A Living Magazine - Day 216 - Homecoming - Spartanburg: The Inside Life

It was a good sleep, considering that I was in a motel room. I always sleep better outside. But this was the best inside sleep I'd had since staying at Jan's in Anderson. It was about 8:00 a.m. when I dumped myself out of bed. The same donor who had paid for this night contributed enough for a second. Late the night before I'd gone down to buy it, so I knew I had the room for another twenty seven hours. The motel had a free continental breakfast, so I went down to partake... 

These views down the hallways of motels always remind me of Pink Floyd's The Wall,

and sometimes - depending on the mood - Stephen King's The Shining.

Today it just reminded me that I had a break from being outside.

Going down.

I grabbed as much as I could in the dining area: Two pieces of raisin toast, a danish, a banana, a yogurt, a coffee, and a waffle. I'd never used the waffle cooker before, but observed others standing there and cooking theirs. Thinking "I got this!," I went over after the last person, dumped the batter into the measuring cup, then poured it into the electric waffle iron. There was a beep, beep, beep, beep...while the batter puffed out around the edges. I was doing something wrong, but reading the instructions was interrupted by the beep. I heard the woman at the front desk say something about the waffle iron. Soon, another guest got up, walked over and told me to turn it. AH! By that time though, the front desk lady had come over and said, "If it beeps more than twice, I know you don't how to use it." Other people eating behind me giggled. I felt stupid. But that's how I learn sometimes. Embarrassment always helps make sure I don't make the mistake again. And, for the love of God, I won't! Ha!

I was pretty full after breakfast. But before returning to my room to work for the day, I wanted to get a Gatorade to sip on. So, I headed out into the new-fallen snow--now melting. I took the following photo while crossing the parking lot to the nearby gas station. I really liked it. I've processed it in black and white, ultraviolet, and color below. Let me know which one you like best.

All footprints big and small...

(1) Black and white.

(2) Ultraviolet.

(3) Color.

Upon returning, the gray sky reminded me how fortunate I was to be working inside that day and sleeping inside that night. The sun was due to return later in the afternoon and again for the next two days...

My room at the Super 8 Motel in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

I worked hard writing up the account of the bizarre dream-turned-lucid from two nights before. It took a long time to finish. I still wasn't all that happy with how it was written, but it would have to do. I just didn't think I described the scene of white well enough. Reading it over and over later, I was able to tweak it and my new editor, Fay, did the rest of the clean up. She is a very patient person. Ha!

I thought a lot about being "inside" as a metaphor for the inner life. I truly take solace in my mind, in the same way I take respite indoors during bad weather. I suppose the analogy is so common as to be trite. But for me,  it meant a great deal. When I am traveling (walking) and know that I'll be sleeping outdoors, I rely on going within my mind to escape whatever discomforts the outdoors might be foisting upon me. I depend on it. In fact, I have spent so many nights in precarious circumstances that I have developed this inner sanctuary as a good psychological strategy for dealing with them.

Similarly, when the walk itself becomes hard to bear, and my body is complaining, I really on the drifting phenomenon that I've described here many times.^{1,2,3 (for example)}

I believe that all things actually exist on the inside of the mind anyway. There is not one shred of evidence that anything at all exists separate from the human mind. Why? Because it takes a human mind to investigate such circumstances. Yes, there is an outside, in the sense that other phenomena (including the minds of other beings) exist separate from ourselves. Still, these are within a mind field, not a physical or material one. If you think that it is the opposite way around, you may not be visiting you own inner life frequently enough.  But that's just my opinion.

As I implied in the POMA post, the world arrives as one thing. The five physiological senses break that one thing up into separate pieces, and those pieces are recombined in the mind. We are limited in our perceptions by the primitive nature of our animal-evolved senses and the only partially-evolved human brain. Exercising the ability to go into the mind--to explore it, to map it, or to simply rest within it, is a skill that can become highly developed.

Interestingly, the more one sees of other aspects through the inner or sixth sense (through the portal of the Spark within each of us), the more one can see in what we have somewhat inaccurately assumed is an "outside" world. Knowing there is only one world (the mind field), helps integrate all aspects that seem mysterious or unlikely in our everyday lives. It can kill fear. It can make time a dynamic experience, liberating one from the prison of exactly-spaced moments. It can lead to greater experiences in the unconscious-to-conscious state of sleep, as discussed here, in the form of lucid awareness.^{1, 2, 3 (for example)}

My Journeys have been so multifaceted, so multidimensional, so variable in subject matter. They certainly have to do with the outdoors, nature, and of course, human civilization from street level. But, none of that can be divorced from that fact that it is ALL an inner experience; my experience, as one man at one point in history. You - for better or worse, in enjoyment or irritation - are not just walking with me along the streets of America, but within my mind as I think about it--complete with physical struggles, mental stability (or lack thereof), raw emotions, and my spiritual evolution as the "inside" and "outside" worlds merge to teach me (us?) things.

It would be so easy to write all of this off as an ego trip--all about me. Yet, recounting my few successes and many, many failures, is our collective life--me, you and the human species in the 21st Century. Nothing has ever been like it is now. Nothing will ever be like this again. I've always thought - as a historian - how nice it would have been to have a multimedia diary of my heroes, or just the regular old guy or gal from any given era. Now, weak and flawed as it is, that is what I am seeking to give the interested historians of the future, as well as the readers of the present.

I'm not aware of another human being who is exploring the world at ground level in such a way, nor offering such a thing as I offer us. It won't last forever. As all stories must end, even the real ones have a limit. Those who get to read about it each day, as it unfolds and is revealed to the reader and myself at the same time, are having an adventure together. WE are the story--not me.

Having said all that about it not just being about me, I will say that it both frustrates and intrigues me that I will probably not be as well known during this Homecoming Journey as I will be after it. We (you the reader, and I) are in that rarest of all developmental phases of something that is likely to grow into a much different and widespread project. At the same time that I struggle in relative obscurity, I thank only YOU that it is still pure enough to be unaffected by fame or riches (certainly not the latter!).

The evening was much like the one before. I ran out of energy and knew (mostly from the advice of others) that I really should just take it easy. More physical effort would be coming up and increasing in the week to follow. A real recharge meant rest--simple.

I went to bed early, but woke around 11:00 p.m. and sat down to start the next day's post. By about 2:30 a.m. I'd finished it except for the preview edits. And, going back to bed, I easily slept through the night, and into the next stage of our Journey.