...it was cold
I woke up this morning because my blanket had slipped and my sweatshirt had hiked up, letting the cold in. In my place it was so cold that was enough to wake me up. I pulled the sleeping bag back over the top of me and looked at my iPhone. Outside the temp had dropped to 27 degrees. A quick look at the digital thermometer that I keep next to my bunk showed it was a little warmer inside, around 36 degrees. I screwed up my nerve, popped out of bed long enough to plug the electric heater in. I ducked back under the cover as I knew it would take the "little heater that could" about an hour or so to catch up with the elements.Still, there was an upside. The half a glass of club soda on the side table was nicely chilled and tasted good. Sleep would be elusive so I flipped on the computer.
When I was in 6th grade I was as "Space Crazy" as every other boy of my age. I wanted to be an astronaut with all my heart and had even written to Deke Slayton when I started to wear glasses to see if that would keep me of contention. Deke actually wrote me back, a couple of times. saying that if you set your mind to a task nothing was impossible. I refused to give up on the dream and read everything I could about space. At that time the Scholastic weekly reader was ver obliging about supplying me with plenty of reading material, including an article about a kid my age who had built himself his own Space Capsule simulator. It went on to say that the kid had gone so far as spending a week in his little "simulator" to see what it was like. My pal David Ross and I thought this was one of the coolest things we had ever heard and we implored my Dad to help us build our own simulator.
My Dad was always open to life in all its aspects. He also was an advocate that if you have never lived something then you really were not entitled to an opinion. Once when my brother Bruce was in Alabama, training for his 2 tours in Viet Nam, I got over enthusiastic about the idea of going into the army myself as soon as I could. Dad was a veteren of the jungles of Burma and to hear all the bravado this pudgy 12 year was constantly extolling finally got on his nerves.
"You want to know how glamorous it is to go to war?" he asked over his paper, "...go lay in your foxhole until I call you in!"
David and I had dug a foxhole in the tiny backyard behind our house where we kept vigil over the sliding glass door to the dining room, protecting it from attack by our vicious (albeit retarded) Hungarian Poolie, Gypsy. When Dad said this it was November, night and raining. It was a challenge to Dad, a lesson in the making, to me it was a game. I went upstairs and got my field Jacket, sent home to me from Bruce when he was at basic in Seattle, a WW2 Helmet liner and my Mattell model M-16. I was strapped and ready. I went into the backyard to the foxhole, it was half full of water. Dad watched from the door, I waited for him to call me back in. He didn't. I stepped into the pool of cold water that filled my sneakers and lay down in the mud, my M-16 at the ready. Dad told me he would call me when my stint on guard was over and I was to maintain silence until then. He closed the door.
There was an old Bill Mauldin cartoon where one of the dogfaces, I know not which, commented on how the patter of rain on his helmet was like rain on a tin roof. Since all I had was a liner the effect was more like rain on a box of Quaker oats. I pulled up my collar and kept an eye out. It was cold. Through the lighted windows I could see Dad and Mom watching TV, chatting, talking, moving too and fro in the warm glow of the house. I got cold, I got wetter, the rain fell and I waited to be relieved. I don't know how long I was there, thinking, but I expect it was at least an hour before Dad called me back in and my Mother sent me upstair to a welcome warm bath. I cannot say that after that I was less enthusiastic about the military but I expect I was a little quieter.
One Saturday afternoon Dad took David and I off to the lumberyard to get the first parts of our little spaceship, 2X4s and plywood. We scribbled the shape of a box on a sheet of paper, Dad figured out the dimensions and showed us how to cut the wood with a skilsaw and nail it together. We ran short of supplies and the intent was to finish the box the following week. Dad loved building stuff and I loved being around him so it was a great day. Prior to this Dad had somehow aquired an old wood instrument panel from the airbase he worked at as a civilian employee. David and I pulled up lawn chairs behind it in the framework and we were in our own Gemini Capsule.The simulator never got finished though, as has always been the case with my life (and my Dad's). Money was tight so we didn't get more lumber soon enough to save our fragile little craft from succumbing to a wind storm. I tried to fix it but to no avail, eventually we salvaged what remained to build shelves in the garage.
When the heater finally caught up with the weather the sun was coming up I made up my bunk as neat as I could. As I shuttled the plastic bins of clothing, books and food from the front of my place to their daytime storage on the bed I selected my clothes for the day and got dressed. I reached under the sink and got my daily aspirin dose and sipped the last of my club soda. Everything in its place and everything stowed I moved into the cockpit and started the engines, the old seaplane sound of the VW engine under my bunk coughed to life, hesitantly against the cold.
I have always love the writings of Larry Niven. I told him so in person on several occasions (I have been introduced to Larry at least 5 times, in fact at one time he even remembered who I am which is impressive if you know Larry). I especially was drawn to the stories he told about the "Belters", those solitary cowboys who headed out alone in tiny ships into the asteroid belt hoping to strike it rich. The application of a American Western Frontier metaphor to the exploration of our solar system has an romance that appeals to my soul. In fact as my life became more and more complicated, littered with responsibilities and (excessive) possessions I found myself "Pining" for a simpler way of life. I started to consider that there was a greater potential for happiness through the simplification of our existence, if rather then living like digital potentates we chose to "live like a belter". In fact "living like a belter" became a silent clarion call to me with the "Solo ships" of these mythical miners assuming the same mystique as Throeau's hand built sanctuary on Walden Pond.
"Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify."
After I got dressed and got things stowed I really felt the need for Coffee. That meant removing the privacy curtain from the windshield and opening the gates so I could get to the street from the courtyard of the house I still own with Laurie and where she lives with Nicholas. The drive was clear since Laurie had taken Nick to school, after he told me I should pick him up at 2. I tied on the Parachute silk camo scarf my brother had brought back from Nam for me and stepped into the cold, the gates creaked open with protest. My Westfalia, Testarossa, and I rolled out in search of Starbucks. The heater was spooling up
When I tell people these days that I am living in a VW van behind my old house in Petaluma, working in my old studio during the day and living on Ramen I can see the layers of expression that cross their faces. Some are judgmental (hippie!), some are sympathetic (bordering on pity), some are confused and uncomfortable. Very few of them can even begin to understand that I am thankful for my situation.
When I started this year I was broke, living off the good will of my friend Gordon, and drinking far too much. I was just starting to publish THE WHEEL with my pal Blake and starting to work for Dan and Pam at VICTORY LANE magazine. Life was looking up but uncertain. I had launched on a course of introspection and an active program to improve myself. I have worked hard this year, lost hope, found it, lost it again, slipped close to the bottle again, crawled further and further away each time that happened. I started the year having lost my Mother on my birthday and fighting to keep the usually unshakable hope my Dad instilled into me alive.
I go out of this year with 12 months of working hard to turn around THE WHEEL and coming out of it proud of the result. It's not perfect but nothing is and it is light years better. I have something I have not had in aery long time, a steady income from the magazine. Living a nomadic existence like I am choosing to live is not something that the majority of Americans can undderstand, to them I am "living in my car", when in fact it is more like living on a small sailboat. Say it like THAT might make it sound a little more romantic, as it should (at least to me).