the broad sky welcomed you

to breathe

roam free

grow

despite yourself

you turned around

as many loves come and gone

as moons in these wide skies

now all the signs remind you:

East

which has always been home

while the vast bright blue

fluffed with cozy clouds

beckons

asks you to stay

the way a cowboy might

quiet like

offering wild freedom

open spaces

animal comforts

home is here, now

and all the places you’ve been

skies you promise

to be gone from only a little while

heading East

hustle and bustle

strangers loud, stressed, depressed

in the hem of a too-close horizon

a foreground of vehicles and pavement

enough

to snatch the breath from your throat

as if that’s all you can remember

of a place you called home

before

this wide expanse

wrenched your heart from its safe spaces

leaving only sky

it startled you on the seventh day

now, in the seventh month

it’s where you feel alive

i’ve been trying to identify clouds. By the time i found a book that would help, i had made it to Wyoming, where the massive sky hosts such an assortment as to feel like a master class for a novice like me.

Stratus clouds have no real shape or discernible structure. They are easily found: spread thin between earth and sky. The Eeyore among clouds, listless. Stratus clouds’ accompanying barometric pressure helps a lot of living bodies agree with low energy. Tut tut, it looks like rain.

The storms here come on slowly then pelt down water in big, fat drops the way only the most massive of summer clouds can deliver. This rain moves around the gigantic sky to let go distant downpours, each miles from the next like so many massive jellyfish. From a dry perch beneath bright blue, you might easily spy wet weather overshadowing elsewhere. One can’t help but marvel at the breadth of sky which allows such visibility.

In a break from the storms under hot, clear skies yesterday i embarked on a three mile hike at 4,000+ feet. i could see the pouring rain, far far away, reaching toward the ground as if those storm clouds were Michelangelo’s God, the earth Adam. So much of the heavens are visible from heights like these. i heard the thunder about halfway in. Perhaps i quickened my pace then, or not. Presently, a few drops fell—gratefully smaller harbingers than thunder, which seemed itself to have subsided somewhere over the valley. For sure i tried to speed up then; i knew the rain would come strong. Those warning droplets proved especially cute compared to the torrent that soon followed. As the rain fell, thick air gave way to the fresh aromas of a grateful earth. Through the water between us, a white-tailed deer noticed me only enough to bound a few yards further for her snacking, unperturbed and intent. i kept walking, not quite hurried, but determined. The only way out of this storm was through.

It wasn’t long before the heavy clouds passed again, a wake of fluff and blue left behind them. It was there i changed my soaking clothes, envied the deer’s coat, and smiled at the sky again. Hello, cumulus, old friend.

new-to-me fauna, coast to coast, over six-ish months:

roadrunner

elk and their speckled babies

black-tailed deer

bald eagles

one golden eagle

bighorn sheep

wild donkeys

sandhill cranes

jackrabbit

a young coyote

mule deer

pacific seals

pronghorn, which are not technically antelope but a lot like ‘em

busy gophers

owls

quail, who are hilarious

a wolf

ground squirrels, which might also be known as whistle-pigs ? but prairie dogs do way more whistling

prairie dogs

banana slugs and painted snails

zebras in a coastal pasture

hundreds of buffalo and their “red doggy” babes

wild horses

a scary amount of locusts

lizards of the redwoods

one very long grey snake

hundreds of swallow-tail butterflies that i scared from their mud

a curious mountain goat

marmot

the only swimming songbird on this continent

golden crested squirrels

a young black bear

big fat salamander in a cold mountain lake

two moose

too many mice

noisy, bold rufous hummingbirds

trout swimming upstream

one massive grizzly butt, loping off into the forest

other cool birds: Ravens, Phainopepla, Pine Grosbeak, American Coot, Bullock’s Oriole, Marsh Wren, Barrows Goldeneye, Osprey, Clark’s Woodpecker, Godwit, Grey Jay (aka Robber Jay), Pileated Woodpecker, Goshawk, Curlew… et al.

A pair of sandhill cranes flew overhead, shouting about their mornings with honks like operatic geese. If i wept then it was because i would like someone with whom to start the day. Perhaps i have roamed too far. i can still hear a long-gone friend giving me shit for not being able to settle down anywhere, the echoes of that conversation reverberating through all of the years i spent too long in one place. i wonder if roots are the way to affection. If by settling down i could find forehead kisses, someone to play with my hair. A gilded cage that i’ll inevitably break my own heart to escape. The whole wild world is out there. This nearly-summer morning in the hills is bitterly cold or breezily warm, depending on the sun as it rises. Darkness and light. Wind rolls through sagebrush the same as over a calm lake: undulating surfaces, shimmering blue-greens, whispering. i pause to watch a lone elk standing at the peak of a ridge still in shadow. i am rewarded with a head-toss accompanied by an adorably high-pitched, nasal grunt. Someone unseen responds. They squeak back and forth like this, to my delight. i wonder if they are discussing breakfast. Yesterday i made coffee where i could see a family of bison grazing. Buffalo are playful whenever they are in groups, and slow all the time unless threatened. They are vocal, democratic, affectionate. i dream of belonging to a herd.

(addendum to “a day in the life”)

Throw pinecones in the river to see how long you can keep an eye on them as they speed away

Look up a lot

Get to know the clouds

Study, so you can call nature by all of her names

Whisper when you do

Talk less in general, except to yourself

Tell yourself jokes

Notice unfamiliar sounds, like the gopher ripping grass from above ground to drag down into its hole

Watch the gopher do this for as long as you want

Check every hole and nest, cautiously

Follow tracks

Identify scat

Climb

Do not dampen your enthusiasm

Try to drink a gallon of water every day

Scream wildly once in a while

Hold yourself when you cry. Imagine the embrace of the person who’d make you feel loved enough to let it all out

Let it all out

Touch all the trees you can reach

Be naked in fresh air whenever you can

Climb mountains when you feel like it

Eat fresh snow

Greet every living creature that comes within two meters

Don’t take it personally if they don’t respond. Every hello is a generosity

Greet blood-suckers ruthlessly. You’ll know them when you see them

Make eye contact

Bow toward hooved creatures

Crouch low to greet dogs

Caw raucously at ravens

Write postcards to the humans you like

Ignore the rest as much as possible

Pay attention to yourself

Dance

Stretch

Breathe

Take up all the space you need

Every day somebody wants to talk. Happily fewer than i expected offer unsolicited advice. Some worry for me needlessly. Several times now someone has started a conversation by noticing my license plate and saying, “You’re a long way from home!” One guy thought i must’ve driven “a third of the way around the world, at least!” A lot of old guys talk to me like i’m their idiot grandchild, and i don’t mind one bit.

Bison (Bison bison) are also known as American Buffalo. It is okay to use either term. This is official technical information, please pass it on.

One day everybody at the bar wanted to talk to me. We were each of us alone on a Sunday, and i felt like singing Sheryl Crow: the good people of the world are visiting Yellowstone, waitin’ in line with their families, drivin’ slow in their cars…

The bartender was a classic story-filled dude who got excited to tell me all his national parks anecdotal horror. He’d worked in Death Valley, Olympic, and Yellowstone. People have died in incredibly freaky ways in at least two of those places, and he had a chilling bonus Grand Canyon story. When i went to the geysers later i thought about the awful accidents. i felt a boost of curiosity instead of realistically cautious, like when i wonder about what it’d be like to jump from somewhere too high, or drive my car off a bridge. Could i really just break through the crusty top layer of a hundred-degree, bubbling, acidic underground waterway? This is that “call of the void” thing that happens to everyone in some form: you experience thoughts of doing something horrific as part of your brain’s mechanisms to convince you not to do the thing. Seems like a weird glitch to me, but it works. i did not go near one steamy puddle.

i saw a dad visibly tense when his child put a small foot on the edge of the thermal pool boardwalk. His voice was calm and gentle though as he said, “We don’t step on that board, that’s the boundary.” It is with genuine awe that i admit that i don’t know how parents ever have a good time.

Recently though i did have the privilege of witnessing some parents making an intentional masterpiece of it. It seems like dreams coming true kind of just means you have more work to do, no matter what your dreams have been. But the work then doesn’t feel like it anymore. In this way i can understand how parents might enjoy themselves, abstractly. It makes me more excited to be heading east, where i’ll spend time with some old loves who have new babies.

The last time someone saw me near my car and noticed i was “a ways from home” i said, “Nah, she’s right here,” and patted Sorcha like a pet. That guy was visiting feral cats along the shoreline of Port Angeles, Washington. He told me about how he and his wife like to feed the cats, catch and fix them if they can, and otherwise let them be. Rock-dwelling beach kitties who hid from everyone, but came right out to eat snacks from this old man. He wanted to tell me about other things he’s done, like when he hitchhiked a lot of the same states i’ve now driven through. i wasn’t bored, listening to him. He surprised me finally with a $20 gift card for groceries. He said, “You always have too much when you don’t need it.”

One morning i met a man with a horse and we talked about Steven Rinella. i guess that guy lives in Bozeman now. My equestrian stranger does too, though the trailhead where we met was over an hour distant. “I like a quiet forest,” he said. i lent him sunscreen and he put on his chaps as we discussed big game and bear safety. He gushed about his love of this countryside, and i realized i was somewhere special, in yet another new way. Cowboy country, i am arrived. The horse did some business as they moseyed on along.

i get stared at often. Looking like i do, alone in places where most folks have company, it makes sense that people would wonder. i used to get really prickly at people like this. Turns out though that whenever i make defiant eye contact with a looky-loo, they immediately gush about whatever it is they were staring at. Ultimately most people who have “staring problems” actually have socially awkward problems. For real, i recommend everyone try this: be kind when you catch someone staring. i bet you a beer they were just admiring.

i was sitting in my car at one of the Columbia River Gorge waterfalls when somebody walked by then backtracked. “Are you from Maine?” i shrugged, truly in an effort to avoid getting tangled in the question, “Kinda.” This man then launched into the story of his experience on some hill in Maine that when you’re driving up it feels like you’re going backward but it’s an illusion. i had to admit i’d never heard of it. He immediately lost interest and wandered off.

At the Yellowstone gate the attendant noticed the pizza box on my front seat and joked that she’d trade me the map for a slice. Just when i had been wondering what the fork to do with my leftovers! i made her take two while we both giggled like we were getting away with something. i’m real amped to be able to share food again.

i pulled over at some turn out on the coast of Oregon to look at the sky. Next to me a Texan vehicle playing something loud and clubby pulled up and parked. Out the passenger side of that car, while i rummaged in the “back seat” of mine, a big man scrambled out. He was smiling, and without even meeting my eyes he offered me some kind of greeting. He, his companion, and i spent the next forty minutes laughing like old friends. They were coworkers who’d been on the road six weeks, he told me before she came around the car. Upon her arrival he excitedly demanded that she ask me how long i’ve been on the road. He already had that information and thoroughly enjoyed watching her jaw drop. We laughed a lot that hour together.

The massive Hoh Rainforest (WA) logs look so cozy all covered in moss. i found one that had been well-loved and stretched right out on it, looking up at the canopied overstory. i could have spent all day there, but the foot traffic was a bit much. One woman shouted at me, “I’m sorry, but you are life goals!” and it took me a sec to figure out what she meant. Another person i’d already met along the walk told me i looked great up there. My cozy log time didn’t last any longer than was fun.

In one day at Yosemite i overheard no fewer than five different people exclaim, “Maine!” when noticing my car. One particularly cutely high pitched voice was followed by an alarmingly comical, but definitely serious, two-syllable “Mom.” i swear i could hear the eye-roll. i got to witness a kiddo practically jump in front of my parked car, which i was luckily approaching. Turns out he’d been checking off the states and i was the first from Maine. i did see another Maine plate at Yosemite but i didn’t tell the kid that. i threw a fist pump instead, “i win!”

Strangers being “friends you haven’t met yet” is a terrifying prospect. i prefer strangers staying that way: regular, flawed, single-serving human interaction that is almost always kind and sometimes playful. To remind me of the friends i already have.

In the morning i will snuggle with the sun as she tries like an impatient lover to wake me. Her early warmth will seep in, slowly coaxing me from my bed. i like to wake up but not to get up, so i’ll roll around about it a while, taking the window covers down so i can see the new morning. Depending on where i’ve parked, this often ends with me simply tumbling to my feet out the rear passenger door, amused.

My day begins with a”morning spritz”, as they say, and simple sustenance—oatmeal and coffee—usually cooked over a propane flame in my little water-boiler. i’ve only recently started to build fires for only myself. A few months ago, camp neighbors treated me to the sweet joy of a morning fire; sometimes now i like to indulge in it alone. It feels like a form of hygge in this quaint, strange life. i gather the wood from around the site, arranging it to build a small combustion that creates warmth and heat unevenly but brilliantly, like a romance. Predictably, the fire goes to smoke before i’m quite ready to put it out.

Some days after breakfast it’s time to mosey on down the road. When i’ve found a good site, i stay put as long as i have enough drinking water to do so. Neither staying nor leaving limits the way i spend my days, which is not at all unique. i stare at nature a lot, especially birds. i talk and text with loved ones, go for walks, stretch, dance. i read, write, and create small beauties. i happily watch downloaded TV. i talk to myself all the time, and while driving i sing my little heart out. i always try to make sure i know before dusk where i’m staying the night.

Where i’ll park to sleep is a matter of locale. A lot of places are unfriendly to overnight freeloaders, so i will wander off the beaten path for something subtle. i understand that in this particular little vehicle i could probably easily park anywhere, but i am notoriously bad at being woken up. A knock on my window seems truly nightmarish. It’s not a risk i’m willing to take, if i can help it, though i expect it is only a matter of time before i face this fear.

i prefer to park alone in the wilderness rather than a well-lit parking lot, but there are too many other factors for any further blanket statements to make sense. Everywhere is different, and i won’t scoff at a truck stop. It’s ultimately a game of pros and cons, the variables of which are woven intricately. i like to be able to put my tent up and see the stars out my window. A private place to pee nearby is helpful. Other factors include, but are certainly not limited to: level ground for sleeping, facilities/water access, traffic, privacy, noise, weather, the intended use of the area, et cetera. The most exciting situations are when i have human neighbors, overnight or otherwise. (The notable among these usually get their own separate write-up.)

These past few days i found a stream skirting a tiny peninsula to make my home. It took me no fewer than three dance songs to find level parking; by the time i exited the car a nearby camper was coming to check that i was okay. We laughed at me together, and i knew i had chosen my spot well. i slept under stars especially bright as the moon waned to new.

In the dark that now settles so long after i’ve tucked in, i listen for animals. Often i am pleasantly rewarded with frog songs, coyote howls, night bird calls, and hooting owls. One spot had donkeys, another horses. Although it used to be a big part of my nights, no longer am i bothered by rodent guests—i finally found a way to make them feel unwelcome that doesn’t involve podcasts blaring into the darkened wilderness.*

Once in the depth of a waxing gibbous night somewhere on the Pacific coast, i went to scoot from my bed out the rear passenger side for a quick pee. When i opened the door, there stood a skunk, not two yards away and totally illuminated by the moonlight. We both froze before i quickly slammed the door again. It decided not to spray, and i gratefully chose a different exit to do my business.

Every day is similar. Every day is new.

---

*See the post titled “simply brazen” for details.

Fir fronds, dropped from their boughs in the hot spring sun, carpet a paved trail already wet with snowmelt. The smell breathing from the warm blacktop through the pine needles hits my senses like a slow start to a hearth fire: suddenly the fragrance has permeated my world, an earthy succor for low spirits. Much of the pavement is still fully blocked by stubborn piles of packed slush sprinkled with dirt and leaves, mauled by footprints. The untouched snow off to the sides crunches and molds into itself when i grab at a handful, bare fingers warmed in the eighty degrees of sunlight. As i walk my palms ease the old snow into a dense ball of ice, perfect for cooling my neck and chest during the uphill climb toward the ridge.

The ravens arrive squawking to each other mid-air, above and below the path: mountain criers bringing news from all around. What more eerie, wise creature could be so loud and also welcome? i listen closely. Perhaps i am eavesdropping, or perhaps their messages are for all to hear; feathered foot soldiers gossiping as i strain to understand. i ask questions of these ravens, and they cluck with curiosity, but offer me nothing. Like any henchmen, they will need bribes before they share information. i know better than to play this game with birds so sly. i walk on as they wing past, raven business remaining between them and their sky.

At least one river whines faintly up from the valley below. Rallied against rock and carried on the wind its cries grow louder. The melt of thaw makes gluttony of all waterways. They roar the loudest they will all year—creeks, rivers, streams and all their mighty cousins will fatten up into their banks and carelessly, aggressively reshape the land that holds them. Spring break is in full swing, and the current’s flow thus bolstered echoes throughout of torrential indulgence. The mountains proudly scatter this information around as if aware they will grow taller in the water’s rush. The sound reverberates around the valleys—a song these giants together have been singing ever since they were droplets on pebbles.

In these vast moments i know god is nearby. i can feel elysian music best when i can see the movements. i am lucky to have chosen a clear day for this adventure: i can see holy splendor in every direction, the only other signs of humanity so small as to be insignificant. To the north is the ocean. i can see the land beyond even that, with yet more mountains; a place we of this bordered land are currently not allowed to visit. It seems an impressive waste of energy and resources—too often life as well—to bother keeping people inside invisible land boundaries. The world is so vast, yet governments so petty. Why would anyone want to stop another person from seeing these beauties? If i could, i would take everyone to all of the places i’ve seen gods.

Today my pilgrimage is personal and though that wasn’t the original plan, it’s much better this way. Atop the ridge at last, i say my thanks as i settle down to take it all in. i can hear Chinese and a language i don’t recognize among all of the English and Spanish. Visiting a national park is a lot like walking into the most diverse block party of all time: a family event where everyone is just trying to have a nice day then go home. As i sit in the sun and take in the uncountable mountains under the glory of our pure blue sky, i can feel eyes on me. They wonder at my aloneness and investigate my tattoos, so many of which are exposed now under the brilliant sun. One especially small onlooker contemplates neither my tattoos nor lack of companionship—a chipmunk notices my snacks. i talk to the little rodent about how i will not be sharing, but it only creeps closer, right on to my backpack set next to me. i am quietly giggling at it now, whispering, and together we create a convenient moment for everyone to stare at me outright.

“Oh wow look at that!”

“You’ve made a friend!”

“Is that a chipmunk?”

“Oh he’s a brave little guy!”

Though they are meant to be heard, very few of the scattered statements are directed at me. Still, i look up from my new friend with some small pride, and announce casually to all in attendance that i am now a Disney princess and should be treated as such. Amid the chuckles, a raven heralds my coronation.

It feels a little bit like going to the dentist after all the rough roads i’ve ridden in my sweet Sorcha. They’re rotating my tires, and i asked the guy not to be mad at me when he looks at the skid plate.

i don’t mind if people see my mistakes as long as they don’t judge me, but since that’s all any of us seem to do anymore, i get why nobody else wants to be seen. Anymore i aim to be a person who leaves plenty of space for people to be less than their best, but expects them to try.

This is Sorcha’s fourth oil change since we hit the road. i’m collecting the stickers. There are all sorts of milestones to clock—i have no idea how many actual miles we’ve gone. What i do know is that i treat my whole life like i treat my car: with a healthy degree of care, yet audaciously. Yesterday i had to coax her up a dirt road she thought was too skiddy–technical term for the orange dashboard light featuring the car atop squiggles–just like i had to gird my loins for some looming bad news from someone i care about. In the end we made it up that dirt hill, and i’m not getting any lovin’ in this state. Instead, Sorcha gets her work done, and i’ll take a hike i’ve been eyeing, my own tune-up. My heart feels like her skid plate looks: a bit worse for wear, ready for more.

i wrote to a friend today that i am satisfied. How lucky can one be, to feel so? Here, in the words of Hafiz, with apologies for the image quality.