It’s Becoming Real Now – 46 Days – A Little More Than a Month
I love to tell people about my trip. I love to watch their expression as I explain my initial motivation for planning it. As I explain the reason for a trip of 83 days, 83 days that John was in the hospital last year, I see the weight of it sink into their eyes. Then, as if they were with me for each one of those days, watching with me as John”s soul slowly withered away, bit by bit with each hospital admission, each change of shift, each ordered test, they really “get” how his one desire was to GET OUT. Even if that meant a 20 minute break on the sundeck that took hours to prepare for – just to be outside.
To be outside. To smell the wind, to pretend to be somewhere in nature that would bring his soul back to him, one tiny piece at a time. My trip is intended to take each of those 83 stolen days back for him. And now that it’s coming into reach, I’m filled with a bunch of different feelings. I’m not afraid, but overwhelmed. I’m also feeling beligerent. I’m beligerent that no one will mess this up for me, and I’m beligerent that it is something I MUST DO.
“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.”― Theodore Roosevelt
This trip is my regimen, like someone working up to running a marathon by exercising each day. Yes, I’ll be physically exercising, but this trip is more about a regimen of my soul. To exercise it to truly care; to exercise it to truly feel. To bring it back one tiny piece at a time. For John and me – nature was our refuge, and I need it now more than I ever have before. I’m doing this trip to honor him, but just as much, I’m also doing it with the hope of healing ME.
“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul”
― John Muir
I have spent countless hours, mostly in the middle of the night when sleep eludes me, planning, researching, and thinking about the logistics of a trip that will take me literally around the country without any reservations set up in advance. Making lists of the places I MUST go to, the things I MUST do, and the little extras in between. This trip has already given me a purpose to each day other than getting up, getting dressed, working, cooking, cleaning, and falling into bed to watch the night slowly chug by.
John and I started camping when we first met. Both of us camped as younger children, but for different reasons, our childhood family camping trips ended. For me, it was because my father died,,,,, and with my father’s death went all family camping trips. For John, his parents continued to camp, but as a teenager, John’s desire to earn money with a high school job kept him from being able to go along most of the time. Nature was our first shared love. We loved to camp with as little “luxury” as possible.
“Earth has no sorrow that earth can not heal.”
― John Muir
Canoe camping was one of our favorites. We would pack all of our gear into the canoe, drive several hours to plop the canoe into the water and lollygag down a river. We would leisurely set up camp, eat good food, enjoy a fire, sleep on an isolated river island, and wake early to sip dark coffee as the morning fog swirled by a group of deer getting their first drink of the day. No electricity, no running water, no “facilities”. Heaven!
We also loved our pop-up campers. The first one we owned was the tiniest model that could be made. A young couple, short on cash, we kept that camper until it became physically impossible for four people to move around in it at the same time. Our next pop-up was carted everywhere and became our first “home on wheels”. We spent two weeks in Florida in it, hauled it to Hot Springs, Arkansas to watch a women’s college basketball championship, and took it when we would visit family as a place to stay that gave us joy and our own quiet place to retreat to at the end of each day. Finally, we tired of the set-up that was required on longer journeys with a pop-up camper. After driving all day and finding a site, we would need to spend an additional 30 minutes setting it up and disconnecting from the tow vehicle. In the morning was another 30 minutes of packing up and hooking up before hitting the road. We were getting older and we wanted to splurge and pamper ourselves a little bit.
When we bought our travel trailer, our older daughters accused us of losing our “primitive edge.” We were “glampers” in their eyes. We had a bathroom in the camper! And a microwave! And a freezer! We took the travel trailer to Mt. Rushmore, Devil’s Tower and Yellowstone one summer and had the best vacation in years. We were hooked. We could have lived in the thing quite happily. We talked about doing so.
But the reality of needing work kicked in and we then began to plan trips for every break our jobs allowed. The Grand Canyon (cancelled due to my mother’s health), Galveston, Texas (cancelled due to John’s health), Acadia National Park (cancelled due to John’s health), Seattle (cancelled due to John’s health). When John was diagnosed with cancer, one of the first things he said was, “I’ve had chemo before. I sat and stared at the ceiling of our apartment day after day and I hated it. I won’t do that again. This time, I’m doing cancer on MY terms. I can sit at home and rest while staring at the ceiling, or I can rest in a camper and look out at nature. I’d rather do that. I would enjoy looking out the window of a camper and seeing the trees.” So the hunt began. Because his cancer was in his leg, and because it gave him so much pain, he couldn’t get in and out of our truck and then in and out of the travel trailer. We needed a self-contained unit. One that, once he got in, had everything he needed without having to get out again. And it had to have specific features. It had to be flat inside – no steps. It had to have a comfortable chair for him to sit in, the standard couches and tables in campers are often uncomfortable. It had to have a walk around bed so that he could lean against the bed, swing his legs around and lay down. He couldn’t use his feet to push himself into a corner bed. This meant that the motorhome would automatically be more than 30 feet long. In order to accommodate a walk around bed, the length is never less than 30 feet, especially when adding an extra chair.
So, after searching for days and days, I found her. We named her CeeCee. She is a Class C motorhome. We named her carefully. Her name, CeeCee, represents the Class of motorhome that she is, but also the C stands for chemo, cancer, camping, caching (geocaching), and cooking good food.
This weekend she goes into the shop, after I shovel off the roof from the recent one foot of snow. This will be the third time I’ve shoveled off her roof this winter/spring, but who’s counting? She will get a tune up, and a check up, and get all gussied up. She’s got 10,000 miles to cover from one coast to the other and back to the middle again, in 83 days, to bring me back home to my soul.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”
― John Muir
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