The past week has been the laziest one of this trip. Except for a few excursions — going to a cultural festival, getting my car tuned up, buying a few items at the grocery store, taking a walk or two — I 
haven’t done anything. There has been almost no new input, and what input there is, such as being in a new place, has been muffled by the frequent rain. If I lived in such a rainy climate, I would probably go about my life as if the skies weren’t weeping on me, but coming from the desert, I am used to spending rainy days inside.
And so, that is what I am doing. Staying inside. Being lazy.
These mostly empty days are giving me an opportunity to process the past three months on the road, but to be honest, I still don’t know what to make of it all. What I had originally planned — spending most nights in a tent and most days hiking — didn’t happen. There were some such days, of course, but weather, spring break (it seemed someone was on spring break from the middle of March to the end of April, so camp grounds were often full before I got there), and going where the wind blew (or do I mean “didn’t blow”?) took me on a different path. Mostly I have been visiting people I know online, sometimes staying with them, sometimes making a stop just for lunch.
The one thought that sticks out in my mind as I try to make sense of it all is how different this trip would have been without the internet. I would have followed my own path, struggling with maps and trying to figure out places I would like to go, but with Google Maps, whenever I couldn’t figure out a fun drive, I set the destination on my phone, and let Google Maps direct my journey. This made the driving much more fun — I could just sit back, hold the car steady, and gaze out the windows at the passing scenery. 9,000 miles is a LOT of scenery!
And I probably wouldn’t have visited many people. Of all the people I have visited, I only knew three people pre-internet days, two of which I reconnected with through the internet or email. (Well, there was that one woman I visited after meeting her at a campground, but I don’t exactly know how to classify that visit.) All the rest are internet connections, and because of them, I have seen extraordinary things, had wonderful conversations, found reasons to visit places I would never have considered.
People often talk about how the internet is destroying communication and relationships, but that is not at all my experience. The internet has allowed me, a rather hermit-y woman, to meet people and make friends that would never have entered my life otherwise. In not a single case was meeting them in person a letdown, but a continuation of the friendship we had established online.
But what does it all mean? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps this trip is exactly what I had in mind, even if the path I took and the logistics of getting to my various destinations did not follow my original vision of the trip — a way to keep me from stagnating.
And I certainly have not been stagnating. Even when seemingly doing nothing — driving for many hours a time or staying put in an empty apartment — the adventure continues.
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(Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”)
ack of myself — I could be anywhere. At times, it’s disconcerting to realize I am so very far from where I’ve lived the past few years, so far from anything familiar, and yet, in a way it’s all familiar.
It still don’t think it fair that both groups do what comes naturally, but if we in the non-athletic group want to achieve better health or better muscle tone, we have to put ourselves through a regimen that is not only beyond our meager physical resources, but sometimes downright painful. I don’t believe the good things in life should be accompanied by pain, especially because if it’s a pain we cannot like, we will soon give up.
I’ve been feeling my aloneness lately, more so than usual, been feeling disconnected, and I simply cannot let my gloom (as one friend called it) continue past the point where I can handle it. So I worked on my book a bit in the morning to get my mind off myself, which was sort of a silly plan because the book is mostly about me. (Apparently, I am becoming the main character since my character is the only one who is connected to all the other characters.) But writing did help. And it helped give me the energy I needed to get in the car and drive to the desert.
woman needed someone to fix meals for her for six weeks, look after her dog two or three weekends, and drive her when necessary. All in return for a small wireless-less room. That would have been okay, but she wanted me to sign a contract saying, I think, that I would work so many hours and then be out of her house by a certain date. (Apparently, she was afraid I wouldn’t leave, though she should have been more worried I wouldn’t stay in such cramped quarters.) Since I wouldn’t sign a contract (it seemed as if I were doing more of a favor for her considering what she wanted me to do in exchange for a place to stay and I don’t think favors should be contracted) she disinvited me.
Bertram's Blog 