The thing is, I have no idea what I’m doing.
Everyday I wake up, I see all the gypsy patterns of my bedding in the back of my truck house and half way remember,
“Something’s outside.”
Something different and strange which sounds exciting, and is, but do I really always want exciting first thing in the morning before tea and brushing my teeth?
I guess I do otherwise I’d be waking up like most people and stumbling to the familiar bathroom for a pee and a yawn. Instead I wake up like this morning, bleary bolt upright in the windy rain night, the wind is pushing taut against my plastic tarp protector at the tailgate of my truck house and the Velcro is slowly unzipping with the pressure. The sound of the ocean sounds alarmingly closer than it did the previous nights and I peek outside the window and see that the promised storm is indeed pouring down and my choice to still park at the edge of the world so I could look out on the morning sea first thing, proves to be a precarious choice. Also, a big white truck similar to my own has parked close to my own and puts me on the defensive immediately as there is a whole big empty muddy parking lot at this ramshackally marina I’ve chosen as my refuge for the last couple days.
Why so close!
Are they going to try and get me, have the owners finally come to chase me away, is the vague threat of rape on the road finally going to try and manifest – where is my mace?
None of these things, just a fisherman doing his thing at 5am, and look there’s a bunch of other trucks pulling in, this is a working marina and the day has begun.
I’m up now though, more due to the insistent wind pushing its way in and the encroaching sloshing water sounds conspiring to make going back to sleep a distant reality. Boots on, hoodie up, go out and squat for a pee and thank the gods that my period has subsided to the point that I’m not waking up to my period panties overflowing and having to deal with that mess with the nearest proper bathroom nowhere in the vicinity. Now in cab of the truck house, turn the heat on, plug the phone in, and turn on the trusty Google Lady and type in “nearest Starbucks.” Starbucks is a great place to pee and have a morning poop and brush your teeth, wash face, charge up phone, get some online work done and get endless buckets on strong green tea all in the same generic, corporate, dependable environment. I am a shameless Starbucks Succubus on the road and I don’t care who knows it, the place is invaluable in offering a refuge on a daily basis as needed.
But no Starbucks nearby as I am at the beach in a gorgeous, lonely location and have sought out my other on the road refuge fave, marinas to bed down and chill at. Marinas are boat life which is like island life, slow and easy and you don’t have to watch your back or your stuff because its pretty much guaranteed that you are going to be left to your own devices and at the same time enjoying the smiles and hellos that everyone gives to each other because that’s good boat/island manners and I like it.
No Starbucks in miles though and its still 5amish and dark and stormy so I ask Google Lady to take me back to Santa Rosa as I’m hoping to conduct an interview tomorrow here with a lovely woman and I want to work all day in a coffee shop and go to a movie later on this rainy day.
That’s the plan and its warm now in my truck house and I’ve got cool music playing on my Spotify playlist and I take off into the windy road dark. I still don’t know what I’m doing but I trust the Google Lady and I’m starting to get a little familiar with this little patch of California as I’ve been going back and forth a few times now in the past week or so between Santa Rosa, the East Bay, and Bodega Bay and though without the Lady I’d be hopelessly lost, I’m alright with that at the moment.
I didn’t know what I was doing when I left Orcas Island 2 months ago, but here I am doing the work of my project, connecting and speaking with women in their vulnerability, photographing and interviewing and writing about all of it. I’m navigating driving and sleeping, and peeing, and changing my clothes all from my truck and I just got my very first driver’s license over a year ago and this truck and solo road trip are both my first and here I am doing it. Two years ago I had a complete and abrupt reimagining of my total sense of self and here I am integrated and fascinated by my new perspective after quite a journey with the face of fear, and here I am, doing it.
I don’t know what I’m doing and that’s just fine. I keep on getting up each morning to a strange landscape outside my truck house and saying, fascinated,
“Something’s outside.’
This is my life right now.
This is the nature of refuge.
