Journal - November Morning

She told me how she had times of despair when she couldn’t sleep because she had fears and worries she couldn’t shake.

“But I’m always happy in the morning. When the light comes and the new day begins.”  She smiled , her enthusiasm infectious. 

My dog is that way, always .  Sometimes I wake to see him staring at me, waiting to play.

I struggle to get out of bed. The alarm with the song “Holy, holy, holy’ some days disturbs my sleep, my dreams.  Most days I have positive dreams.  I have these few places I return to, a great meeting, a conference on a Greek Island. I recognized Santorini when I saw pictures of it.  Another is I’m in the mountains at a hunting lodge.  I’m often riding trucks or quads.  The wilderness is magnificent.  I’m. sharing a lodge with other people.  It’s good when there aren’t problems with plumbing and toilets.  I like the people and the surroundings.  I’m sometimes hunting. 

I like to visit Cathedrals.  I like to pray where thousands sometimes milllions have come to worship.  I imagine myself a chord in a symphony of peace played through the ages.  I listen and feel for the music.

I pray and meditate in the morning.  Talking with God. Going into the inner place. Thy will be done.  A loving God.  Kindness.  I find these days I’m often thinking of the holy men I’ve know in my life, family and friends.  I’ve been so blessed. Mentors and teachers.  The ones who’ve passed away. Today I thought of John and George.  Our discussions of the sacred.  Our dinners and walks, or with John, it would be wheels.  

Today I have work and pray that I can be of maximum service to those I care for.  The days are busy with tasks and conversations, calls and requests and things to remember. I’m going away in 17 sleeps. I’ve a doctors appointment Friday. I’m looking forward to seeing Laura.  Madigan is always so excited.  Then it’s pack up and drive. I’m looking forward to being a truck driver/bus driver/wheeling my Class A motorhome down the highway. I think of my father doing this and find I’ve followed in his footsteps so often with camping and hunting and fishing and traveling.  I’ve trail blazed too at times.

The passage is always a challenge, I remember her saying. A tall beautiful woman with several children and a husband who was an oceonographer.  ‘We sail from work to work,” he said. “My jobs anre  always on the ocean[.  They lived in their 42 foot Swan.  A magnificent boat.  She sang at night when the guitars came out.   We all liked Jimmy Buffet those nights in the coastal harbors of Mexico.  

I’ve left the sea.  I have the picture of the SV Giri on the table. My steel hulled cutter rigged sailing ship I crossed the Pacific in winter  to Hawaii in.  I loved that I had the capability of going anywhere in the world in that blue water vessel.I’d sailed down to the coast to Mexico and up the coast to Alaska. I imagined sailing to Africa and India and sailing the Seven Seas.  But the days of anchoring off an island and enjoying explorations, a kind of idyllic time of solo sailors and relatively inexpensive travel bringing your own home as it were. 

The costs were in the ship but then the countries began to see the westerners as all ‘rich’ and even anchoring began to cost. The government saw the sailor as a tourist and increased the regulations and costs so that sometimes a whole day was needed to go through government offices and get all the stamps and approvals.  Pirates began to proliferate. When we wanted to sail to the Philippines or beyond Malaysia we heard that ships were gathering in flotillas with expensive armed escorts just to get by the terrorists.  We were also told we couldn’t defend ourselves or the countries would protect their citizens against us. well, it looked like the days when the Marines were raised.  Pirates and kidnapping and weak governments until the Marines addressed the issue of white slavers.

I was travelling down coasts at 5 knots an hour and looked to shore and saw motorhomes going along at a 100 miles an hour. I didn’t want to face risks where I’d be kidnapped and held for ransom. I became older and I’d been mugged and robbed travelling and older wanted more peace. I liked the safe adventure and driving on a highway with the yahoos on drugs and alcohol who cause so much damage on the roads were somehow less daunting that maintaining a sailing boat and engine off hostile coasts. I liked the idea if I had a problem I could just pull over.  I also have so much I want to see in North America and less desire to go where people don’t speak my language or wish to kill Christians. I am tired of being seen by others as the enemy when the enemy is their own leaders just like our enemy is our leaders too. We’re  the middle class and we are the guilds and workers  not the kings and queens and corporate leaders.  You can recognize us because we don’t have body guards and private armies. We’re tourists.  We’re friendly and we buy things and we are good for your economy.  Don’t let us be attacked

 and make it safe for us older people to visit. 

I like that the motorhome crowd have their KOA’s and Good Sam clubs. I like the security of the RV parks just as I once liked the marinas .  I know I can boon dock and do but I’ve done my time sleeping under the stars in the mountains hiking without a tent or sleeping in a pup tent I’ve carried on my back or on the back of my bike or motorcycles.  Now I’m glamping.  I like that I have this little world of all I need and I can make my own basecamp and go out from here on my Vespa or Harley.  Next year I imagine having a Marverik hybrid I can tow. For now I’m learning to drive the motorhome and am satisfied with my Vespa. I have a box which the dog rides in behind me on the back seat.  It gets us around when we leave the mother ship.  I’m looking forward to a passage if with a little trepidation.  Once I get settled it’s hard to move. I’m so quickly comfortable in my space with electricity , the city water hose and sewage hooked up and my star link antennae out.  

Driving and motion is a kind of moving meditation and a change from the deluge of calls and requests. I’ll just have to deal with my own anxiety.  I like that I’m comfortable driving in what Archie calls the ‘serenity lane’. I’ve learned to pull in behind some trucks and go with the flow.  As tempting as it is to pull ahead I’m so much more inclined to just enjoy the journey. It wouldn’t be different if I was on a train or bus.  I like the professionals and especially in those 8 lane highways in the mountains I like to join the working gang and go slow. This isn’t a race.  

Thank you God for today. Thank you for family and friends. Thank you for Madigan. Thank you for the pets and children of all I know. Thank you for their vehicles too. Thank you for our sundry recreations. Thank you for music. Thank you for dreams. Thank you for work. Thank you for today.