I find myself once again in an airport, this time heading to Wisconsin to visit loved ones for the holiday season. I’m getting used to the logistics of the wandering life but am still not quite comfortable with the emotional make-up of it. I am in-betweener by nature, often existing in the grey areas of human duality, but this is the first time I’ve chosen to exist in the no-mans-land of being jobless and houseless. I have found that it comes with its own language. Some people speak the language of the wanderer and some people don’t. Some people nod their heads in acknowledgement and camaraderie when I say that I up-ended my life to explore its meaning and some people ask when I’m going to get back to living it. The latter are well-meaning, not wanting to see me suffer, but also not understanding that, as one friend put it recently, “the hard ships endured by living a life true to your heart are minor compared to the suffering one endures when they don’t listen to it.” My heart hurts a little when someone dear to me asks when I am going to figure out my life, more for them than for me because I see the veil that covers their eyes and keeps them blind. My act is more together than it ever was when my life looked neat, clean and normal. As the wanderer, I am moving deeper and deeper into wisdom and happiness. The hard walls around my heart are softening, disintegrating, and becoming rich humus for my life. My arms are opening wider and wider to the cornucopia of the present moment and the mysterious unknown that is the future. I regret nothing and am only interested in delving ever more deeply into this experience I have opened myself up to receiving.

Since my last post on October 20th the wandering life has taken me on a roller-coaster. On November 4th instead of going on a meditation retreat as I had planned I headed south for a temporary job. My friend was farming on some land in northern California and there was work for me as well. So, I took a risk, invested $800 in my car to get there, picked up another jobless friend, and headed down. A week and a half later we came out with less money than we hoped, but with a glut of stories and experience. Nothing had quite turned out like we thought. The house where we were to eat and bathe was an ancient mobile home that instantly reminded me of Trainspotting when I first entered it. It was cheaply constructed with walls that felt like cardboard and I got the impression that even if I could scour the filth away that the poverty of it was impenetrable. One bathroom had a plugged toilet and a decrepit shower with a tarp for a curtain; the other had a broken-down jaccuzzi and a toilet that functioned only with continued attention and tender loving care. The back deck was a death trap of loose boards that you had to avoid in a kind of hopscotch dance. It was, by most accounts, a hell-hole. But the land was gorgeous in the stark way that dry, dusty northern Cali can be. We heard coyotes yipping at night under the naked moon and every morning I woke to the bright desert sun peeking through the seams of my tent.

The farmers we worked for were young and, although I believe they had good intentions, lead us on a wild and uncomfortable ride of promises and stalled payments. The whole crew was a gaggle of misfits: hippies, stoners, seekers, uneducated geniuses, sinners, and saints. We made the best of our situation, out in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception or internet, and ended up friends for the most part. I gained a bit of insight about what it means to live below the radar of the system, with no recurse for missing wages or abuse by employers. I often struggled with feeling trapped. Not having the finances to take care for oneself is hard and I see how it can lead people to desperation. Luckily, in the end we got paid and high-tailed it back to Portland to lick our wounds and catch our breath. I even managed to find gratitude for the bits of wisdom I gained in my fool search for gold in the wilds of Californ-i-a.

Getting back in Portland I reoriented and headed in the direction of my heart once again. It’d taken a detour, I realized. I signed up to volunteer for ten days at the Dhamma Kunja Vipassana meditation center in Onalaska, WA, where I was originally supposed to go before California happened. I plugged back in to that beautiful community of people dedicated to learning and practicing the art of deep happiness. As I always do at the center, I felt right at home. We had a great group of servers from all walks of life and many different countries. I was asked by the organizers to manage the kitchen, something I had never done before and which requested a certain additional level of responsibility. It was challenging and I melted down more than once with all of the feelings it brought up in me. But, that was the very point of why we where there, to practice the technique amidst the struggles of human life. We are not monks and nuns and we aim to maintain a balanced mind even while doing our daily tasks, tending to home and family. So, in the midst of my storms my coworkers and the teachers supported me in every way. I learned so much from the practice and from the people there and was re-inspired to spend even more time at the center in the future in order practice the art ever more deeply. I believe it is the most important thing I can do with my life right now.

We just boarded the plane and I am wondering when Economy Plus became a thing. On my way to my just-plain-old-Economy seat I passed First Class and Business, and then this new thing. Apparently, my former Economy mates can now upgrade for more leg room. I am a little jealous and start to wonder about the people who buy these seats, thinking upsetting thoughts about classism and entitlement. Who do these people think they are in their fancy Business-wannabe seats? Then, suddenly, I remember my meditation and realize we are all in the same boat. Quite literally, my seatmates and I, whether with five more inches of wiggle room or not, are in this camped tin can together. When shit goes down the Plus matters for very little. What matters is if we are happy. If I can’t be at peace with my Economy seat then where can I really be at peace? If I cannot fully own my wandering life, which feels so appropriate to me if not strange to those around me, then I will never feel settled and secure in myself anywhere. And, just as suddenly, I realize that I am happy, right there in my cramped little seat. As I click my seat belt secure I wish my fellow humans well. Here we are together. Always here.

Note: Photo courtesy of Jeanne Duvall-Orr