“It’s all good”. Those words were spoken to me in California by a man seeking passage for himself, his girlfriend and their dog. At the time, my little car was packed so full that I could hardly fit myself in it, let alone two long-leggedy things and a full-sized canine. Those words were spoken to me as I apologized and assured the man, a goateed free-spirit whose van had obviously broken down, that I would have given them a ride otherwise. “It’s all good,” he said with a smile, leaving me with more behind that expression of comfort and reassurance than the three words could properly relate on their own.
I reached Seattle Tuesday afternoon, under the auspiciousness of a double rainbow. The car has been unpacked and the items put into storage, including the fabled car-top carrier, which lasted the duration. The trusty vehicle is also due for repairs Thursday morning, very, very early. I have entered into serious apartment hunting mode, which included a trip to Bainbridge Island and Port Townsend initially on the too-expensive-for-me ferry system.
And now, finally, I find myself scrambling to find a residence somewhere around the city.
I’m holed up in a motel in Edmonds while the hard part of the journey begins. This is the rite of passage after the night of feasting, the tests of flesh and spirit after the lessons have been completed and the farewell gained. The fear washes over me from time to time, the uncertainty that has been instilled in me from a lifetime of comfort and ease. I sometimes feel myself tenaciously clinging to the cliffside of where I am, digging my nails into the rock while the wind and the rain rips at me. This is the fire of risk, I am reminded. This is the descent into the void.
My frame of mind is not, as they say, good. I feel completely displaced here to an almost amusing extreme. I don’t know any of the streets anywhere in the areas that make up the Seattle sprawl. I have no idea what TV stations correspond to what networks. I don’t know what areas of town should be avoided. I can’t seem to find information on buses. And since I don’t know anyone, I really have nobody but myself to rely on to figure this mess out.
Alone, the rite of passage weighs on me. I have no clue as to where I am going to live and how I am going to support myself, but the gifts I have received in both renewed connections to old friends and my guides is well worth the consequences. No more do I wonder if this was the right choice. I know it was and will continue to be.
Today, I am only a little voice in a big wind, hardly noticeable in my walking. I feel like a tiny flame flickering on a hillside of delights and conscious, a whisper only upon a land of noise and shadow. I am that little fish, perhaps the same enterprising fish that swam from ocean to ocean, finding that they were the same water, now swimming through the rains of a Northwest winter.
And that, in a nutshell, is the end of the actual journey by car, but not the end of the journey itself. Oh no. That has only just begun.
Whatever comes next… “It’s all good,” as they say. “It’s all good.”