Love Beside the Road

I wake before the house does, into the quiet work of creating myself. The house isn’t mine. Neither is the car in the garage, or the dog curled at the foot of the bed. For three weeks I’ve been caretaking this place, one more chapter in my nomad, minimalist experiment.

A while ago I picked up a practice from Matthew Dicks and his wonderful book Storyworthy. Each night, I jot down a few words about the story I would tell from the day. What was its most story-worthy moment? It’s training. It teaches me to notice my life the way a storyteller does.

Lately, some nights, I come up empty. My days are quiet. I write. I meet with clients and business partners on a screen. Then I write some more.

This morning, something like loneliness sits beside me as I open my journal.

My life is so solo lately, I write. I don’t know what stories I would tell from the day.

I stay with that for a while. Then I turn to another practice I’m working with, from The Way of Mastery. It suggests living with one statement every day for a week and seeing what comes up. This week’s statement is waiting for me:

It is not possible for you to be without love.

I write with it and let it work on me. A few great insights come. The words stay close as I close the journal.

Then I pull a tarot card. The Eight of Cups, called Indolence in my deck. Stagnant water. Lotus flowers that aren’t getting fed.

I know that water. Some of what used to nourish me doesn’t anymore. Maybe it only ever felt like nourishment. I’m in a fallow season, creating a new tribe, learning new ways to be fed.

Something in my chest unclenches. Okay. I can be in this fallow season. That’s okay.

The peace of that carries me through the day.

The car is a hybrid, so efficient that in three weeks of driving somewhere every day, I’ve barely thought about gas. Two days ago, coming back from the mountain, the gauge dipped low. I noticed. Then I drove to morning yoga and home again, twice, and never once thought to stop.

In the evening, I load the dog into the car to go walk by the river. On the way, the car goes quiet and rolls to a stop on the side of the road.

I climb out, and the first words out of my mouth surprise me a little.

“Okay, this is awesome. This is happening for a reason.”

Then, more practically: “All right. I guess I’ll walk to the gas station.”

Underneath both, a feeling I can’t argue with. It’s totally good. This is perfect.

At the gas station I buy a cheap plastic can and fill it with a gallon. I carry it back and pour it in.

The car won’t start.

So I walk the dog toward the yoga center. A chiropractic office is still open, and the woman at the desk kindly lets me use their Wi-Fi. A little research tells me what I didn’t want to know. The car may need four or five gallons before it registers enough fuel to start.

One gallon at a time. On foot. With a dog.

A little while later, I stop and pray. I’ve been thinking of Yogananda and The Autobiography of a Yogi lately, how he and his gurus are ever swimming in the oneness of divinity. I am remembering that in my life too.

Let’s ask God for assistance here. Let me know why this is happening, and what miracle it leads to.

I settle the dog back in the car and walk to the gas station again. The kid behind the counter takes my problem on as his own. He tries hard, offering one idea after another. I leave with a second gallon and a warm feeling about him.

Halfway back, it occurs to me that a ride would make this a lot faster. It’ll be dark out soon. I stick out my thumb as I walk.

An old VW bus pulls onto the shoulder ahead of me. A man is driving. A woman leans toward the open passenger window.

“Hey, you go to Groove Yoga, right?”

“Oh yeah. I have been.”

“I taught you a class the other day.”

She points across to the driver. “This is Bryce over here.”

I look past her, and there he is.

“Oh yeah, I know Bryce. I’ve seen him a hundred times.”

We’ve practiced side by side more than once. I noticed him the first time. Late fifties, shaved head, beard, a lot of tattoos. A focused, devoted energy, and yet humble and contained. You can see the effort he has poured into his practice. He’s often in the very front row. So am I. It helps me focus. Most people avoid the front row. Bryce and I keep ending up there, side by side, on purpose.

They drive me back to the car with my second gallon and wait while I pour it in.

It still won’t start.

Bryce holds out his hand. “Here. Give me the can.”

Off he drives. A little while later he’s back with two full cans. He filled mine, then bought another empty one and filled that too. He says he can use it on the ranch. He pours both in himself. He knows those funky spouts on the cheap cans far better than I do.

I turn the key again.

The dashboard lights up. The car is alive.

We stand there beside the road and talk. Bryce is caretaking a ranch. He was a hairdresser for twenty years. He found yoga eight years ago, and he’s loving this new work. I tell him I’m a nomad, caretaking a home. The car isn’t mine. The dog isn’t either. Two caretakers, meeting on the roadside.

As we get ready to go, I ask for his contact info.

“I might, when another way comes to mind, like to thank you.”

Somewhere in all of it, I learn the woman’s name. Allison.

Bryce shakes his head. “Yeah, it’s funny. We were going to leave earlier, yet we were delayed. That was the timing that allowed us to see you.”

“Well, what happened for me is that as soon as I got out of the car, I said, ‘Okay, this is awesome. This is happening for a reason.’”

I pause, then I tell him more.

“Full disclosure. I was praying for a beautiful solution, and I knew it was going to come in a miraculous, cool way.”

Maybe, I tell them, the divine saw fit to use them in my support.

Bryce smiles. “Well, we got just as much benefit. Just in a reciprocal way.”

That night, I sit down with my journal for the story practice.

I never made it to the river. I walked beside the road instead, and the dog didn’t seem to mind. I think of the woman at the chiropractic office and her Wi-Fi. The kid at the gas station, trying so hard. Allison, who recognized me before I recognized her. Bryce, pouring gas into a car that isn’t mine.

This morning I saw lotus flowers going hungry in still water. Tonight I count the people who fed me.

The page fills fast.

It is not possible for you to be without love.