$1,016 to the Wind & Suddenly in Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Life changes in a heartbeat. On the flip of a dime. At the whim of my next lousy and trite analogy. Point that moist finger to the sky to gauge the course of the current. It only takes a single moment for opportunities to shift—for the wind to lift contents from my own hands—one’s hat and his right-handed grip on a deposit envelope—the lending towards quick decisions.
Then there’s the loss of a nearly $800 show guarantee because my car retreated into “limp mode” on a foreign Interstate freeway in the middle of Florida. Perhaps it was a problem with the transmission? Perhaps it was the car’s computer acting in self-preservation? Who’s to say these days? Not even the Honda dealership knew for certain, and they created the thing. What they did know is that the car wouldn’t move, because they couldn’t mobilize the now over-glorified-four-wheeled art piece of plastic, metal, and glass into their workspace. I ascertained that symptom as well, while driving on Interstate 75; I was in cruise control—and when I removed my chariot of fire from cruise control, the gas pedal reprioritized itself to a device meant solely to rev an engine that was not in gear. I watched the R.P.M.’s roar across a dial as if I was a little further northeast—in Daytona. Alas, I was one hour and thirty minutes shy of my house concert in Dunedin, Florida—and I never made it there to play. A nice slow goodbye wave to currency, but more importantly, to all the people who were kind enough to be there to see me.
The Animal Kingdom at Disney World Resorts
One might realize he has no road-side assistance, although he could have sworn he did. This insurance was procured during the pandemic, so it also doesn’t surprise me that I was caught with my pants down—or that my hat was lifted suddenly away by a hurricane current. One might watch $1016 be carried off in a mighty gust of wind, flopping and dancing towards the wide and hungry mouth of massive storm drains in a Houston metropolis skyscraper complex.
I was in Houston looking for a credit union co-op ATM that takes large cash deposits. The goal was to eliminate all the worry having such large amounts of cash on my person. Ironically, it was the witches brew within a cauldron of chaos that led to the contents of a deposit envelope being thrust into the open gust of a mighty breeze funneled through the endless span of tall buildings peppered about downtown Houston. I watched in shock and horror as the countless amounts of money did tiny somersaults, or sailed like a vessel, dancing macabre in the currents of air, free from their neatly ordered and cramped deposit envelope. Scattered to the wind as the old saying goes—and I was in hot pursuit, as the contents of that envelope were nearly all that I had to my name at that very moment. While there may have been curse words I didn’t have the chance to get to, I’m fairly certain none were emitted from my vocabulary in those moments, that became an hour of hunting for money I had, and then lost.
Savannah, Georgia River Walk
That is, besides the precarious stack of belongings packed into a 2015 Honda Civic—ordered in some half-hazard manner like Tetris blocks, so that the affects of my business, a touring songwriter, may all neatly fit within the confines of such a small space.
At the moment, I imagine my car, and its contents are ten feet off the ground on a hydraulic lift in a Honda dealership, while the good people of Leesburg, Florida try to ascertain its dilemma as a now stationary and non-moving vehicle (this assertion, point-in-fact, was incorrect, I regrettably inform you, dear reader—I was hopeful as I wrote those words—now, I am simply smiling and pragmatic from a coffee shop in South Carolina).
I wrote those non-parenthetical words, pockmarked as they are, within a Microtel not far from the dealership. It’s not a fancy place. I can’t afford fancy. It does however, have Internet, A/C, power, a warm bed, and enough niceties like continental breakfasts and fresh towels, that one should never complain. I deeply and truly, try not to complain.
I, in the past, have found myself complaining. Perhaps we all do from time to time. I don’t want to be that person any longer. I try not to be that person. I fail sometimes at being that person. I also, recognize, that there is nothing wrong with complaining in some reduced capacity. We, like a steam engine, need some sort of release for the welling of emotional burden percolating and brewing in its fleshy tank—albeit, a steam engine with no destination, is just wasting its steam and its reservoir of momentum.
Savannah, Georgia River Walk
My decisions have brought me to this point. There are also, perhaps machinations within the seemingly mechanical? Or perhaps I the writer and you the reader, subscribe to freewill. Things are bound to occur and do happen. Am I the type of person who feels he can control the wills of people or the outcomes of seemingly chaotic events? That is never a possibility insofar as I can tell. This thought was echoed by a gentlemen sitting on a curb, near a minimart gas station, in Leesburg, Florida, asking for me to buy him a few Swisher Sweets to roll a blunt. We talked for quite some time.
Does my fear of the unknown cause me to feel anxiety within uncomfortable situations, or is it the compulsion to control that causes me to cry when things get hard—realizing that I have no control over the current outcome of a verdict-less existence? Maybe yes, and maybe no. Consistency in action would seem to provide answers. Truth for all of us, is also moot and plural. What I can say is that I do the best I can with what I have available to me.
Anymore, difficult situations for me are treated the same as me walking a path. I put one foot in front of the other. I am putting on my jacket, one sleeve at a time. I have countless fragments of problems that arise from one problem, so I deal with each problem, one at a time, until they are accounted for.
I try to picture myself lucky. Perhaps in a manner that is not yet completely evident to my flimsy understanding of reality, The Universe, it’s concoctions, or better yet, my own for that matter.
It is also easy to say things such as, it is God’s path for me—and perhaps that is true as well? However, I move under my own will—just as the wind does, if not with my own unique purpose. Who is to say precisely that wind moves with what particular purpose? No sooner do I say that, than someone reading this mouths the words of what that purpose might be.
We don’t see the wind. We see it act itself out in the nature of that it pushes about: $1016 for example. I watched it sail and scatter and disperse itself into an economy of pavement, sidewalk, grass, flower gardens, parked cars, and moving traffic. I can feel the wind. However, I can’t see it, aside from what it motivates to move.
Charleston, South Carolina
I can’t see the future either.
I can be hopeful though. I can try not to worry.
My car payment went from being $338—to $580, now, with a used vehicle that I drove off the lot of a Honda dealership. I am in South Carolina at my friend Jasmine’s place in Charleston.
I was telling her about a dream I had, shortly after this debacle:
It had to do with deodorant. I was searching for deodorant, and I found it. I swiped copious amounts of it under my armpits. I can’t remember precisely, whether I felt relief over its application to my person. However, my dear friend Josh, appeared in my dream next, telling me “You see? It’s too much.” On his hand, was a copious spread of deodorant, in a rich-red-colored hue, that he was exemplifying his statement with.
House Concert in St. Petersburg, Florida
Perhaps my unconscious mind was trying to express something to me. Maybe the car is too much? I had little choice in the matter though, and little time to work within. I was hemorrhaging money. I had already lost $800 in donations, and who knows how much in merchandise sales, from my car breaking down the night before. My hotel room that night costed $115, and the tow to Leesburg was $167. I had yet another house show to get to in St. Petersburg, Florida, two hours away from Leesburg and its Honda dealership. There was money to be made and one month of touring still ahead of me. I acted in the best capacity I could, with what little time and option I had before me.
We wear deodorant trying to cover up the natural fragrance of our person and its perspiration—perhaps because we worry as to how our body odor would come across to others. Worry is the optimal word. Perhaps I am full of worry. As I write these words, I feel calm and collected.
I don’t feel worry or anxiety at the moment. This may change later as my responsibilities, my fiscal obligations, rear their burden more closely in my face.
I have a beautiful new-to-me car. I suddenly care about its shiny nature. It being clean all the time. It’s interior.
I also care whether I am living outside my means.
Oddly enough, my friend Taylor told me, as I was purchasing the car that just took a dump on me: “The Universe doesn’t throw anything at you that you can’t handle.”
And so I put one foot in front of the other, and then another, and then another.
Janice and I in Panama City, Florida. She was kind enough to host me and have me pay her backyard the night before my car broke down.
It’s starting to get a bit chilly from the wind outside, rustling the leaves and the trees. I put on my jacket, one sleeve at a time, and continue my journey forward into the unknown.
Perhaps my dreams are like that breeze. As I sleep at night, I collect my unconscious mind’s observations. It is always there: watching and observing. Perhaps it has insight into my behavior. After all, it is me, and I am it.
But perhaps most of all, it is like the wind. You can’t see the wind without its interaction with the world around us, and likewise, we can’t see our unconscious mind, without its interaction with the world within us.
I only lost $22 to the wind, out of $1,016 being carried off by it. I found all the rest of it.
I lost my old car to who knows what, but it was replaced by yet another.
I am trying my best not to worry, and to just be. To smile. To have gratitude. To appreciate the wealth of everyone around me, both friend and stranger alike. I work to not have any strangers in my life. I fail at that sometimes as well.
I’m in Charleston, South Carolina at the moment. I am writing this now, from Jasmine’s dining room table. She’ll be moving with her husband to Ireland, shortly. This opportunity may never happen again. I stare outside, through her dining room window at the leaves on all the tall trees, moving with the breeze. Tears roll down my face as I write this.
It’s a good life, and Bob Marley was probably right.
Don’t worry about a thing… because every little thing, is gonna be alright.
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