside of Asheville. That guy wire wrapped stones and offered to trade quartz points in exchange for making some pendants for us.

The guy picked out the points he wanted, and the Okie and I gave him the crystals we wanted wrapped. We agreed we’d be in touch the next day, and the Okie and I went on our way.

When we heard from the stone wrapper guy the next day, we were at Stuff-Mart where I’d been flying a sign. He and his girlfriend were out and about in a car, so he said they’d meet us where we were.

Upon arrival, they presented us with beautiful pendants made from the stones we had found combined with (as it turned out) the girlfriend’s fabulous wire wrapping work. But even better than the pendants was the girlfriend!

Miz C and I hit it off immediately, which was unusual for me. There are few people I’ve liked the moment I met them. I’ve had to warm up to even my closest, dearest friends. But not Miz C. Right away we were talking as if we had known each other for years. Within minutes, she had invited me to Thanksgiving dinner the next day. I typically don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but I agreed to go over and share the meal.

On Thanksgiving morning, the Okie and I cooked eggs on my camp stove in the Stuff-Mart parking lot where we had spent the night in the van. After breakfast I drove him thirty miles east on I-40 to a Pilot truck stop so he could hitchhike to his next destination. Once we said our good-byes, I headed back to Asheville and Thanksgiving dinner.

Upon arriving, I was introduced to Miz C’s mother. Yikes! Although everyone was very welcoming, I suddenly felt as if I were crashing a family party. I wondered if my presence was going to be awkward for everyone.

Luckily, Miz C’s mother, Em, was as cool and loving as Miz C herself. It was a total case of “like daughter, like mother.”

While Miz C and the boyfriend cooked, I sat with Em and chatted. I told her some about my life and my travels and my very vague future plans which involved New Orleans for Mardi Gras and visiting an old gal friend in Austin. It turns out Miz C had once been quite the traveling kid herself, so nothing I told Em shocked or surprised her. Em was absolutely accepting of the way I was living my life.

When I asked Em about herself, she said received messages from angels. Communicating with angels was a new one to me, but I kept my mind opened and listened to what Em had to say.

She explained that angels are around us all the time and want to help us. We just have to ask them for the help and guidance and protection we need. However, sometimes if we are focused on negative aspects, the angels will think we are asking for a lesson and will send us the very situation we have been fretting over.

She told me both the archangel Michael and the angel Uriel were with me.

According to Wikipedia,

Michael…is an archangel in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam…

In the New Testament Michael leads God’s armies against Satan‘s forces in the Book of Revelation, where during the war in heaven he defeats Satan. In the Epistle of Jude Michael is specifically referred to as “the archangel Michael”.

(I found an interesting gallery to help one decide if the Archangel Michael is actually sending guidance.)

According to the Ask-Angels.com website,

Archangel Uriel is a spiritual being of immense light and power, with an incredibly high vibrational frequency.

Uriel is the Archangel of Wisdom, Illumination, Light and of the Sun.

Over time, the conversation drifted to other topics. After a while, I excused myself to go out to my van to get more quartz points for gifting and trading.

I hadn’t been outside long when Em joined me at my van.

This friend in Austin you’re going to visit, Em asked, do you call her your sister?

I thought about it, then shook my head. Lou and I were close when we lived in the same city and worked together, I told Em. But I don’t think I’ve ever called her my sister or thought of her as my sister.

Em seemed perplexed. The angels were talking about my sister she said. The message from the angels (which was unclear to Em) was about my sister…

I almost fell over. Although I hadn’t mentioned her to Em, I did have a sister. She and I had been estranged since my bad-news boyfriend said she’d told one of his relatives that she didn’t have a sister. When I explained to Em that my sister had rejected me due to the crazy behavior I’d exhibited while still with my ex, Em wisely pointed out that he could have been lying to me to separate me from one of my main sources of support.

This talk of my sister went a long way in helping me believe that Em received messages from angels. I hadn’t even mentioned having a sister, so how could she have known about her? Maybe she just guessed, but it seemed more than coincidental to me.

I took the photo of the angel.