Where Your Soul and the Road Meets
It was a little over a month before my flight to Madrid, but it felt like my journey had already begun as I headed southbound on I-95 from Connecticut to New York. As I watched the last rays of the sun dip into the ocean at Hammonasset Beach, little did I know that later that night, I would be following a stranger down sleepy Boston Post Road to spend the night in a roadside motel.
I’m not much of a reader. If I do mention a book, it’s from a short list that I talk about over and over again. One is “A Hero’s Journey” by Christopher Vogler. It was required reading. All the books that have impacted me were required reading from “The Outsiders” to “Catcher in the Rye” right on up to “The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers” in film school.(https://chrisvogler.wordpress.com) I think, like so many others, its impact was due to the fact that it was based off of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces which I of course, haven’t read. But I think archetypes are, by their very nature, relatable.
What stayed with me most reading “The Writer’s Journey” was the protagonist, or hero, going on a journey, which can be anything depending on the hero’s “call to adventure”. One of my calls to adventure has been travel, my philosophy being if God put it there, I should see it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve honed that down knowing that, realistically, I’m not going to see everything. There’s dense uninhabited, unexplored parts of the Amazon (well, I hope there still are) that I probably won’t see. But if I can see a fair amount, I’m good. So that’s my journey.
According to Vogler’s book based on Campbell’s work, when the hero embarks on his/her/pick a pronoun journey (will be using he/his hereto forth in this post for ease of writing, but please know it is inclusive of all gender identifications in my mind) the hero inevitably meets his allies and enemies. I know that when I go on my journey, for better or for worse, I will meet my enemies along the way, but also my allies. It’s how stories are told. Art imitates life.
48 Hours Later…
I know Dad was there. Cars were his thing. He built an engine when he was 16 and worked his way through college as a chauffeur and mechanic for his boss’ fleet of cars. He knew cars and knew them well. And if he didn’t, he was really good about taking them in for servicing on time and plunking down whatever it cost to keep his cars in top notch condition. Unlike me, dad understood the value of preventive maintenance, and as a result, had very few car problems. Me, on the other hand… preventive car maintenance was never high on my list of priorities. Since my dad knew this, I’m pretty sure he was tinkering under the hood once again, this time from the grave. Rest In Peace clearly doesn’t apply when it comes to his daughter.
Earlier that night as I cruised down 95, the dashboard suddenly lit up and said something I’ve never seen before. I’m pretty sure it said “You…” – and it doesn’t usually say “you“, but something to the effect of : “You have low oil pressure. Stop safely.” I read it three times while my brain raced a mile a minute processing what felt like a serious warning. “It didn’t say I was low on oil,” I thought, flashing back to my dad pulling out the little dipstick saying “Syd, you don’t have any oil in your car. It’s bone dry!” Being low on oil is bad enough and even though I know zero about cars, even I knew low oil pressure couldn’t be good. And it didn’t say check this soon or do something later, it seemed to be saying stop the damn car.
So I was like…
…fuck…I pulled in to a gas station, popped the hood, tested the oil and it was literally “bone dry.” Not a drop of oil on that dipstick. Like the flashing message, I had never seen that before either. All the oil had leaked from the car. I ran inside, grabbed four quarts of oil and started pouring them in. A young guy trotted over: Ally #1.
I had seen his wife on line buying cigarettes which I silently judged even though I was buying a chipwich and coffee. Now they were helping me. He slid under the car and started looking around with his flashlight.
“Are you a mechanic?” I asked. “Yeah, it looks like you have a hole in your gasket,” he said. He showed me the leak, and sure enough, as I was pouring the oil in, it was coming right out. Being a guy (I guess it’s a guy thing) he said I could get home if I just pull over every 10 minutes and pour more oil in. His wife, on the other hand, said, “Find a hotel. There’s the Fairmont,” which made me gulp just slightly, the idea that this was so serious I had to find a roadside motel on I-95. It’s weird staying at a motel when you’re so close to home. I’ve only done that once under very different circumstances. Why the hell would I stay in a motel? “My ass is getting to New York” I thought. The mechanic, who seemed to be in a rush, or was a New Yorker, was already back in his car, told his wife, “nah, she’ll make it,” and yelled out the window, “Baby the car and keep checking it, you can make it!” His wife looked at me with pity and said, “Aww, I feel for you, it’s so hard dealing with that by yourself. Stay safe!” and they zipped off to go binge Billions or something.
Feeling slightly abandoned, I left the hood up and went in for four more bottles of oil which I knew I’d lose in the next ten minutes down 95. Now I’m panicking a little because I’m a solid hour and a half away from home. My eyes must’ve been darting back and forth as ten million questions ran through my head. “Maybe I need to go to a mechanic shop around here. Or maybe I need to get it towed. How much would it cost to get it towed? Does AAA cover only 3 miles? That’ll only get me off the Interstate. How much per mile after that? How much is that going to cost me? $500? $300? Then who do I take it to? Someone expensive around here or my cheap guy in the Bronx? And if I can even get to the Bronx, who the hell is going to pick me up there at midnight?” These are the thoughts firing through my brain while still entertaining the prospect of driving a car hemorrhaging oil down I-95 knowing if the engine seized, it would be 100% my fault.
During my silent hysteria, an older businessman in a suit, which struck me as odd at that hour on a Sunday night, asked me if I was having car trouble. With stuff to figure out and no time to go into a sob story, I politely nodded and paid at the register. Then he starts talking cartalk which I don’t understand, but it’s clear that he does. Now he has my attention. I asked if he was a mechanic. He said, “No, but I do work in the automotive industry,” which I found weirdly vague. There was something off, might’ve been the toupee, but, regardless, he proceeded to help me without being asked and I clearly needed the help. Ally #2…
…who walks in as Ally #1 speeds off leaving me to go on my adventure, like, Dorothy down the yellow brick road. What awaits? Not the Land of Oz, but you could break down in worse places than Fairfield, CT.
So, first I met like one of the munchkins letting me know what the hell was going on, that I was pretty much in for it, then scurries off. And in walks the Scarecrow. He kind of was like the Scarecrow; tall, thin, maybe in his 60s, and maybe a little sickly if I were to be honest. Which, right or wrong, made me trust him a tad more. He was certainly very helpful. Contrary to the fast-talking munchkin, he said it wasn’t the gasket and he didn’t think it was a good idea to try and drive it all the way to New York. He suggested taking it to his mechanic, who wasn’t too far away. It was an option, but one that presented a whole new set of questions that circled around in my head. Aside from the price of a mechanic in tony Fairfield, now I would have to stay in some weird roadside motel. Crap. (This from a self-proclaimed traveler whose family business was a roadside motel; the hypocrisy isn’t completely lost on me).
He must’ve sensed my indecision so he said, “Why don’t you think about it, you have until the next exit.” That’s when I noticed how calm this guy was; noticeably calm and unfazed all the time. I’m not gonna say like a serial killer, but I’m also not going to say it didn’t cross my mind. Especially with the prospect of following him off the interstate late on a Sunday night. I also remembered that right after the munchkin’s wife yelled out the car window, “Be careful! I know how you feel to be a female and alone when your car breaks down,” is when the scarecrow walked up. He heard I was alone with a broken down car and wanted to help. That could be an ally or a fake ally.
Follow Your Gut ~ It’s Hard, I know
I’m not sure what my face looked like when this stranger even offered to drive me back to New York at which point I quickly blurted out that I had family. He saw I was nervous and being guarded, which he respected, because he let me do what I wanted to do and didn’t bring it up again. One thing I did notice above all else is that, even with all my neurotic thoughts and vivid imagination, I felt no red flags with this guy. My antenna didn’t go up, the hairs on the back of my neck didn’t bristle (and that has happened in the past). I didn’t have a bad vibe about him at all. It was more a combination of being raised by my tough, practical and cautious mother and an episode on Oprah that kept playing over and over in my head: Don’t get in this guy’s car, because then he’s in control and if he takes you to a second location, it’s all over. You never want to get to the second location because they have complete control over you. They know what they’re doing, where they’re going, they know what’s there and what’s not, etc.
So, when he suggested taking me home, in hindsight, since I’m still alive and well and able to write about it, I guess I would have been okay. But I was not personally capable of accepting that. Everyone’s different. Had it been another country and another time, I probably would have, because I have in the past, but I think Europe and the United States is different in that regard and I’m not so sure I’d be as open to that today even in Europe. It’s true that we do get more conservative and protective, of both ourselves and others, as we get older. I think it’s nature’s way of protecting the species.
As I followed Scarecrow about 16 miles down I-95 to his mechanic’s exit, my neuroses kicked into high gear, despite my instincts. “He is kind of a calm, silent guy,” I thought, in other words, the profile of all serial killers. Fortunately reason outweighed my neuroses and I started piecing together that he was probably legit when I saw that he drove a Volvo too. “That’s why he knows so much about Volvos” I thought. He said he’s had three or four and swore by them. He was a Volvo guy. That’s who happened to be at that gas station. On that day and at that hour. Seeing me. Coincidence? And the fact that the engine didn’t seize, at any point – that was dad working overtime sweating it up in heaven while I’m blindly cruising to the beach.
My Ego Needed a Tan
One tiny red flag I should have heeded earlier that day: I didn’t even want to go to the beach. Your intuition might whisper to you about something seemingly innocuous – like a day at the beach. And that’s where I got tripped up. It can definitely be a good thing when your intuition quietly suggests that you take a different route to work or walk away from that person, but I wasn’t looking for it when it came to a day at the beach. That inner voice is subtle, but honestly, it could have been screaming in my ear, “Don’t go!!!!” and because the beach is my happy place, I would’ve said, “Huh?” shrugged and gone anyway. In hindsight, my intuition was telling me something the night before when, even though I hadn’t been to the beach all summer, I still didn’t really want to go. Preparing for my travels, I had other priorities and too much to do. Then my niece called and said I should see the Atlantic Ocean one last time before crossing it. I thought, “Who cares? I’m going to be on the Mediterranean, baby! Spain’s got some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.” Still, I started convincing myself to go. “I do like the Atlantic…I should go and say I’ve done it, the sunset is great there…I should see one last great sunset…” (Because the sun doesn’t set in Spain)
I tried to convince myself all night that I should go and when I woke up the next day, I still wasn’t feeling it! That should’ve been my answer right there but I was indecisive for 12 hours about something as trivial as going to the beach. Instead of taking that as a sign, I let myself wrestle with it, ignored how I really felt and forced myself to go. Now I realize that was my intuition trying to protect me because something was going to happen to that car. Thankfully all was okay. But the experience was stressful, I was exhausted and it foolishly blew two critical days I could have used packing and organizing before my trip.
Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash
It made me realize one thing. You’ve got to listen to your intuition. Usually lessons about your intuition are if you sense something or someone dangerous, something you shouldn’t be doing or some place you shouldn’t be going. There are angels there to guide you; stay away from here, don’t go there; don’t do this, don’t do that. That nagging or quiet little inner voice you hear is God or your angels guiding you. But I was catering to my much louder and far more familiar ego voice rather than the quiet intuitive one that sometimes makes no sense. Why wouldn’t I hit the beach on the last day of summer when it’s going to be 85 and beautiful out? Obviously, the loud ego voice won out.
But it would have been nice if, in that moment, I was able to take a step back and question the internal conflict battling inside me. I believe we can create a space for this, but we must work on developing it. Had these opposing voices fighting in my mind not been drowned out by my mental clutter, noise, ongoing distractions and interference, I might have been able to step back and ask: why are you fighting this so much? What’s the holdup?
I’ve heard that this is where a meditation practice would be beneficial, clearing out the clutter, quieting the ego and making room for that intuitive voice to be heard. I hope this lesson has at least opened my eyes to the possibility that the next time I fight something that hard, I won’t do it. It’s a good lesson to learn before my travels.
Shit’s Gonna Happen
I believe this mini-crisis was helping prepare me for my travels. Because it’s not going to be a bowl of cherries. Is it going to be amazing? I think so. Is it going to be a life changing experience? I hope so. Is it going to be awesome? I think so. And hope so. But, are there going to be trials, tribulations, stresses, and unexpected things that could throw me, challenge me and take me out of my comfort zone? Yes. Are those things going to happen? Hell, yeah. I’m an American in a foreign country that speaks a foreign language. Like my travels in my 20s, I may not know up from down, and I’ll have a few more physical limitations to boot. So, I look at everything that happened in those 24 hours as a lesson to prepare me for the fact that I am going on a journey and shit will happen. But there will be good people to help me along the way – I will meet my allies on the road.
I’m Not Going to Leave You Alone ~ the Spirit Never Dies
I did notice how guarded I was with Scarecrow and I’m not kicking myself for not trusting him more and I’m also not kicking myself for not getting basic information, like his name, because it wasn’t Scarecrow. I took a picture of his license plate and sent it to my family who I was on the phone with the whole time. Overall, I think in situations like this, it’s best to be a little guarded but friendly, make a mental inventory of the person and always be aware of your surroundings. I also knew he was going out of his way on a Sunday night to help me. I felt a wave of relief once we arrived at the mechanics in a cute quaint area on Boston Post Road. No tiny red flags, and only a few hairs bristling on the back of my neck from the looks of the place, which I knew was going to cost me an arm and a leg. But that would be the only arm and leg be missing in this scenario (bad pun intended).
Scarecrow came to my car window, mentioned a few nearby motels, offered to drive me and didn’t protest when I politely declined. He left and I google’d a nearby motel with good reviews and called a cab. When I got to the room, he called me to make sure I had gotten there okay and then said, if you can believe it, “I forgot to ask you if you had any food or water.” He not only happened to be a Volvo specialist helping me with my car, he wanted to see if I was hydrated.
Who planted him there? When I think of it that way, I get chills. When I recounted the story later, someone said “that was your father, that was your dad and God.” I didn’t have time to think of it at the time, but it was. When my ally Scarecrow said at least three times throughout the course of the night, “I’m not going to leave you alone at this hour,” he meant it. If that’s not your ally, I don’t know who is. When we got on the highway, I took off doing 60-70, wanting to reach the mechanics before I ran out of oil again and he trailed me closely the whole way. It was like my dad was directing him. Speaking of, I can only imagine the stress I must have been putting poor old dad through knowing that while I was blithely driving to the beach, there would be trouble. I’m sure dad and mom were shaking their heads like we need to be on that. And they just set it all up from heaven. How powerful the spirit is.
I am acutely aware that I’m only getting older and I want to squeeze a lot in while I’m (physically/mentally) able to do it. Without the ability to step back and quiet myself from time to time, I’d go crazy trying to do this or do that, get to this or get to that, check this off and put that on Instagram without being in the moment. Unchecked, there’s a very real possibility that I could go overboard trying to do everything instead of slowing it the fuck down. So maybe if I’m in beautiful, sunny, Mediterranean, Spain and I wake up and want to write all afternoon inside, because I don’t feel like being out in the sun on this perfectly gorgeous, sun drenched day on the ocean, maybe it’s better because that’s the day that I didn’t get the sun exposure that would have lead to melanoma. Maybe I would’ve gotten heat stroke. Or maybe I would have just had a crappy day and people would have been mean and a bird would have crapped on my head. Or maybe it just would have been a meh day and I’d come back regretting it, wanting to just sit out on the patio and drink coffee, take in the scenery in my own Sydney way, and just write. Maybe I would be missing out on a tremendous writing day that was going to turn the corner on my blog or just enlighten me in some way through the writing process.
I think it’s important to remember not to go after something because it’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re traveling or because it’s the popular thing to do when you’re backpacking or because it’s the instagrammable thing to do at some famous landmark. Those would be meaningless goals.
- Moral of the Volvo story: Get a Volvo because they are good cars, just use premium gas and check your oil once in a while.
- The universe can be a little harsh sometimes, but it has to be to get your attention (especially mine).
- Pay attention to that voice because that’s what’s going to guide you on your travels. If it’s fighting you, there is a reason for it. The universe is telling you something.
- It’s okay to keep your guard up with strangers while being friendly at the same time.
- Always remember those things you’ve been taught: be aware of your surroundings, be aware of people and conscious of your stuff at all times. And if you’re not the most aware, observant person (ahem), remind yourself of these things.
The foolish humans that we are, it is gratifying to know that if you still don’t listen, it is a loving universe that is going to help you and be there for you anyway. It saw me coming and said, “okay, she’s gonna go, this is gonna happen…all right, let’s get ready.” And it set it up for me in the name of someone called Bill. I thank God for Bill, I send him blessings and prayers for good health, happiness, and I hope he slept well that night knowing that he helped someone out in a time of need. He was a good samaritan and I’m probably not the first person he’s helped. It’s nice to know the universe puts our allies out there where and when we need them.