The Beast and me

I could write a book about the adventures the Beast and I have been through. This car has been perfuming me with the scent of freedom. And sweat, as there is no airconditioning to be found. When no one else had faith in her, I did. I looked further than the obvious issues like rust and old tires, a broken light. And the hidden issues: holes in the gas tank, oil leaks, a loosely hanging exhaust. "So what", I said,"no one is perfect!" We made it work all fine and dandy, maybe a bit louder and more rough than the average car, but rusty old trucks are nothing new in Canada and the USA.

Being a woman without night vision, travelling alone in a bric-a-brac car, I've been taking it really easy. The Beast started making new sounds, some things definitely felt like falling off and when even the cassette player spit out what I had fed her, I got worried. I parked, gave the car a motivational speech: we can do this! Let's show the USA what we've got in store! Imagine all the adventures we're going to be living! Road trips 4 life! I stepped back in, started The Beast and drove through the giant Sequoia trees. Until after ten minutes, the exhaust fell off. 

I ran across the street to pick up the hot piece of rust and panicked. It was dark. I had no idea how bad this was. "Is my car going to blow up?" I asked a passing driver seriously. The lady smiled and told me to spend the night at the Chevron gas station, where the mechanic would be able to have a look at it in the morning. Relief rushed through me. Thank goodness for people who know, or pretend to know what they are talking about!

At the gas station, they told me it was okay to sleep in my car on their parking lot, "but on your own risk. Things get dangerous out here at night." Stereotypes of crazy Americans with guns ran through my mind. "Okay, bye!" I yelled and drove a couple of meters further, where I saw a bed and breakfast. I stepped through the doors of Rio Sierra Riverhouse and told my story to the lovely lady who owns the beautiful place. Happy to help out a damsel in distress, Mars showed me my very own hotel room. 

I was about to cry tears of joy. After months on the road, it felt so incredibly nice to treat myself to the peace of mind and comfort of a room of my own. I filled up the bathtub and washed all car worries away. The Beast will be fine and the road trips unforgettable! As I dozed off in a soft puddle of pillows and blankets, I thought: travelling can be exhausting.

Don't get me wrong, I love it all. The long drives, sticky situations, crazy adventures, waking up and not knowing what will happen and where I am going to sleep that night. I love that my cocoon of comfort is so far out of sight, it's just a dot in the distance. While I also have my cosy little home on wheels with me wherever I go. 

That night, I dreamt the past year and a half away. Like it was the first time I reflected on everything that had happened while living in Canada and the USA. I slept a thousand sleeps and woke up feeling fresh. The mechanic couldn't help me, but told me I could drive without the exhaust. "It doesn't harm the car, it will just be loud." And loud she was, that crazy Beast. A five minute drive left me with a ringing in my ears. I smiled, because I saw myself in her. 

Seeing the Rio Sierra Riverhouse in the daylight was a wonderful surprise. The beauty of the river and breathtaking scenery! Arriving somewhere in the dark always carries the comforting weight of surprise. It felt like Christmas morning! While enjoying french toast breakfast covered in syrup, I talked with the ladies who work at the b&b and felt at home. First of all: desert for breakfast! And the conversations left me so inspired I wondered if all these travels, winding roads and long drives were needed to lead me here. To Rio Sierra Riverhouse in Three Rivers. Where brunch is sweet and the talks even sweeter. It felt like I found the destination of the journey. It was hard to leave, but I had to get The Beast home before she would completely fall apart. It was a long, sweaty, noisy drive home, but we made it to Santa Cruz just in time for sunset. Pure romance, that Beast.

California dreaming

My American dream is becoming reality. Late afternoons bathing in Indian summer colours, winding mountain roads, starry skies. The road is home. My old beat up truck The Beast makes me live at a slower pace. Going only twelve miles per hour uphill, I have been able to enjoy the scenery nice and easily, smelling the dusty desert air, getting yelled at by drivers lined up behind me. Ah, America. The ultimate road trip country.

Days are spent driving thousands of miles, stopping in diners with plastic seats and bottomless cups of coffee. The waitresses are platinum blonde, melted cheese covers every dish. The hours are midnight to midnight. It doesn't matter if I go in at 2 am on a Tuesday or on a grey Sunday afternoon, the place is packed. People are hungry for diner food, crave to live the diner life. Bring their dates, babies, books, work, comfy pants, their own special bottle of ketchup. Americans! I love their ways. I love the jukeboxes, the cheesy songs they play. The chain smoking servers doubling as therapists to customers. Refilling their cups with lukewarm black coffee all through the day and night. Like a blanket for the soul. It tastes bad but yes I'll have another one. I'm not sure if it's the coffee, but diners make me feel alive, even though time seems to stand still once you enter the joint. 

No better break from long slow road trips than a pancake stack with butter squares melting all over the place. Aunt Jemima's syrup and I'm in America. This country likes to make sure you know you are in the USA, at all times. Flags, stereotypes, halloween decorations for months, Starbucks, Taco Bell, Mc Donalds, drive-thrus, drive-ins, dive bars, colourful beach towns, wide open roads, the feeling you are living in a movie set.

The National Parks! Of course I had to play tourist and be a part of the traffic jammed Yosemite and Sequoia parks. I am here! So how can I not? I hugged the massive trees, took about two gazillion pictures of the autumn colours, went skinny dipping in the freezing river. National park rangers don't like that. They do. But they don't. So I kept my clothes on for the rest of the trip. I got tired of the long hot drive, and so did The Beast. Her exhaust fell off just as we left the Sequoia National Park. I saw this as a sign: time to go back to our Californian home. We hit the road, rattling, growling, louder than ever. With the exhaust in the back seat and a smile on my face, we drove until the air tasted salty and life was sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. Home sweet Santa Cruz.

 

Sunrise in her eyes

I've been trying this new thing lately. It goes like this: waking up at 6 am to bundle up, walk to the beach and watch the sunrise. Then I pick a cafe with ocean view and write. Travelling the world, going to transformational festivals and then, after 28 years, I find out about this. The thing that is really changing my life. The good old sunrise, the start of a fresh, newborn day. The only times I've enjoyed this phenomenon is in a blurry state, after a long night of dancing. Or when I have to wake up early for a flight. But never in my life have I woken up at the crack of dawn to enjoy the silence, the peace that exists only for those awake before the light of day.

I can't tell you exactly what it is that makes me hop out of bed in the dark of night and get out of the door wrapped in warm layers. I'm not a morning person. I love the magic of the night, the creative hours, all the things you can do when the world is asleep. It's a feeling if secrecy, of knowing something others don't. It's magic. It's addictive. It's my caffeine urge, all my itches and desires. They exist in the dead of night. And right before the sun appears over the horizon, those minutes of living in limbo between dark and light, night and day, that's where all my addictions, obsessions, longings are satisfied. 

When the sun starts the day, that's when I begin mine. I can write for hours on end, watching Santa Cruz wake up. I can't believe this has not been a part of my life for so long! It's like eating meat after ten years of being a vegetarian, or having sex for the first time: a whole new world opens up! All of a sudden you can choose everything on the menu again, or spend your free time trying all these new things! It's great! You think I'm being ridiculous, but I'm for real. I would put sunrise right on that list: meat, sex, sunrise.

Happy days!

Californication

The after-burn decompression in the default world. It isn't as hard as I expected. Probably because life is a road trip from festival to festival, while soaking up all the beauty in between. The desert roads, mountain puff puff pass, sunlit afternoons of sweating on the steering wheel. An old rusty truck named The Beast doesn't need fancy things like airconditioning. Friends laughed when I got her, six months ago: my new home on wheels. She plays tapes like no one else does and always smells like a festival but that's alright. My ultimate road trip buddy. "I'm going to drive her to Mexico!" I smiled and on Vancouver Island, everyone smiled too. "You'll be lucky to get her to Nanaimo", a mechanic in Cumberland said. I found another mechanic and half a year later I'm in Santa Cruz. 

Today one of the tires exploded and within 5 minutes, three people pulled over to help me change the tire. America! You rock! No matter what I do or where I go, most of the time I feel like I'm in a movie here. Open roads through desert void, once in a while: a mountain. When the yawning starts, the coffee stops. Plastic diners with waitresses pouring the black gold in bottomless cups. Pot of coffee back on the heater to keep it warm for 24 hours. Spanish and English stories on either side of my ears. I'm in California. The drive from Nevada to San Francisco was a long one, stuck in traffic on labor day. The sweating broke the record of all the sweat I ever sweated. Napping by a river bed on the side of the road, one man telling me: "this is not a safe place to sleep, there are predators here."

Driving over the Golden Gate bridge, seeing the city in the full moon light as in a dream. I'm here. No flowers in my hair, but dust aplenty. I roll around in memories of Burning Man highs, that will do. I walk through Haight street, see pictures of Janis Joplin and nostalgia of the Summer of Love. I close my eyes and smell it. "You can walk around naked here," my friend Lisa tells me,"but men have to wear a sock." I love San Francisco. 

Oakland had a night planned out for me. Dressed up as a Sunday, I rolled in, washing the sweat from my face. City traffic makes me bite my nails. The taste of metal in my mouth, I forgot to sing along to radio songs but my eyes were dry. All that focus. "Take everything out of your car", my friend says. I panic, "I can't." There are blankets and clothes and food and books and all the things you would have in your house. My car is my house. I covered everything with a sheet and it looked like two people were sleeping in the back. 

I jumped in his airconditioned car and looked at the lake, he took me the scenic route. Secret jazz show in an old building, with ballrooms and chandeliers. People still in Sunday Church outfits, hats and gloves, heels and ties. I sipped a martini with one pinky up, trying to figure out how fast I could get to the olive. Class. It's just not me. Grandma's soul food was served. Fried catfish, beans, potato salad. Pictures covering the walls: the owner with famous people. Same smile, different crush. We bought earplugs and headed for the loudest little bluesbar in town. Ladies dancing, fan in one hand, man in the other. Dancing or not, sweat was dripping no matter what. Drinking cold beers in one big gulp, not even trying to show class at this point, just trying to cool down from the inside out. I dance and one lady comes up to me, points at my friend and whispers in my ear: "he's a keeper, that one." I laugh and the next one taps my back: "pull your jump suit down a bit girl, show us your shoulders!" Women in big sparkly church dresses love to give advice. I did what she told me but didn't keep the man.

Santa Cruz was next. I had gone and came back for more. Some unsolved business, a man who writes poetry and stuff. All bars closed, even the Irish pub where we read each other poems until we got kicked out. We walked on the wharf and watched seals sleeping on top of each other, slithering the night away. One had a crazy dream, accidentally pushing another one in the water and that was the start of a riot. I laughed and decided right then and there I might stay for a while.