Morning view at my 'campsite' |
The rain taps atop my car; behind it I hear the ocean waves swell and crash in the distance - angry with the winter storm. To my right, an enormous evergreen, branches on the ground askew, clearly ravaged by the latest storm and proximity to the ocean. The thrwap of the extra large water droplets compliments tapping on my roof when the rain is tapping too hard to hear the gentle sound of a volatile ocean. The things sound machines are made of.
Only this is real life, stopped at a vista point on the PCH
- sleeping in my trunk... again. I haven't heard a car pass in hours, the
nearest building or person is arguably unwalkable - but who knows in the call
of a pitch black night. To cook my supper, I had to hide my sterno stove
beneath my bumper (being incredibly cautious of my gas tank nestled right
behind it), reheating old meat from days ago, then eating it while crouched
inside my trunk. The last time I've seen a bed was three days ago in Northern
Oregon; I'm now 120 miles north of San Francisco. I've been on the coast now
for exactly 30 days. The past 22 have seen rain. Nothing about the pacific
north west winter is anything I could have imagined - and I really miss the
sun.
But this experienced, sprinkled with miserable moments, is
the most fulfilling thing I've done. And when I click the button on my phone,
close my eyes, the crash of the ocean and tapping of the rain will be my
lullaby. I'll wake up on the cliff of an ocean; vista point most people only
get to stop at, has become my home for the night. And when I wake up, it's
going to be raining again - or likely have not stopped - and it has become my
troublesome adversary, blocking my beloved sun.
But I have the gentle
song of shifting sheets of rain meeting the gravity cooing above my head. The
sound of delicate, angry waves in moments of precipitating reprieve. Water is
both my enemy and my peacemaker tonight.
Perhaps nature encapsulated my contemplation or perhaps that
I've been confined to a five and a half foot by two foot space in a car for five
hours. Either way I realize that through the grey and rain and laughs and smiles,
the bad always met with good. These moments I will never get back, may never
have again and will always remember. They are all mine; a singular ownership.
And I've fallen in love. With something - my life, myself, my (version of the)
world (not what may have been expected of a woman at 32). It's hard sometimes. And it's fucking
amazing.
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