I think that I dream every night…but this is one that I remembered when I woke up.
In my dream, I was back at school.
I knew that I had classes to go to…somewhere….sometime….and I knew that I was missing them….but I couldn’t find the people who could help me navigate.
I couldn’t figure out how to….start figuring out…what to do.
Everyone else seemed so established and connected to it all.
They knew what to do.
They had the compass inside of them that I wondered if I’d ever had access to.
I drove and walked…faster and faster….and all I could find were people who told me that I better figure it all out.
All I had access to were the people who were willing to tell me how much I was missing.
I never did find out what to do….and, when I woke up, I was relieved to know that it was all just a dream.
It didn’t matter.
It wasn’t real.
My dream was over when I woke up.
I can’t navigate someone else’s life.
I can tell them, “Yeah….I’ve been to that island. I’ve been there….” but the sea is always changing….no cloud repeats itself….and I can’t tell them the way to go.
And, too, I can’t ever know what it must feel like for someone else to be lost….to grab onto anything that feels like it is something familiar….to navigate to the things that might bring some comfort.
I know what my personal version of lost feels like….but I can’t walk in anyone’s unfamiliar shoes.
I can’t get out of myself long enough to feel that much empathy.
That was a bad dream I had last night….and, in some ways, a good one.
I hope that when I’m on the boat and adrift at sea that I’ll have someone who loves me along to share being lost with me.
I hope that I’m sensitive enough to climb up into someone else’s boat when they’re trying to find their way.
How lost could you be if someone who loves you is on the boat….too?
If I was travelling with my family, in a crowded van that we could spend the night in, I would say to them, when we woke up, “SEE!! LOOK HOW MUCH MONEY WE SAVED!! NOW LET’S GO GET AN EXPENSIVE BREAKFAST WITH ALL THE MONEY WE DIDN’T SPEND ON A COMFORTABLE PLACE TO SLEEP!!”
Awwww……who am I kidding?
I’d probably just crank up the stove and tell them to have another packet of instant oatmeal if I was being that much of a cheapskate.
Cooking instant oatmeal in the Walmart parking lot!
What kind of father makes his wife and children sleep in the Walmart parking lot?
I love these tips.
I listened to some people talking about the increase in National Park fees….sometimes increasing from 30 to 70 dollars for a 7 day pass.
That’s a big increase….but they did mention that a year pass is still 80 dollars….and (check this out!!) A SENIOR LIFETIME PASS IS 80 DOLLARS!!
You have to be 62 years old to get one of those….4 or 5 years away for me!
How old do they figure I’m going to live to be?
With the motivation of FREE, I might live forever!
That would be cool if I was still SPRY.
That would be cool if I could still get around.
How ambulatory do you have to be to sleep in the woods, anyway?
Probably more than if you’re sleeping in the Walmart parking lot.
I don’t wish my life away….but if I could get ahold of one of those magic ticket Senior Lifetime passes….by golly, I’d have that pass in my pocket!!
You live…you take care of business….you take care of your family….you live.
What could be alternative about any of that?
Here’s a portrait of a young family who moved from England to New Zealand….bought a couple of yurts….started doing some farming….and…live.
Now, I suppose that a family of 6 living in a reclaimed house with only one bathroom could be considered “alternative”….but it usually doesn’t feel that way.
For us, sometimes, it would be nice to have another bathroom.
If you live outside of what most people accept as the norm, sometimes you just miss that second bathroom that seems to be a necessity for most of the people.
On that one (one?) time that you’re hopping around outside the door….waiting for the bathroom….hoping that people hurry….HURRY!!!….you know that alternative isn’t always that cool.
Why am I talking about bathrooms? I don’t even have to go to the bathroom right now.
Let tomorrow take care of tomorrow.
Who’s to say what “alternative” really is, anyway?
Alternative when it doesn’t feel like a choice anymore is just coping with a weird situation.
These are really nice yurts in a really nice place.
When you take the old starter off….the one that works most of the time still….and you lay it down next to the new used starter that should work all of the time…mark it…or put it somewhere other than next to the new one…or mark it….or remember where you put it…or….
I may have reinstalled the old starter.
You don’t want to be out in the driveway on a cold day….looking at the starters….wondering if there’s any way to remember after the fact which one you just took off….because….just to be smart and to be sure that I didn’t lose it in the driveway…I put the nut back on the positve connection on the old starter…. so that I didn’t lose it in the driveway…..so THAT IT LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE THE NEW USED STARTER.
That is crazy.
So….the good news is that you don’t have to take all the stuff off to do the job that the guy in the video removed.
But…it’s still a painful job….a real pain in the rear.
Anyway…having done that….and knowing the steps to do the job….we’ll have to monitor this starter and how it performs….and…do the job again if it starts acting squirelly….like it would if I spent the morning taking off and re-installing the same starter.
That’s what you want your wife to know when she’s driving the van around….that it might be fixed.
“Might be” is the story of the moment a lot these days.
“Might be” is never something that you want to say out loud, though.
But….then again…I might have put the new used starter on the car and all this conjecture is just me being typically nervous about everything.
