A Living Magazine - Day 363 - Homecoming - Arlington: Darkness on a Sunny Day

I had a dream that I was hanging out with an older gentleman. He'd been driving me around some town I didn't recognize. He was really cool and fun to talk to. We stopped to get a drink at a 7-Eleven. I opened the door and got out. When I closed the door, he backed out and drove away with my backpack. Then I woke up, glad to realize it was only a dream. I did however notice that my hernia pain was back--the same "below the belt" kind (like being kicked in the crotch). I also noticed that my cheap Walmart socks were disintegrating.

I packed up slowly and then made my usual way down to Dunkin Donuts. I had $6 left on the card from a donation the day before. I bought my iced coffee, sat down and got online. Noticing another donation, one that could get me through another day or so, I felt better. But, when I tried to transfer it to my card I got an error message. I tried over and over again. No luck.

Just then my left eye began to hurt whenever I looked outside at the bright street--the uveitis, I assumed, from the stress. In the restroom mirror I saw that both eyes were red. I was not doing well. Working hard every day was not paying off, literally or figuratively. My body was beginning to punish me in the old way it used to whenever I was under constant anxiety.

I'd have to now endure the torment of contacting PayPal by phone (Google Voice). The place was loud and the connection sucked. I tried three times to call in, getting a bit further through the phone maze before the line went dead each time. I needed a quieter location with a stronger signal. With only about $3 left and some change, I left to seek out a better place. This would mean spending more money.

Halfway to Harvard, I stopped at a little mini mall. There was a Panera Bread there. I'd never been to it, assuming it was expensive. Something told me to try it.

I walked in and tried to view the prices on the board, but without glasses it was impossible. So, I just ordered a pastry and an ice water. The cashier looked concerned about my eyes, but said nothing. It was $2-something. I looked around for a place to sit, but all the tables were full. It was also fairly loud. Seeing there was a downstairs section I headed there, with each step kicking my pain level up a notch higher.

Finding one table next to a woman who seemed uncomfortable with my presence, I sat down and was able to plug into an outlet. There, I pinched off pieces of my pastry and called PayPal again. The connection was not good, but a bit better than it had been at Dunkin Donuts. The automated system wasn't hearing my voice and transferred me to a rep. Well, I should say, transferred me to hold for a rep. After ten minutes of being told they would be right with me, "Taylor" answered. I gave her my info and told her what the problem was. She said they had placed my account on "limited" status, because my Social Security number didn't match an application I'd filled out for a duplicate card (my card was in pretty rough shape  and I was afraid it would stop working). So we fixed that.

She switched my account back to "normal" status and I tried to transfer the money with her waiting. I received the same error message. I tried again. Same thing. She put me on hold to see if there was something else she could do. When she returned I tried again. Still got the error message. She told me this happens sometimes when people are switched out of limited status, and to wait a couple of hours. I told her that I was in Boston and desperately needed the money. She said it is a technical issue that goes hand in hand with the security measures. This is something I would find out the next day was total bullshit.

She offered to transfer me to the Pre-Paid MasterCard department to see if they could speed it up. Feeling that I had no choice, I agreed. Then came 25 minutes on hold, listening to the worst and most distorted hold music I'd ever heard (I was once a supervisor at a call center, so I know what I'm talking about). The phone signal got worse and worse as time went by. I believe Google Voice is satellite based, so as the signal is transferred between substations and orbiting satellites the connection becomes degraded and will eventually cut off completely--which it did.

I just had to wait it out until the morning and then try again. It was another kind of long distance walk. Only time would bring a solution. I decided to download and process my pictures from that day. When I pushed the SD card into the reader, it sent up a message telling me that the card was corrupted and I had lost all my data.

The little bead of sweat forming on my forehead indicated to me that I was totally fucked, as if I needed sweat to kick that ball to the net. The hernia, the eye, the depression, the lack of funds, the apparent disinterest from my readers, the thought that I had nothing to return to Maine for, the comparative merriment of the eating and drinking around me, the thought I'd be sleeping with ants and roaches... I wanted to just get back to Maine and disappear forever into the woods; become the second Maine Hermit.

I was sick of everything, ashamed of myself for doing so much and not being able to turn it into something that would sustain a writing career. I checked the weather for the day of my departure for Maine--rain. What the hell was I doing? What the hell have I done? Wasted an opportunity to finally build my little house? But, what could I have done differently? The floodgate of rhetorical questions opened as I packed up my stuff and left for the sleep spot. Another spectacular sunset airbrushed orange and purple across the entire sky. I took several shots (but learned today while writing this that they were again lost).

Woven through these rapidly appearing and disappearing rhetorical questions were the "if only's" and the "shoulda, coulda, woulda's." Was there no way out?

Back at the sleep spot, dark clouds were gathering in the west. That is why the sunset had been so brilliant. I was afraid it was going to rain, so I did up the full tent and tarp arrangement (remembering how bad it had been in Chelmsford).

Of course the clouds eventually thinned out as I stood outside the tent. I prayed. I don't care who believes in God and who doesn't. I know that the Spark is Connected to the Infinite Creator. I appealed in the same way I had before leaving Maine 20 months ago.

Afterward, I talked to the Spark for a couple hours. There was no response, in any sense, for that whole time. When I'd become utterly unable to face another moment of wakefulness and needed to escape from the world, I climbed into the tent.

Lying there, looking at the clouds lazily pass over the yellow moon, a faint but undeniable whisper came to me: "Have faith. Stay strong and you shall overcome." But, you know, I felt no solemnity at all with this message. I was angry, disappointed, disheartened after playing the game just as the Spark had wanted. I had learned through attempting to do things my way, that that path is the hardest one. But for christsake, this was no garden party either! What the hell was expected of me anyway? I DID have faith. I HAD been strong. And, now, THIS!

But, I had forgotten one of my most fundamental rules: Never go to sleep angry...