I pulled into a rest stop somewhere in Nebraska on my motorcycle. I was en route from West Palm Beach to Council, Idaho -- chasing the rainbow. I had been hauling booty to get there before it was all over. The Rainbow Gathering happens on the Fourth of July in a different national forest each year. They have a deal with the Department of Interior. They can hold their gatherings as long as the trails are replanted and the area is left in better condition than when they arrived. It's been going on since 1968 -- a network of the New Age, at best -- a party in the woods, at the least.
Anyway, I was at this rest stop. I pulled off my helmet and let my hair down, stretching and waiting for the feeling to come back into my clutch hand. Thirty feet away sat a 65 year old woman, waiting in the car for her husband. She opened the door, got out and walked over to where I stood.
Her demeanor was conditioned -- tentative. But, she seemed to summon the daring to speak to me. She had to know...
"Please... excuse me. But... please... can you tell me? What is it like to be a woman today?"
I never got the chance to answer her. She looked up to see her husband walking towards her and she returned obediently to the car.
I was showing my photography at an art show in New York. A woman had been standing with her back to me for the longest time. I'm not an aggressive seller, but I got up to see if she'd like to buy the piece. When she turned around, she had tears in her eyes. She'd been deep into one of my pastorals. She told me that it was "just so peaceful -- I guess I've been under a lot of stress. How I envy your freedom. I've always wanted to do what you're doing."
Freedom? The road is not an adventure -- it's just another way of life. And it's not a glamorous life, as my stories will bear out. It's not just a long drawn out version of your last trip to Yellowstone. It's having to learn to take care of your daily business where you're at.
As my Biological Clock winds down, occasionally I'll see a cute baby and think of the mother, "How lucky you are." It's not as glamorous as I might think. It's knowing how wrong they are about their image of my life that keeps me straight about my image of theirs.
I never knew I was one of the homeless. I thought I was just living in my van. Ok... sleeping next to my motorcycle at a rest stop, sleeping bag filled with red ants, was definitely living sans home. It left me hankering for the old VW bus, for sure. And when they say, "But aren't you scared -- a woman alone?" "I just take one white line at a time."
One thing for sure, you'll do it all. My resume` is comical (it does not inspire confidence in a perspective employer.) Ok... all in one breath: insurance investigator, construction laborer, paste up artist, exercise instructor, ad agency grunt, waitress, telephone solicitor, street artist, factory worker, advertising sales, newspaper production, ranch hand, fruit picker, tree planter, bartender, fry cook, commercial vendor at arena shows, realtor, network marketer, automotive chemical sales, photographer, television producer -- and those are just some of the jobs. Assorted survival skills also had to be learned. If it's broke, I'll fix it. If I can't afford to buy it, I'll build it.
As a photographer I've learned that the art is in the editing. That life can be seen as vignettes -- cropped according to the perspective du jour. Doing it is the key -- you can live your life as a noun -- or you can add a verb, and become a sentence.
(If I've been having so much adventure, then how have I found the time to write a book?)
It's called The Long Road Home: in search of the rainbow -- and it's got it all. A baby boomer divorce` on the road in search of her self. The economic realities of the late 70's, when the baby boomers flooded the job market, sends me into the underground economy -- from arts and crafts, to migrant camps -- sometimes homeless -- learning to be a survivor -- and learning the self-respect that I sought.
It's divided into four books:
1976-82 Divorce through five years in Florida, traveling the art show circuit, living in a tent on the Gulf Coast whittling for a living... a peek into the drug trade in South Florida... working on a weekly newspaper... and a motorcycle accident that sends me off chasing the Rainbow in search of the beautiful people.
1982-84 Riding my bike to the Rainbow Gathering in Idaho, taking up residence with a mountain man named Cave Dave, learning to tend bar in Wisdom, Montana, raking hay, picking fruit, tree planting camps, building my own pick-up camper, and all of the lessons of the northwest. Men who wear spurs, and women who don't have to wear what Madison Avenue is selling.
1985-90 "Scamorama" -- pay one price get taken for a ride all day -- the road east of the Mississippi. Working a carny-style gig in malls all over the country, the car show circuit, the art show circuit, the comic adventures of turning wrench on a 1966 Dodge Pick-up, day labor in factories, rock and roll bartending, and trying to come home.
And "Coming Home"... the epilogue -- or a series of epilogues. Here, I learn why I left in the first place. After my divorce, I sought to know who I really was by blowing away all of the mythology of who I was supposed to be as a woman, and for that I am eternally grateful. But, after my parents divorce, I was actually able to be in town for more than a few days without scrambling to find a way out. I found out about recovery and about dysfunctional family systems, and my entire experience finally made sense.
Mostly, it's an abstraction, an attitude, and a collection of Americana ala "prole". Yup, it's got it all.
As illustrations, it's got lots of photos (good stuff, I must say), music, bumper stickers, and let's not forget daddy's joke of the week.
It's about being alone. It's about surviving labels.
It's practical feminism -- the rights and the responsibilities -- and the realities. (How many women does it take to screw in a lightbulb?)
It's romanticism and pathos, both real and imagined.
It's about fitness and fatness, Madison Avenue and the image of self.
It's about finding love where you're at -- in a friend, a bartender, a brother, a mother, a preacher -- we all wear many hats.
It's about substance abuse -- enabling -- tough love -- and loving too much.
It's about being your own Guru.
It's about "drama" and being responsible for your REactions.
It's the New Age and the old fashioned -- it's a compendium of knowledge.
(You believe all that?)
It's also a little bit goofy.
It will make you smile.
It will keep me off the streets.
A Fem. Kerouac?
Why the hell not?
