A Word From the Elephant (in the room) 4.0 TreeWrap Cottage, River District, Eugene, Oregon, PNW, USA
“Don’t it always seem to go/That you don’t know what you’ve got/Till it’s gone…..”
Despite my best efforts to remain sedentary, I find myself packing for a trip south.
It would be much easier to stay home. Given the state of the world (the pandemic and the tragic death of democracy) my body tells me it might be best to hunker down in my cozy studio/cottage (provided rent free by my uber-generous sister and her partner Gary), turn up the electric fireplace and spend the winter eating popcorn and binge watching TV (Netflix, Apple, Hulu, Disney, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, there should be one called Pandora’s Box, but I’m not sure). Meanwhile the deep state of my subconscious constantly reminds me that winter is here and it is time to create fat reserves. “Belly fat, belly fat, belly fat ….we must have belly fat or we will starve!” Ten extra pounds appears in the blink of an eye.
As usual my reaction to winter is to travel south. The running begins as I start throwing miscellaneous things into the back of my truck. This year I even have a cute little pop-up camper (the Arrow) so I can pack even more things that I don’t need. There is no rhyme or reason to the packing. This is why I end up with five long-sleeved travel shirts (all slightly different shades of grey) and one pair of socks. A true professional traveller.
Honestly I can’t tell you what I am running from or what I am running to. I just know that at this time of year it feels good to be running. I am addicted to an uncertain future. That is on a personal level only. The future of the planet freaks me out. Well, not the planet itself, but the future of human kind on the planet. But where do you run from that?
The main road south is called Interstate Five. It is part of a network of roads that connect my entire country. This country is called the United States of America. It could easily be called the United States of the Automobile. At one point in its history the robber-baron capitalists of its ruling class decided it was better to invest in cars rather than trains. They made a billion with railroads and then tore up all the tracks and made another 100 billion making roads for cars and selling gasoline. This is why I am traveling south not in a beautiful high-speed electric bullet train (carbon footprint near zero) but in a 2001 Toyota pickup burning about one gallon of gas every 12 miles (low MPG because I’m pulling my trailer). I am too afraid to calculate my carbon-footprint. I know this makes me about the biggest hypocrite in the world. That’s the Elephant for you. In the room.
I am going to drive a somewhat circuitous route that will add up to about 2700 miles and end at the tip of the Baja California peninsula at a place called Shipwrecks Beach in the municipality of Los Cabos in the country known as Mexico. Here I will set up camp for several months and struggle with my own demons in the form of an unfinished novel that must be finished before I can die. I am not planning to die anytime soon, but I like to be flexible with deadlines. (Get it? “Deadlines” I always wondered why they called it that, now I know…) The story I’m writing takes place on the Sea of Cortez. Because I am a weak-willed individual it seems that I have to be living on the sea while I write it. A better person could do it all remotely from the comfort of home. I need the ocean to inspire me.
Of course it also helps that it is sunny and warm in Los Cabos and the water temperature of the ocean is about 80 degrees. It’s not always like that, but it never gets real cold and the sun shines most every day in the winter. It’s nice, but the weather is not why I go there. I go there for the separation. I go there to get out of my head.
My writer friend Elizabeth Gilbert (I use the term loosely, we’ve never met, but when we DO meet I’m sure we will be fast friends. In fact if anyone wants to invite the two of us over for dinner…) says that the superstitious idea of the “mercurial muse” is a real thing.. But the Muse will not just come when you are sleeping or lazing around. The Muse likes to see you sweat bullets. It enjoys the view of you sitting at your freaking desk every morning at 5 AM tearing your hair out to create original sentences. The Muse loves suffering. And the Muse, Gilbert says, when she thinks you have paid enough dues…..voila! She gives out a little shot of inspiration. You create something new, something slightly wonderful. Actually the Muse likes to mess with you. She likes to give you just enough inspiration to keep you going. Enough to keep you suffering with success and happiness just out of reach.
What you eventually learn is that to fool the Muse you only have to pretend to suffer. And it helps to adopt a Buddhist frame of mind. Appear to be suffering while secure in the knowledge that all suffering comes from desire. Desire comes from self-aggrandizement. The idea that you are something that always needs something. In fact you are nothing and have no needs. A molecule in a grain of sand in a universe of infinite possibilities. You are a quantum chance that might not even happen.
But still you have a story. Now get back to work.
The Elephant is watching.