A Living Magazine - Tap Root: Day 7 - Equipment Transport with Mom

This was a day of action. I'd slept for about 3 hours the night before. I was awake with many thoughts, not all of which were negative. I was busy mentally planning what would be happening the next day.

This was Thursday, July 27. I caught the South Portland bus 24-B into Portland and walked from Congress Street down Forest Avenue to Enterprise where I had reserved a car the day before. When I entered Enterprise the young woman who registered me offered to let me rent a cargo van instead. She was trying to save a car for later in the morning. And, she was motivated. She offered the same price as a car as an incentive. I was concerned about having to buy gas, since the van for use more, so she sweetened the deal by waving the requirement to refill the gas tank! It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

I drove the van back to my sister's house and began loading my stuff into it. I was surprised how little there was, especially when looking at how much space was left over in the vehicle.

My mom (who had been staying at my sister's house since April of this year) came out to talk to me while I loaded the van. I realized she probably was going to be stuck at the house all day. She and I had so many little adventures in the last couple months. It occurred to me that perhaps she might be up for one more. So I asked her if she wanted to come up to Farmington with me. She was up for it, and when everything was secured in the back of the van we set off to Walmart in Falmouth.

After buying a tent, chainsaw, bar and chain oil, water totes and a few other items, we were on our way again.

We stopped at McDonald's in Falmouth before making the two hour trip to Farmington. As always we had nice conversations and discussed what each of us would be doing in the weeks to come. When we reached Farmington we drove through town and I reminisced a bit about attending the University of Maine at Farmington (UMF) as a freshman, exactly 30 years before.

We turned after passing through the center of town, we turned east onto route 43 (Industry Road) and drove to Weeks Mills Road (aka Perham Road), climbing the steep hill to the dirt road that was my right of way--formerly known as Staples Road. We continued down to the end at the hay field where the road ended and turned into grass. 

I didn't want to drive up the edge of the field, because it looked like the hay was about ready to be harvested. But, I really felt like I had no choice. I would get in trouble for this in a couple days. Nevertheless, we slowly made our way along the tree line and arrived across from my land.

We got out of the van and walked in to check out the land. It looked wonderful. It was only the second time I'd ever seen it. there wasn't much time left before it was going to rain. We got to work and unloaded the van as quickly as possible, while thunder threatened about a mile away in the western mountains...

Mom--my helper and companion for the day!

Mom was very helpful. I told her she could just watch or stay in the van if she wanted. But she insisted on carrying things onto the lot. It wasn't easy, as each trip consisted of walking over an old stone wall, then across a bunch of thick raspberry bushes. 

She assisted in piling everything in the middle of one of my tarps, while I bungee corded the other tarp on top. We got done just in time for the first drops. We hurried back to the van, started it up and turned it around then drove back through the town, now under a very dark sky. 

Mom and I talked much about our coming lives. We wanted to stay in contact and see each other as much as possible. She had gotten onto google Maps a few days earlier and measured out the distance between my land and some of the places she might be staying in Maine and New Hampshire. And she kept saying it was about 3 hours and 12 minutes to Laconia, New Hampshire (where she occasionally would be staying with her sister for awhile), and 1 hour and 49 minutes to my sister's house, whenever she might be staying there.

I was going to miss her and worry about how she was doing. It was in my nature to worry anyway, but I had extra incentive to have her on my mind. We had not been able to see each other for any extended amount of time for over a decade. This time we had spent together in Maine for the last few months helped to make up for that. Still, now we were parting again and who knew for how long it would be?

As we drove back to South Portland, the sky really opened up. I thought ahead to the next summer when I would have my cabin established--and hopefully a little room for her too. How dearly I wanted to have a nice place where Mom could come and spend a few summer weeks walking the land, doing some gardening, relaxing in the sun, having nice BBQ's at night, going to shows and joining me in some Asian cuisine (our favorite restaurant choice) in town. This thought motivated me on that rainy afternoon just as it still motivates me now, two weeks later, especially after a very intense dream that I will describe in a coming post.

When the angels had cried out the last of their rainy tears and the dark clouds of so much past sadness drawn from the western mountains, had blown across the coastal plains and out to sea--beyond the horizon, we parked on the side street next to my sister's house. 

When we walked into the house, my sister had prepared a nice small going away dinner. The kids joined us and for one last evening we all hung out discussing the future and joking around.

About the time when the kids got antsy, I retired to the my garage attic sleeping place for one last night. It would be my 49th birthday the next day and I was completely unconcerned about any kind of celebration. 

My only thoughts - as I once again lay, sleepless - was that I had to have everything go exactly according to plan the next day if I were going to be sleeping on my own land that night. I traced over the order of operations over and over again: wake, drive the van back to Enterprise, walk up to Starbucks, catch the Greyhound to Lewiston, catch the Western Maine Transportation bus to Farmington, buy a bike, ride it to the land, set up the tent...and...take a breath.

As the hours passed, I relived my experiences crossing the country to California (2014-2015), then back to Maine (2015-2016), then almost dying at the end of August last year (all of which can be read about here at IWALLK). 

Now, in the last few chapters of my existence on this human plain, the Universe seemed to be telling me that there was no other path left but the one I was taking; the one I would have chosen years ago were it an option then. 

I had been wallked down to the psychological and spiritual nub. I was presently rolled into a tightly compacted seed, left to hibernate until I could be planted in my own place where the water of destiny might soak into the dry earth, touch my outer covering and re-germinate my life. 

Then and only then could the tap root begin to grow...  

First of the videos at my new Youtube Channel: "IWALLK America - Tap Root"

TASKS COMPLETED

* Transported my initial equipment to the land in Farmington.