TAoCB. Amarillo, TX.

Beth texted, Where ya at?

I was in bed in a trucker motel off 40 in Amarillo, TX, mad at myself because I hadn't made it to Tucamcari. Also because I hadn't anticipated this many motels.

I think I have heat stroke I told her, only partly kidding, and like a dumbass literally had a palm against the forehead moment when she responded Gatorade, yoga.  Lots of water.  I had filled up on Gatorade and stretched as soon as I got the room.  But my gallon of water was sitting at my bedside mostly untouched.  I drank over half of it as soon as I saw her words--and never had to pee, but the chills subsided and my stomach settled down almost in moments.  Heat stroke it was.

A vision of my self in Arkansas, in the triple digit heat, on Friday.  Literally with so much sweat on my face it looked like someone splashed me down with a bucket.  Setting up camp, hiking like that.  I barely slept at Buffalo National River--the river was low, the granite cliff sides and caves high--but I swam and felt sleepy and mostly woozy, like sort of drunk, laying there listening to the bugs and watching all the stars.  I was happy. Yesterday I covered 400 miles, and about midway through the worst kind of longing hit.  I have for many years wanted to live in California, but never have felt it, physically ached with a pull that I could feel moving even the tips of my hair, until yesterday.  It commanded me on, it taunted me and made me feel like a competitor with my self.

Finally, out of Oklahoma, the terrain changed.  This is what I came here for I thought--the open expanse.  The high wide sky and endless horizon that is visual and sensual and only experienced on the actual highway, in the west.  The landscape browned, the sage brush spread the color of blank green, the dark almost black green of the junipers rose up with those frantic stuck arms.  This is what I came here for, and I texted Schanks and Beth about being able to see the storms to your right or left in the west, this was moments before I realized I was heading straight away towards a terrific thundering sky.  I texted them then check radar for me make sure there are no tornadoes.  And then the storm made me tired, and it was the heat stroke too, and the momentary forgetfulness that also comes with the open expanse.  How it makes you antsy, presses you on, makes you feel like there must be somewhere right now you must be.

After hearing from Erika this morning I meditated and got back on rhythm, out of competition, and felt my spirit lighten how up til yesterday it had been.  My spirit, which matches the odd even in the heat gently blowing wind.  In the lobby were free pancakes, which are my comfort food since I moved to the beach, and now in my room the coffee tastes way more like sink water than Arabica but I drink it anyway.  I've learned something about my self.  In meditation, or after, this morning I realized how much my routine, and the lac of it, was hurting my heart.  My want for a swim in the ocean and the physicality I've gotten so used to: surfing, waitressing, dancing for hours on end.  Especially the elements, feeling the sun and the surf, and the sand.  Feeling awake and alive in my body, expereincing of life.  Camping is a different kind of physical, not a lean kind but more brawn.  I was craving the lightness, every meaning of the word, of my life.  I was craving it.  It was this thought that gave me peace:  the remarkable knowledge of knowing I chose this path, I chose it, in order to, and specifically so that when the winter comes, I will not have to give up any of those things.   I will be light, I will be sunny, I will be alive in my body, I will be outdoors.  I will get there when I get there, I am satisfied with this.  It will be right.  It all is, right on time.