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diff --git a/chapter1.txt b/chapter1.txt index c38a7c1..b351d3a 100644 --- a/chapter1.txt +++ b/chapter1.txt @@ -1,32 +1,82 @@ -A roar comes up every time I press down on the pedal. It's an addictive roar. Not a good one really, but I didn't know that at the time. In fact, the first time I strapped myself to the 27-foot-long bright blue fiberglass tube with the swept back windows and curved lines that make it look like something straight out of a future that never happened, I had not idea that all that fiberglass was encasing a rather small, underpowered Dodge 318 engine bolted to a solid steel, 1969 steel, frame, I did not know at all what it was capable of, even less what I was capable of. Neither of us had any idea what I was doing. +## Prologue + +A screaming roar comes down the hill. It has probably happened before. But not for me. Nothing like this has ever happened for me before. Nothing I've ever done compares to it now. + +To call it an RV is to say a Stradivarius is a violin. The Travco is not an RV; it's a 27 foot long fiberglass container full of magic and joy. I have no idea what it is about it, I've owned it for four years now, lived in it for over two, and I still can't put my finger on it, some objects just transcend. The Travco has that thing not one can put their finger on, but everyone feel it. + +The engine makes a gutteral roar every time I press down on the gas pedal. It's an addictive sound. Not really a good one, but I didn't know that at the time, but it's satisfying. It's the kind of roar that makes you say, screw it, let's go. + +After looking it over for about twenty minutes, I pulled out of wad of cash, handed it to the now previous owner and it was mine. I was now the proud, if clueless, owner of a 27-foot-long bright blue fiberglass tube with the swept back windows and curved lines that make it look like something straight out of a future that never happened. + +I had no idea what I was doing and no idea how I was going to do it. I knew restoring a vintage motorhome would be a big project, I did not anticipate that it would change my life forever in ways I could not have even conceived of on that first drive down the hill from where it had been sitting for two years before I showed up to rescue it from backyard irrelevance. I fired it up, pointed it downhill, and we were on our way. The first few corners are nerve-wracking, the kind of white knuckled terror-inducing driving I haven't done since the very first time I sat down behind the wheel. Or the time in Thailand that I claimed I could ride a motorcycle when I actually had no clue. Or the time I said I could climb a 5.9 crack up the side of sheer slab of granite in California's San Jacinto mountains despite never having been on a roped climb in my life. -I have, thus far in my life, found that there are very few things that you can't do given sufficient time and money with which to work on them, provided you have the will to do them. There will no doubt be plenty of things you think you are absolutely no good at -- I can't learn a foreign language to save my life -- but the truth is, assuming you're of sound body and mind, the things you are not good at turn out to really be things you simply lack the will to do. WE beat ourselves up about these things sometimes, at least I do, I spent years thinking I was somehow an idiot about languages, and I am, not because I'm an idiot about languages, everyone is an idiot about languages, but because I currently lack the will to change that. +The prudent man would have done some sort of test drive I suppose. Meh, screw that, let's go. -This conversation requires that we clearly define some terms though. Like will. +It's not until I get out of the previous owner's driveway (which was uphill) and turned onto the main street that it occurs to me I never tested the brakes. There's one big hairpin turn at the bottom of the hill that I noted on the way up and it's the main thing that has my palms sweating. If I miss it I'll fly off the road, plunge through some Kudzu and, I think, crash into the small university offices that make up most of the sum total of Mars Hill, north Carolina, a college town I'd only heard of three days ago. -I will. That's the opposite of waiting. I used to wait. I once wrote a very boring novel only one person had to suffer through about waiting before I realized that waiting is a choice and nothing good ever comes of waiting. The way to overcome waiting it to make a plan, however terrible it might be, and then go an do it in a way that's nothing like the plan. The plan is irrelevant, but the planning is very important. There are only two ways to beat the fear you feel inside. One is to sit around waiting for it to pass, the other is distract yourself suffiently until you are able to move yourself forward without noticing that you have done so. A good plan takes your mind off the fear, off the unknown unknoable future. It frees your mind from fear so you can catch your breath and think. That's why armies plan, it's why sailors carry charts, it's why everyone writes things down on a calendar. We all love a good plan, the real trick of planning though is actually start doing the first steps of the plan so that you move forward without realizing that you've done so. +I don't want to disrupt the quiet world of of Mars Hill, so I give the brakes a little push and, nothing happens. Oh shit. Then I do what I think comes naturally to anyone who grew up in the days before disc brakes, I start frantically pumping the brake pedal. The second pump has a bit more tension in it and by the third she's responding to me, slowing slightly and I'm well on my way to reabsorbing the massive dose of adrenaline that flooded my brain in that first split second I pushed and felt nothing. -That's how you find yourself five feet in the air, strapped to a 27 foot long 1969 motorhome with no clue if the brakes even work. I have driven somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 miles, that's what you might call, planning, but this is the first time I've strapped myself to a 27 foot long monstrosity in unknown condition and promptly set off into unknown roads, barreling down a mountain on narrow streets through a town I arrived in a scant 2 hours ago. +The turn turns out to be nothing. I pump the brakes a bit, take it nice and slow and slice around the corner like it's not even there. After that the road straightens out as it heads through downtown Mars Hill. + +At the first stop light I pull up close enough to the car in front of me that the entire facade of the Travco is visible in the back window. I start laughing because it is quite simply the coolest thing I've ever seen. Over the course of the next 18,000 or so miles this will happen over and over again whenever I stop and catch a glimpse of this thing in some window or mirror. It's that thing about the Travco that captivates, delights. I am quit confident that the Spanish poet Lorca, would say the Travco *tener duende*. -The prudent man would have done some sort of test drive around the I suppose. Meh, screw that, let's go. +The Spanish word Duende is mostly untranslatable, though English dictionaries try with phrases like "a heightened state of emotion, expression and authenticity". I think it's that last word that matters. To have Duende a thing, a work of art, must have come from somewhere, whoever had it must have reached deep within or far out into those vast uncharted, unchartable spaces that we cannot name, but recognize. You cannot fake a journey these places. Everyone recognized a fake. You cannot fake duende. -There's one big hairpin turn at the bottom of the hill that I noted on the way up and it's the main thing that has my palms sweating. It turns out to be nothing. I pump the brakes a bit, take it nice and slow and slice around the corner like it's not even there. After that the road straightens out as it heads through downtown Mars Hill. +Duende what gives you chills when you hear Beethoven's ninth symphony, why makes you smile when tk or cry standing in front of a painting. I think the closest we have in English is the word soul. Not soul as in religion, but as in James Brown. Soul as something that is becoming, not something become. Soul is not out there or in you, it’s the place where you meet the out there. -At the first stop light I pull up close enough to the car in front of me that the entire facade of the Travco is visible in the back window. I start laughing because it is quite simply the coolest thing I've ever seen. Over the course of the next 18,000 or so miles home this will happen over and over again whenever I stop and catch a glimpse of this thing in some window or mirror. +Some times duende is very individual. Sometimes it's broader. With the Travco it seems to happen to just about everyone. On the way from Mars Hill back to Athens Ga, where we were living at the time, I get 180 miles of smiles, waves, thumbs up and cheering fists raised. -It's not me either, it seems to happen to just about everyone. I get 180 miles of smiles and waves. The first time I stop a man is up at the window asking if he can take a picture before I've even taken off my seatbelt. +The first time I stop, at a rest area on I85, a man is up at the window asking if he can take a picture before I've even taken off my seatbelt. "What is this thing," he asks, "it's the coolest thing I've ever seen". This will happen hundreds of times more over the years and eventually I realized no one wants me to tell them what it is, the name doesn't matter, it simply exists and people want to acknowledge that it exists. -I get smiles and waves from hoodlum kids lounging on skateboards behind a gas station, a couple coming out of an antique store in Fletcher, NC. An old man walking through Anderson, SC tips a baseball cap to me and everyone I see looking my way it smiling. I pull into a gas station, but it proves too small (the tank is in rear and these pumps were not 27 feet from the door of the building) so I leave. My parents, who are in town and graciously agreed to following me back, stop and go inside and later report that the entire gas station is talking about the Travco, speculating on the year. +The Travco cuts across some normally pretty rigid race, age, class and social lines in America. I get smiles and waves from the kids lounging on skateboards, smoking cigarettes behind a gas station, a well dressed middle age couple coming out of an antique store in Fletcher, NC, an old man walking through Anderson, SC tips a baseball cap to me, and driving though the predominently black neighborhoods of tk everyone I see looking my way is smiling and waving. I may be cheating a little, it is the south after all, we really are friendly. Pulling into Athens I stop at a light downtown and everyone waves. A man making a left comes around the corner and I watch his eyes widen as he takes in the Dodge grill and then he breaks into a smile and starts laughing. I completely relate to him. -Usually wanting is better than having. We call this buyers remorse, but it's basic evolutionary biology -- wanting, that is, imagining having, releases more dopamine than having. So you have all this dopamine associated with the thing you want, but then when you actually get the thing, well, no more dopamine. +Usually wanting is better than having. We call this buyers remorse, but it's basic evolutionary biology -- wanting, that is, imagining having, releases more dopamine than having. So you have all this dopamine associated with the thing you want, but then when you actually get the thing, well, no more dopamine. Unless the thing is a Travco. I get a huge hit of dopamine every time I see it. To this day I still smile every time I come around the corner and see it. Yesterday my wife and I stood sat on a picnic table where we were camped just staring at it and giggling like children. + +tk + + +## The Big Blue Bus + + + +On reflection, I am perhaps prone to doing things with an unjustified amount of confidence. This far I've been lucky. Silly brave me pointing that beast down the hill with such brazen confidence doesn't realize + + + + +I had no idea that all that fiberglass was encasing a rather small, underpowered Dodge 318 engine bolted to a solid steel, 1969 steel, frame, I did not know at all what it was capable of, even less what I was capable of. Neither of us had any idea what I was doing. + + +How I end up here + + + + +I have, thus far in my life, found that there are very few things that you can't do given sufficient time and money with which to work on them, *provided you have the will to do them at all*. If you have that will you tend to find at least the time, and once you find the time you often find you don't need nearly so much money as you thought, though often you need much much more time than you thought. + +That's how you find yourself five feet in the air, strapped to a 27 foot long 1969 motorhome with no clue if the brakes even work. I have driven somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 miles, that's what you might call, planning, but this is the first time I've strapped myself to a 27 foot long monstrosity in unknown condition and promptly set off into unknown roads, barreling down a mountain on narrow streets through a town I arrived in a scant 2 hours ago. + + + + +There will no doubt be plenty of things you think you are absolutely no good at -- I can't learn a foreign language to save my life -- but the truth is, assuming you're of sound body and mind, the things you are not good at turn out to really be things you simply lack the will to do. We beat ourselves up about these things sometimes, at least I do, I spent years thinking I was somehow an idiot about languages, and I am, not because I'm an idiot about languages, everyone is an idiot about languages, but because I currently lack the will to change that. + +This conversation requires that we define some terms though. Like will. + +I will. That's the opposite of waiting. Will is action. Will is getting up off the couch for no reason and walking to the wall opposite you and touching it for no reason other than you willed your body to do it. You did not wait until you felt like it, until it was convenient, until it was right, until it was perfect, until you wanted to. You will it and it is done. + +I used to wait. Before I realized that waiting is a kind of will, a choice, a lack of will. I know from experience that nothing good ever comes of waiting. The question is what happens between this realization and the + +The way to overcome waiting it to make a plan, however terrible it might be, and then go an do it in a way that's nothing like the plan. The plan is irrelevant, but the planning is very important. There are only two ways to beat the fear you feel inside. One is to sit around waiting for it to pass, the other is distract yourself suffiently until you are able to move yourself forward without noticing that you have done so. A good plan takes your mind off the fear, off the unknown unknoable future. It frees your mind from fear so you can catch your breath and think. That's why armies plan, it's why sailors carry charts, it's why everyone writes things down on a calendar. We all love a good plan, the real trick of planning though is actually start doing the first steps of the plan so that you move forward without realizing that you've done so. + -Unless it's a Travco apparently, because I get a huge hit of dopamine every time I see this thing. It's been in the driveway for nearly a week and I still smile every time I walk out the door. Yesterday my wife and I stood in the front yard just staring at it and giggling like children. +## Cuts -To call it an RV is to say a Stradivarius is a violin. The Travco is not an RV; it's a 27 foot long fiberglass container full of magic and joy. I have no idea what it is about it, but it's clearly not just me that feels it. It'll make you giddy. +I pull into a gas station, but it proves too small (the tank is in rear and these pumps were not 27 feet from the door of the building) so I leave. My parents, who were in town to visit their grandkids and graciously agreed to give me a ride to Mars Hill, stop at the gas station and go inside and later report that the entire gas station is talking about the Travco, speculating on the year. |