Part 3 :: Cold Egg Sandwiches Bring You Closer To Home.

I left my utility belt at the security check at some airport months ago. For this trip I found a velvet silver fanny pack that delighted me in its silliness and perfection. That first morning we were up at 4:30am and I piled on layers of hand warmers, scarf, cowboy hat, sweater, skirt, leggings, leg warmers, boots.

I felt so crazy much like me.

I put two braids in my hair, the way I used to a couple years ago in my Vikings obsession days. My nails were painted a pale beige, I knew I'd be staring at them on the steering wheel and wanted something soft and calming.

I took my 'I'm getting on a plane' photo in the airport bathroom which I did not like, but I got nervous I'd be caught by other travelers taking pictures so I quickly put my phone away and settled.

Not long after I posted that photo we'd be sitting at the bar, realizing we wouldn't be in California. 

.......

One of the earliest things I started to notice on our drive was the absence of talking. Not my own so much, but that of Dave. I spend most days on my own until the kids get picked up. If I don't have a coaching call I go hours without speaking. 

Dave spends most of every day on the phone for his job and isn't a texting kind of guy, he talks to his family and friends on the phone. These days in the car he only spoke a couple times to family, a separation between him and his phone that I imagine felt like beautiful silence to his body. 

I noticed how hours could feel endless and fleeting all together as the earth would go from the rows of palm trees to red clay filled with rocks piled like a Jenga game and then mountains smoky and blue.

The peace and awe became companions as we would point out another rock, mountain, shape, tree, patch of dirt, as though we were the first to ever have seen those particular sights. Dave delights in the simplest of wonders as I do, we are quite matched in that area.

I loved holding space with Dave while he didn't have to talk. As he drove I would watch his face for long stretches, either he didn't notice or didn't mind. I had no desire to know what he was thinking which is unusual for me. I found myself enamored with simply being with him inside of not having to do anything other than drive. It wasn't that we didn't talk. It was that we didn't have to. 

.......

The final hotel breakfast morning I brought some gluten free rolls and toasted one until it was crispy on the edges and soft inside. I spread cream cheese on one side and put the eggs that don't taste like eggs inside with hot sauce and ketchup. Nothing healthy, this was simply a taste hack.

We brought our sandwiches in the car along with my two cups of mushroom coffee. Our final hotel stay was in Virginia and it was in the single digits cold. I started the drive that morning, sipping my coffee and knowing we would be home that night.

Neither of us were hungry so we drove for hours before unwrapping the cold egg sandwiches at 11:00am knowing this would mean we wouldn't have to stop for lunch.

We were closer to home because of those cold egg sandwiches. I could feel it in the way you don't want to. Home is my favorite thing in the world. All I wanted in that moment was my home inside of this van, next to this man I love. 

.......

We had been looking for a van for months after mine drove its last miles. The ones we found from a private sale would be gone in hours. During a trip to see Dave's brother in California he mentioned selling his van, which was the exact one we had been looking for.

No salt or snow ever on it. Gently driven. Perfect price. An adventure together driving across country.

It was the latter that made us say yes. 

.......

The morning we woke up in our own bed, my ex husband (I hate that term btw) texted me, "Glad to be home?" 

"Bittersweet. I really loved being on the road more than I thought I would. I think this is the first time in forever all I had to do was think about driving, eating and sleeping." 

"It's good for you ;)" 

And in that moment I could feel it. The tears in Rhode Island. The craving to turn around, keep driving.

The so much of nothing that I would never have known I could feel.

I was flooded with feelings from years in seconds, now laying on the bed that was so familiar, the hotel room now miles away.

The first miscarriage. The day we told the kids we were separating. The morning my dog broke my computer when Lucas was a baby and I was so lost. The ache of saying goodbye to a lover so long ago. The pain Patrick and I traveled through before we came to this place of friendship and forgiveness. The fights Dave and I had over things that had nothing to do with us. Unmet longings. Fears of not having vulnerability where I need it. Another loss of pregnancy. The hell we went through blending our families together when joy was what you sought. Standing by the side of Dave while he suffered inside of his divorce. Anger. Fear. Loss. So much. So, so much.

In that van I felt none of it. It was so much nothing that it takes my breath away thinking back to it, like a fantasy feeling. The lull of the miles, the views of desert and mountain, the absence of noise, the bonding together of one goal :: drive.

.......

The Blind Tiger restaurant got its name from Prohibition when they would place a small animal like a tiger on a table, indicating that there were back rooms where people would turn a blind eye on those who chose to drink. 

I imagine placing a small tiger on my dashboard, reminding me of the so much of nothing I never knew was there in my own 'back room', the feeling that has settled into my nervous system in what I can only describe as what I've spent the last 6 months focused on as my guiding words. 

The guides I have been asking for when I am curled over in pain of spirit. 

It feels like kindness and compassion. The words I have prayed over. The values I have prayed over. The feelings I have longed to give so I may receive them. 

I feel them. For myself. I feel kindness and compassion for my heart that has travelled through the most agonizing of pain and loss that I have known yet. I feel them. 

.......

As the voice reads aloud the words of the story we have fallen into as our companion I wonder how we will finish the story together once five kids pile back home and Dave picks up the phone and I cuddle up with my computer writing and preparing for hours of coaching. 

I wonder if when I hear the storyteller voice I will fall back into the nothing or if there will be a haze of life blocking my ears from fully taking it in. 

I love being home, as my kids are piled on the couch watching a movie together, all back together after longer than a week apart. 

Every something we have had to take on, go through, feel, to get us to this Home together, was worth each tear, fight, pain, loss. When I look over at them on the couch there is nowhere else I want to be. The nothing is back in time and I am in my happiest life.

Of so much.

.......

In the kitchen our first night home I make a Minestrone soup. I grab him in a hug and the tears that found me in Rhode Island come back. 

"That is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. With me. Thank you." 

"I would do anything for you baby, don't you know that?" 

Through my tears I tell him I'm starting to know that.

I'm starting to know that.

.......