the orchard / 10,000 ways

upon request, this is a reprint from a post i wrote at Vandwellers to a newcomer, trying to find his way.....


Hey, R, welcome to the tribe! I am very impressed that you already have a
plan and a goal and the ability to save to meet that goal. Good for you! You are a good example to many of us here.

I say go for it. Listen to your heart. Keep your mind open to ALL the
possibilities out there. Cause as you are reading here, they are unlimited.

Life is like an orchard full of every kind of tree in existence. Some of the
fruit on those trees is sweet and nourishing. Some will give you the sh!ts like
you wouldn't believe, even though some folks can eat 'em all day long and
exclaim "these are the best fruits in the world!"

10,000 fruits! (10,000 ways to live) what do you eat?

I can't tell ya that. I can tell you DON'T CUT DOWN ANY OF THE TREES! Let them grow, whether they look appetizing or not. Someday you may find that you just love that fruit. And it'll be right there for the picking.

The good thing about this group is the wide range of experiences we can share
and draw upon. The bad thing about this group is we sometimes are so caught up in what works for us that we forget that there is no one right way to live our lives. Then we kinda get stuck on the details and try to figure out who's right. It's usually the ones not talking :-)

I graduated from nursing school when I was 30. Gave me some of the best
experiences of my life. I never heard the end of "you'd a been a great doctor".
Did I wrongly cap out at a nursing salary? Don't know, don't care. I made a
difference in the world. And I did it when I was ready to do it.

Prune and water the whole orchard, richard. And don't be afraid to try the
fruit......

Kate

P.S. And if a fruit does give you the sh!ts, don't do like I often did, and eat
it anyway (waaa, but I LIKE that fruit!).....move on to a different fruit!

great blog post on the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous

great blog post over at "RVly ever after" about the RTR. so sad i missed it! check it out:

http://rvlyeverafter.blogspot.com/2011/01/rubber-tramp-rendezvous-quartzsite-az_29.html?showComment=1296408519891#c8579735365047561120

new vandweller forum

wanted to get the word out about the new vandweller forum over at Bob Wells'  "cheaprvliving" website.

so many of us have gotten our start, or benefited from Bob's website in some way. there is a ton of information there, and now a new forum where we can ask questions, share our stories, and glean information on the mobile lifestyle. please come join us, we will be glad to have you!

http://www.cheaprvlivingforum.com/

fear and traveling

any of you that know me know that i am basically a coward with courage. not too many things i'm afraid to do or try, but more often than not, i need to get past some bit of fear or hesitation. i am not what i would consider reckless, though. i often need a little (okay, a lot) of encouragement when doing new stuff.

the subject of safety has surfaced in a few places again lately. there are so many positions on safety and protection, all across the board. so many different life experiences that can shape our perspectives. as a victim of a violent crime and a person with an anxiety disorder, my evaluation of risk is very personal. it most likely won't be yours, and that is as it should be. we each need to take the time to study the broad base of information available in order to make choices that we are comfortable with.

the united states scares me, sometime scares the bejeebers right outta me. awhile back, there was a couple in an RV murdered and found in the burnt out RV, most likely by those escaped prisoners in the southwest. what i found very striking is that there was so little mention of it, in the press, or in my vandweller circles. did anyone else find that disturbing? the murders, i mean?

i could not help but wonder how that whole scenario went down. was this couple kidnapped in a truckstop parking lot? approached with a smile while stretching their muscles at a rest stop? bushwhacked while boondocking in the desert? i've thought of that many times. i thought about the fact that their weapons were possibly used on them....they certainly didn't protect them. i understand that the prisoners were in possession of the victims guns, at any rate. how would i have fared if i had been the one approached by those prisoners? where would my weapons have been? would wasp spray, a machete, a 9mm have helped? would my intuitive alarm have gone off? would it have gone off in time? or would i have answered some smiling stranger inquiring about my dog with the cute stripe on his nose, oblivious to danger.....

i am no more afraid than i was before. i still intend to get back on the road as soon as i am able. i will still stay at truckstops and reststops, and way up in the hills in the desert all alone. i will continue to hone my awareness and my intuition, and try not to lose the joy of spontaneous meeting as i travel. i will tweak my weapons and the skills of using them, as i practice ways to avoid that need. i will still operate on a faith that everything in the universe is exactly as it should be.....

a big debate with strong opinions is regarding the dangers of traveling to mexico. i hear and read alot about killings there related to the drug war. if you are messing with the wrong cartel, you are liable to lose your head. that almost goes without saying. i just read a link about 20 people being killed at a home in mexico. that sounded more intentional than random, not something i am likely to encounter while traveling there. that happens everywhere in the U.S., even near my hometown.

so how do you sort it out? where do you find your safe zone? in your weapons? in your mindset? by staying home? (i can promise you that isn't always safe.)

some links here regarding state department warnings.

this guys blog is very interesting reading.


i would love to hear your thoughts on this. especially why we heard so little about this RV couple that was killed, right here on our own soil.

kate

rubber tramp rendezvous

the first annual Rubber Tramp Rendezvous has been set for this coming january near Quartzsite, Arizona. there have been alot of gatherings of vandwellers of different sizes and in different places around the country, but this will be slightly more structured (as much as you can structure a bunch of nomads) and hopefully a larger gathering than any before.

January 13- 23, 2011
on BLM desert land near Quartzsite Arizona

you can read more about it here, at Bob Well's site:

http://cheaprvliving.com/Renezvous.html

hope to see you there!

the state of the rondyvan

i dropped the rondyvan off at cathy and garry's this morning for an inspection and an oil change. everything was a-ok. i had been having this scraping noise anytime i went over any bump or dip in the road. it seemed to originate from the right front end, and only happened when i had a passenger. it has done it ever since i hit the deer last year, and the guy at the body shop who did the repairs thought i was probably hearing things. anyhow, i hadn't heard it in awhile, since it's been a couple months since i had a passenger, but i told garry to check it out. he found a piece of fender or something that was scraping the tire, and pulled it out of the way for me. just in time for me to have made a commitment to "just say no to passengers", allowing me to turn my passenger seat around backwards again.....











i bought a set of lap belts last year when i first reversed the seat, so passengers can be belted. they are easy to install during reversal. i know nm brian recently reversed his seat, and from the smile on his face i think he feels the same way i do about it :-)

i LOVE how much more space i have when the seat is reversed. with the new twin bed mattress, i gave up a little bit more floor space, and had no place for the canoe chair. (you can see it folded up on top of the storage drawers on the left in the pic). so i still don't have a place for the canoe chair, but i have a place to sit. i will have to make a decision on the canoe chair sometime before i leave.

which brings me back to the state of the rondyvan. the only things i need to have done before heading out again is to flush the radiator and to have a tune-up, which is cool because about $300 will have us roadworthy and milking every last MPG i can. which should keep me in my budget and with a projected leave date of end of september, beginning of october.

as usual, i have several directions i want to go all at the same time. i got an invite to come to wisconsin to see a long-time friend who i've never met face-to-face, and of course i gotta head south to find david h. and rile up the Wizard a bit, if i can track him down. vanmom's moving to colorado and i gotta go see her before she changes her mind, and heaven only knows where i'll find NM Brian, mar and bernie, tom, or swankie......ron, well, i know where he lives :-) and heidi and mike have a piece of driveway saved for me......i can't list all the folks i want to meet, or to see again.

so many friends to love, and so little time! have i mentioned that i love my life?

postscript: i had to laugh. when they got done with the rondyvan today, i got an email that said "your home is finished"!!!!

re-inventing the rondyvan

i have been really busy the last few weeks getting ready for the sale at the farm, meant to get rid of stuff before my next trip out. my goal is to leave my half of the farmhouse (which belongs to my brother) with the most basic of furnishings....a bed, a table, a trunk for my clothes, and enough dishes and stuff for when i visit, or when the boys want to come to the farm. think "summer cottage". sparse, simple, and peaceful.

this has been in the planning stages for awhile. what really set me off was reading one of jack's posts (of Adventures in Voluntary Simplicity) with a photo of all he had left in the world. i wanted something like that, or at least close. as a vandweller, you strive for it by virtue of the limited space you have to live in. but after 2 cross country trips in the last year, i was woefuly shy of reaching my goal....at the farm, or in the van. (if you click on the title above, it will take you to jack's blog, and you can see for yourself what he was left with when his process was done).

on saturday, the sale was completed. i sold alot at the sale, gave a ton of stuff to goodwill, and helped fill a giant dumpster my brothers had rented..... yet i am still nowhere near where i want to be. because i look at the van, and it seems overwhelmingly full of stuff. i can't stand it one more minute, because the van is my real home, and i have not been feeling very peaceful in it lately.....just crowded and out of sorts. i need to pull my shelf/ bunk unit out to shorten the legs of the bed, and decide at 5 o'clock on saturday, sunburnt and exhausted, to do just that. and broke it.

now, it can be fixed, but not by me, and not by nightfall. mamma ain't happy if the van ain't right. so i think back to vandweller Vickie's serene and simple modular set-up in her van. then i go back to vandwellers and look at Pan's recent pics of a modular set-up in an astro using crates and air mattresses.

i got a decent redo of the interior in a couple of hours at the cost of less than $20. i spent $11 on a sheet of 1/4 inch hardboard at lowe's (thank-you david hair for the on-site coaching...it was perfect!) i also spent about $8 for 2 more sterilite white crates at the dollar store. it turns out that the sterilite storage drawers i had in the van, the crates, and my 3 gallon porta-potty are all exactly the same height, making the perfect platform for the bed.

this is a photo of the saw that michael gave me in california. we were gonna use it to lower the bed in the van, but we were too busy kayaking and eating hoagies at Johnny D's that we never got it done. so after much trial and error, i figured out how to (very carefully!) run it, and was able to cut the hardboard to size all by myself :-) i love tools!

at left you see the initial arrangement of crates and drawers ready for the hardwood platform.

and this is the platform in place.

the platform is very light, so i can raise it easily to access the crates in the back.

here is the twin mattress that sweet mike's mom bought me in brawley earlier this year when sweet mike was in the hospital, and we had an encampment in the hospital parking lot, right by the helicopter landing pad. i had been pretty much sleeping on plywood. his dad bought me a 12V inflator, too :-) thanks, both of you!!

rear view.

here it is after some rearranging. i am lost without the shelving unit that Bob Wells built me at the slabs, though. when they are repaired they will go right where the canoe chair is now.

but after 2 nights sleeping in a twin bed and having enough room for mutt and i both to move around with out killing each other, i think i will replace the shelving unit , but keep the bed the way it is. it is absolutely luxurious after sleeping on a bunk 26" wide. and i still have plenty of room to move around.

another advantage is that i will buy another sheet of hardboard and cut it to the same size as the first. my yoga mat will layer between them to keep them from sliding. when i need to, i can rearrange the drawers/ bedside table to one level, slide the second piece of hardboard over them, and inflate my full size mattress to fit there. all this versatility and comfort just blows my mind!

but back to simplicity and downsizing and meeting my goals, which, i should add, are rather vague still. when i had every single thing out of the van, i started putting back things with a newly critical eye.....what could i do without? what hadn't i used on the last 2 cross-country trips? what was merely for "just in case"? a great deal of stuff is in the corner of the kitchen now. some really critical things are not yet returned to the van....like my cooler, my water jug, and my guitar. over the next couple days, weather permitting, i'm going to pull all the gear out, photograph it, and prioritize it. see if i can get it all in without compromising the uncluttered serenity. and maybe you all will have suggestions or ideas for me.....

Move over Bocephus

sock pig is here!

flagstaff flagstop part II

my second angel came in the form of a tow truck driver from AAA. When he arrived, I told him I didn't care where we went, but I needed to go to a repair place that would let me stay in my van. He said he knew just the place, and it would be open the next day, a saturday. He towed us to Advanced Auto Service and Tire Centers, where he introduced me to Vaughn, the manager. They put the van behind the building "away from the noisy trains". Vaughn offered me electrical hook-ups, and told me there would be coffee in the morning. The tow truck driver leveled the van with some pieces of wood, showed me where it was safe to walk mutt, and went on his way.

Well, the next morning, I found out I had a whole garage full of angels. They worked quickly to diagnose the problem and to get my estimate. They brought me breakfast, and loved on Mutt. They were patient as we took over the waiting room, where mutt entertained customers with his goofiness.

I am sorry I don't remember the name of the person who actually worked on the van, but he had me up and running in a couple hours. Before he took it for a test-drive, he asked if anything needed to be strapped down in my "mobile" home!

Throughout all this, Vaughn and Scott kept me apprised of the van's progress, made sure I was comfortable, offered me sodas, and petted mutt at the same time they gave the same attention to every customer who walked through that door. You could tell they loved what they did, and that the customers knew it. I sure did.

When I left there, I had an appreciation for whatever good karma dropped me on their doorstep, and some new friends. I felt safe and cared for, and i'm grateful to everyone there.

I am going to add their information to the database at vandwellers, and to the vandwellers webring.

Scott and Vaughn, you guys rock. Thank-you for everything!

Flagstop in Flagstaff

the fuel pump died on the rondyvan on I-40 in flagstaff arizona friday, on an overpass during rush hour. I was horrified. I was able to wrestle the van to the side of the highway, and did the only thing I could think of, and that was to call David H. of Vandwellers for a long distance diagnosis from georgia. As he made his (correct) diagnosis, I started getting spooked by all the tractor trailers whooshing by inches away, rocking the van. Mutt and I bailed out the slider door, away from traffic, and made our way to the end of the overpass where the shoulder was wider, and i felt safer.

I tried to call AAA, but was stymied by the fact that their number is 1-800-AAA-HELP. Easy to remember, but no way could I figure out how to dial "letters" on my palm centro's QWERTY keyboard. After several frustrating failures, I finally called 911, who patched me through to highway patrol, who patched me through to AAA.

My first angel showed up then. A woman passing called her husband on her cell phone and told him of the woman and her dog walking away from their van on the highway. A few minutes later, Tom Honea showed up to help. He showed me how to dial "letters" on his palm centro, and then let mutt and I sit in his pick-up to stay warm and await the tow truck. He was very kind when my eyes leaked a little bit, and made me laugh....over what, I don't remember......just that is was good to be out of the cold and in his comforting presence.

Turns out Tom has a business doing on-site diesel repair for broken down truckers, and has plenty of experience in dealing with traffic that doesn't move into the far lane. Anybody passing through there with a diesel who needs the kind of help that Tom offer, give him a call at NAzEquip. If he can fix diesels as well as he can be an angel, then he's the best! Thanks, Tom, to you and your sweet wife. I'll not forget your kindness.

Http://twokniveskatie.blogspot.com

Taylor Reed

a few weeks ago, i got an email from someone through vandwellers asking me permission to do a painting, from a photo i had on my blog, of mutt beneath the golden gate bridge. i said sure, and was touched that not only had he liked the photo (or my sweet dog!) well enough to paint it, but that he had asked permission first. i didn't know how good of an artist he was, but i knew he was a class-act person!

well, now i also know he is a first-rate artist, and after several emails back and forth, count him as a friend as well. taylor, you rock, my friend, and i am so honored you chose mutt's photo!

these are some photos of the work in progress. at one point, he stopped working to go on a camping trip. he emailed me to let me know there would be a delay in the completion, but i say no camping trip is ever a delay :-)

this is taylor. he's from brazil, and he's awesome. if i knew where brazil was, i'd have to go there and have him paint the rondyvan. i have a feeling this won't be the last we hear about this guy. when he's famous, i can say i knew him first :-)

thank-you, taylor!

addendum: i stand corrected. taylor is from bolivia, and vacationed in brazil :-)
http://twokniveskatie.blogspot.com/

Vandweller time

a recent exchange at the Slabs shows the very laid back existence of vandwelling........

FRANK (the bicycle dweller): what time is it?

(a long pause while frank and heidi and kate all look blankly at each other) then......

KATE: pacific time

Waiting for mike

I haven't blogged for awhile. We are all in Brawley, Ca, south of slab city where we have been camping in the desert. I met up with mike and heidi (of "love is blind") and several other vandwellers at the slabs and will have several posts about slab city and our adventures.

last friday, though, sweet mike was admitted to the hospital in brawley with a serious case of pneumonia. We very nearly lost him, and he is still in ICU as of this morning. We are hoping for a transfer to a regular room on a med-surg floor in the near future.

Needless to say, it has been a stressful week.there has been fear, and a lot of tears. But there has also been a lot of laughter and courage, and the reminder that love thrives, even in the darkest places.

sometimes in our human dramas, we can forget our silent companions, who wait faithfully in the wings......a lesson in acceptance and living in the moment. Mutt understands the least of where we are and why we are here, but accepts implicitly that we are not waiting for life to begin again, after this is over.......but that this is our life, our moment here and now.....the waiting.

and if biscuits and fetch and walks are fewer and farther between he is absolutely okay with that because life is what it is, regardless of what it gives you, and that alone is enough.

the new van interior!

while here at the slabs, i was fortunate to benefit from the skills and knowledge of bob wells, fellow vandweller and owner of cheaperRVliving.com. If you click on the title of this post, it will take you there. bob has posted a more indepth article about how he did the build.
this is the frame of the bed, which he sized to fit my drawers stacked 2 high. this automatically doubles my storage space.
this is the frame before he added the shelving behind the drivers seat.
this is the completed shelving unit. i finally have a space for my 2 gal. igloo water jug, so i don't have to haul it out from under the cot and hold it in the air while i fill my nalgene. the jug holds 1 bag of ice and 1 gallon of water and keeps it cold for days.
this is the pull-out shelf for my butane stove. this alone has revolutionized vandwelling for me. with easy access to stove and water, making soup or ramen or tea is effortless. see the 2 spray bottles hanging on the bungee? one is water and one is 50/50 water and dr. bronners peppermint soap. i use these for easy clean-up of dishes, or face and hands, using paper towels.
another view of the underbed storage drawers. the small action-packer is a great little table, footstool or extra seat. i store extra food in there.
another rear shot, showing a little curtain on a rod that hides the portapottie.
home sweet home! thank-you, Bob, from the bottom of my heart. life is so much easier in my new set-up. you have my undying devotion!

Poor mike

this is a pic of heidi riding the electric whheelchair at the Von's supermarket after falling in a hole at the dump station. I think we're lucky she didn't fall in the sewer hole.

I'm no better. I fell off the van roof on saturday while trying to secure my kayak-turned-windsock on a desolate stretch of I-8. I have felt better, and groan a lot when I move. You'll note there are no pictures of that.

To top it off, mutt is accusing bocephus of stealing the steak in the doggie bag off the dashboard.

I think mike needs a vacation.......or a sedative.....

Http://twokniveskatie.blogspot.com

the open range cowboy church

on my way to austin texas last week, ron routed me north of houston to avoid the traffic. on the way i passed through a town called "cut and shoot". now, if ever there was a town i'd wanna live in just so i could say i lived there, it would be cut and shoot.
in cut and shoot is the coolest church i have ever been in. the open range cowboy church is on the main drag through cut and shoot, and when i doubled back to get a picture of the sign
pastor jessie prewitt was just pulling out of the parking lot. he turned around and came back to introduce himself, and gave me a tour of the church. that's jessie at his pulpit, and he is evidence of the kind and big hearted texans you hear so much about.

the open range cowboy church is a perfect place for folks who are uncomfortable in houses of worship that place too much emphasis on what you are wearing than on the condition of your heart.
the church bulletin lists their sunday morning gathering at 10:30 am and says "cowboy by heritage or cowboy at heart" we welcome you to open range cowboy church......
you can get baptized in a horse trough! how cool is that!
this is the first longhorn steer i have ever petted, or been licked by for that matter. he lives behind the church and is named after someone from a movie, but i have completely forgotten his name. i'm hoping jessie will email me back so i can add it later....

i lost the picture of the chuckwagon area, where they gather for coffee and donuts and such after services. they also have potlucks and cowboy breakfasts and extreme cowboy races in the fenced in area....people bring their horses to church and have (for lack of a better term, help me here jessie) mini rodeos! at the extreme race in january, they had cowboy breakfast, music, an old timey wild west shootout, a little buckaroos stick horse race, and the big buckaroos extreme cowboy race.

i'm going back someday, horse or no horse, cause i think i am a cowgirl at heart......

heading for warm

well, the first week of the trip has passed in a flash. i was determined to get to warm as quickly as possible, but did take some time to meet up with a few vandwellers on the way. i got to meet judith in north carolina, and she is sweeter and gentler in person than she is online. her place is tucked into a quiet piece of woods, and mutt was delighted with a little off-leash time there. i got to see bernie and mar again....i had met them at the mini vandweller convention in early november at john nomads place during my first kayaking adventure with michael. while at judith's we spent time touring and comparing our different rigs.....it is always such a learning experience and very inspirational to see how everybody is set up. judith seemed to like the astro rondyvan for it's compactness and good gas mileage. it sure was cluttered at the time from my frenzied pack job the day before.....

the next day i met possum in south carolina for breakfast at perkins. it is amazing how comfortable i feel with people i have never met in person before, having only established on-line friendships, but possum and i were yakking like the old friends that we were, chowing down and surfing the fastest wifi i had ever seen. it was so good to finally meet up, possum!

now the trip gets a little fuzzy here. i drove straight through the day and evening. it turned out that by altering my trip south to I-10, i would be able to meet up with phoenix near baton rouge. i know i passed through atlanta that night.....the skyline of the city was breathtaking. what i can't remember is if i made baton rouge that night, or if i had a stop in between. either way, i finally met up with phoenix at the tiger truck stop, where i had my first cajun food. it was good, except the part where he told me that the crayfish etoufe had frogs in it! ewwww. our visit was, as always, too short!
something about gas pumps makes people spit out their gum. look at this gum universe. i never see that anywhere else. this truck stop is called the tiger truck stop for a reason. there is a tiger there. things in cages really grieve me, and i had to be convinced by phoenix not to set the tiger free. the next morning, i was excited to see a sign that said "save the tiger" but when i got closer
it was nothing about saving the tiger, it was about saving the profits they made by having an exotic animal in their truck stop :-(
tony has never known anything but captivity in a tiny cage. he has no tiger family, no companions, no purpose. while i was there, he simply paced, around and around, in an endless circle to nowhere. it was a stark reminder of the gorilla in "ishmael" who banged his head slowly and endlessly on the bars of the cage, not knowing what freedom was, but instinctively knowing there was something else beyond this existence.....
i hate cages of any sort, but a zoo would be a blessing for tony, with more room to move and other animals around. i hope they lose their bid to keep the tiger in grosse tete.
okay, on to happier stuff. i was having a hard time keeping the kayak from shifting to the right and off the siderail of the roof rack. a little duct tape, and a hammer, and that baby hasn't moved in over 2,000 miles :-)
the "islands" in truck stops are mutt's oasis. we always park with the sliding door next to one, so we can look out at something besides asphalt. this one was in mississippi, and one of the prettier ones i've seen.
and finally, texas! in a truckstop outside of houston, i traded out my mukluks for my teva sandals! one of my first "vandweller" dreams actually involved a horse and saddlebags, where i would roam the west with what i could pack on the back of my horse. of course, i was in grade school, and mad to meet johnny yuma, but the same essential theme repeated itself throughout my life, trading the horse for a bicycle and panniers, or a stick and a bandanna, a backpack, or a van....it took a few decades, but i'm living my dream, and it makes every day kinda breathtaking.....

stay tuned, because on my way to austin, i stumble across my first cowboy and the coolest house of worship i have ever seen......

on the road again

i was going to wait for the spring. i really was. but i got cabin fever, and a small windfall that enabled me to pay off a bunch of medical bills, and it was suddenly a possibility to go again. fellow vandwellers sweet mike and my "numees" (that's sister in algonquin) heidi were anxious for me to join them. when ron told me the temps in texas, that clinched it. the pacific coast via san antonio would cure what ailed me.

then i was going to wait for monday. i really was. but impulsiveness ruled, and when i got up saturday morning, i knew i had to go. i had to tweak a few financial issues, and blow off an appointment with joe on monday, but i knew if anybody could understand the geographical cure, it was joe. and when i called him on sunday to say i wouldn't be in on monday at 11:00 because i was already in north carolina, he did. thanks, joe :-)

so here i was on saturday morning with two days preparation left to do, and about 4 hours to do it. my kayak was covered in snow, it was 2 degrees out, and a storm front was headed our way. i started cramming stuff into the van like a crazy woman........oh, wait! i was!

the rear doors of the van were frozen shut. i had to get them open to get at the cam straps to secure the kayak to the roof rack. i had to run the heaters full blast in the van for a half hour to get the doors open. the cam straps weren't there. my brother showed up and asked if i could wrap some christmas presents for him. ah, keith. he even missed russian christmas this year. ya gotta love him. they were the weirdest shaped presents i have ever wrapped, including some antlers. i am not kidding. they kept poking through the tissue paper. i swore alot.

i finally found the cam straps. got the kayak on the roof. stuffed the rest of my gear and the dog in the back of the van, grabbed my passport, and we were off. i was frazzled, and half-sick with anxiety. what a crappy way to start a trip. but i had an appointment down the road. i just didn't know it yet.

*************************************************************************************

i heard her coming before i saw her. she was sobbing, her breaths a mix of terror and exertion. i had pulled off the interstate around 8pm to let mutt go pee in some bushes behind a mcdonalds. she was barefoot, running in a crouch, with a trash bag of belongings and a purse in her arms. clothing spilled out as she ran, and i remember thinking that whatever was after her would track her by the garments, like giant bread crumbs, strewn along the pavement from the little motel down the hill.

"whatever" turned out to be her boyfriend, and he was going to kill her. please, did i have a cell phone? i could hardly understand her through her moaning and crying, but she wanted me to call her brother, and crouched down in the bushes next to us. when i got her brother on the line, he knew immediately what was wrong, and said he was on his way. the urgency in his voice was apparent. i was really scared at this point.

her name was sharon, or shannon, i couldn't tell through the sobs. her terror was palpable, and she kept saying "he's going to kill me" and "i'm so sorry", until she said" he's going to kill us" and i suddenly realized that i could end up like the victim in one of those news stories, gunned down in a domestic dispute, just an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time.

i begged her to get in the van, but she refused, saying he would see her in the light, "just get down" she begged. i pushed Mutt into the van and shut the door, then got down next to her. it was almost like i was outside my body, looking at myself calmly crouched in the bushes behind a mcdonalds with a woman who believed she had just minutes to live. i was terrified inside, but i remember leaning up to her and saying in a conversational tone "my name is katie, and that was my dog Mutt. he's a nice dog". it sounded idiotic as i said it, and she showed no signs of hearing me, so lost was she in her terror. as i talked to her, i hit speed dial on my phone. i wanted to let someone know where i was, if i died here in the bushes in some town along the interstate. i got ron's voicemail, and continued my conversation with her while speaking into the phone, asking her the name of the town we were in, and did he have a weapon? i was pretty fixated on knowing how we were about to die, but she never did answer me, just continued sobbing and patting her purse and the trashbag, in front of her on the ground, with the flat of her palm in an odd, repetitive movement. i was struck by the way she did this, over and over, as if to reassure herself that they were real and hadn't disappeared. twice she reached out towards me as if to touch me in the same way, but pulled back without making contact. i wished she would touch me, because i would have liked affirmation of my existence, somehow.

minutes later, her brother and his friends pulled up, and as they pulled her from the bushes, he clapped me on the back and said "thanks, lady". as they led her to the car, she stopped and reached out her hand and touched my arm, with her palm, much as she had touched her bags on the ground a few minutes before. "thank-you, katie" she said, and then was in the car and gone.

i felt for a moment like the velveteen rabbit, when he became real. there was so much love and gratitude in that touch, and i was deeply moved by knowing that after all, she had heard me there in those bushes, offering her all that i had. no real sanctuary, no salvation.... just my presence, no matter what comes. a friend had taught me recently that all we really need to do in life is show up. that was all i could do for her, and that was enough.

i shook for a long time, heading on down the road that night. i thought alot about the velveteen rabbit....how in the story, he becomes real only after he was shabby and tattered from the wear and tear of life with The Boy, after practically having the stuffing loved out of him. i felt really real that night.