arrival

We, Annie and I, arrived July 7^th 17:15. She was the first to be offloaded. Then into an upstairs bedroom with attic attached quarantine for her gradual introduction to the resident pets: two dogs. One male, smaller than herself. The other female weighing about forty pounds. So far I’ve more often slept with Annie, than Pam, as it has been our custom for the past five years.

I am surprised by my dreams here., being very concerned from the beginning that Annie fit in. Recently I awoke remembering John Steinbeck’s novella Red Pony. While refreshing my memory, I was younger than ten when mom read it to me, I was staggered to realize now why she wept so hard while reading it to me. And why I still suffer grief for my children and Rags (a cat I had to put down for ‘out-of-box’ behavior) who had lived with me since he was a kitten.

Between ideal and real are light years of separation. I am reminded, again, of how little I can protect those I love from harm, or the simple vicissitudes of life. We each in our lives, seem to be a vessel, into which events occur or happen that we are incapable of preparing for. Each does the best we can with what we have and then must let the devil take the hindmost. Or do I mean destiny, fate or God?

130710 07:07

There I stopped, stunned to realize it was the anniversary of a friend’s husband who died eleven years ago. As she says of him now; “Leaving me behind . . . “And it is she who I love similarly to Pam, and she who made Pam a realization. Each of us, the three of us, has had events that irrevocably changed our lives—usually by suffering and/or loss—that we then attempt to reconcile and redeem in the ordinary of such, or what, life is left to us afterwards.

Traveling I could brook no distractions: radio or audio books. Instead my thoughts were of the three I mention M, Pam and myself. Accompanied by with gratitude for those who made the move possible. And celebrated it for the promise of a new life upon my arrival.

Having arrived, I now sense there is a seamless continuity, an organic wholeness, inherent and obvious to me manifest in these past two months. For which many played a part; yet the effort required by the transition nearly killed me. I had sincerely expected to die leaving the task to others completely. Instead I was compelled to examine each memento and choose to either dispose of or carry forward the evidence of my now former life.

130711 EDT 15:45

Closing thoughts. Annie adventured down stairs this morning and seems to feel at home. I now sense I will be able to fully unload the car and settle in. In the coming days I anticipate her curling up with with the two dogs, Pam and I, upon the bed of an evening, one happy and fully integrated family home at last.

Be well.

130709 EDT St Johnsbury VT 13:33 new home

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

midway

At times, especially around the fourth hour of driving, I sense myself in limbo and longing to get out the car for any reason imaginable. There really is no room to nap since the car is packed with Annie beside me. The drive took Pam four days with another driver, it will take me six days alone with Annie.

I awoke after eight hours of sleep feeling tired. In some sense it is the prospect of two more days driving. Yet I remain concerned since I fell asleep at the wheel yesterday shocked aware by the rumble strips along side the highway.

My dreams have been fantastic, entertaining, informative and best, affirmative of what lays ahead . . . if and when I get there. If all goes well, and I pray so, I will overnight in New York State this evening before the last drive to Pam.

I awoke with a profound sense that the love I experience is from the interlocutor and available for all. Immense, kind, patient, forgiving. Possible for me to acknowledge the experience during this epic transit of America alone with Annie. Humbling, these stops when we become people not just rude aggressors competing for space on the highway. Lending a new sense of: “What you see is what you get.” Add, there were several instances of unusual kindness yesterday reminding me that I too was once young and impatient. Aggressive and in a hurry, but now I realize the grave will be soon enough.

I will long remember these days for the closeness between Annie and myself. And this, new to me, discovery of the nature of love. Experiential. Not theoretical. Not chapter and verse but if you want love you must be loving and abandon all fear.

130706 EDT Johnson City, New York 06:14

When I refer to ‘morning’ I mean the first minutes after midnight. Up since around 03:00 I am now finished with my usual practice of collecting quotes. Relevant only for the affirmations I usually receive on Wikiquotes, first and foremost.

I awakened with a sincere sense of gratitude for our safe, so far, passage across America:: two thousand two hundred miles.

My thanksgiving is for not only our safety but our companionship between Annie and I, then Pam for her continual affirmations and empathy for the experience of exhaustion and frustration with fellow travelers. The few who seem hell bent for election to disposes any in their way on the road at break-neck speed. Of and for those few I have learned to forgive having been once, not that long ago, similarly rude. I ain’t no saint merely wanting to see love possible instead of vengeance.

BE HERE NOW means exactly that, live: fully in each and every moment. And I have. Sometimes exhausted falling into occasional wonder; just what in the name of all good am I doing? With each eaten mile behind me fully conscious of those who I left behind; never to be forgotten. An entirely other level of gratitude experienced this morning.

Then more so when renewed with consciousness of Pam and our life ahead.

Should I become a traffic statistic remember I am having and have had the best years and days of my life. No longer a wage slave I have time to be patient.

Be well.

130705 EDT Zanesville, Ohio 0541 midway

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

on the road

Scarcely able to control myself, much less the world, add a cat on the road and I have had a bag full of surprises. Most I consulted implied a host of alternative methods for the experience. A carrier, of course, but then leash and halter; neither have worked very well. Annie was largely silent until I put her in the car. Then the caterwauling began in earnest for an hour finally silence. Her protest renewed at each stop.

At the first overnight stop I attached her to a chair with the leash. Leaving her alone for an hour wile going on errands. Upon my return discovering her leash taut disappearing beneath the bed and a bed side lamp wrapped in it, bulb shattered, shade and cat no where to be seen.

Soon afterward, having moved the attachment point, I returned to discover she had slipped off harness and leash, either hiding or escaped from our temporary home. This being the first day of my new life, Annie being a friend and companion for the past five years, I panicked and called Pam. Who advocated that I leave Annie in peace until the morning. When I awoke Annie was snuggled beside me upon the bed as per usual. During the entire time of our relationship Annie has seemed not place, but person, centric. More like a dog than a cat.

I will attempt to place her in the carrier sans leash and harness awaiting the next stop to see what will happen during this, the second day, of my new life.

130704 CDT Effingham, Illinois 06:06

I think I have arrived at the epicenter of my life, this 4^th of July and third day on the road towards Pamela Joyce. Discovering myself as “litter mate” to Annie who for the second time is free and roaming about our motel room happily free of her carrier, halter and leash.

Coincidentally, I am about to cross Ohio towards my next destination and overnight at Zanesville. Tempted but will not go through the remains of my father’s family and/or to visit mine in Maysville, KY. That was then, this is now, the infinite within my awareness; as in BE HERE NOW.I remember being transfixed at first sight of the book as the same title in Wakefield, RI. Many decades ago and what it means to me now.

Having traveled around the globe so many times the prospect of travel bores me—the getting there—not being there. The difference in me is astonishing. Not so much because I am in love, loved by both Pam & Annie and confident of where I will be upon arrival. But also the process of consciously choosing to love my fellow travelers. Accepting their unconscionably rude driving as do I with my being in their way. Overloaded and observing the speed limits to save fuel and tires. Not to say a word about Annie and myself.

There is a vision I hold, recently discovered, of America being once a common land mass singular with all others—a one continent world so to speak. My sense being: we are one family of life including those who grasp and those who give. Add. Pam and I have a mutually affirmed sense of when everything goes south, by accident or consequence of age and disease.

Annie travels beside me in her carrier and in good consciousness I refuse to prolong her captivity by another day for me to revisit my childhood summers in Ohio and Kentucky. This now is our new life heading for Vermont. I pray for, think about, and ponder my friends left behind more than what I was in childhood; longing for love. What I give not what I received.

My paternal grandfather played third base for the Zanesville Mud Hens. Perhaps I will discover another Spratt or two while I overnight there.

More in the later future; be well.

130702 CDT 06:20 on the road

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved