...these are the times that try men's souls... no, no, no, that's not write. ummm, how 'bout ...it was the best of times, it was the worst of times... nah, that's not write either.

ok, here's the skinny: my sister flew to the east coast to drive across the country with me to the west coast. so we decided to let you go with us... so to speak, in a manner of speaking, that is. so you can follow us on our adventure...;-)

-- by solaz

November 8

i wake at 3am; laze until 3:30am. ok, so i should go see my daughter, cherie this morning before she leaves for work at the hospital. she is feeling better; a little more settled about my leaving; anxious to make her own plans to join me.

my sister, marti prays over lauren and me as we pull out of her driveway to begin our journey. she and i share tears together. we have loved each other forever, it seems.

we head out south to waldorf, maryland. i have to see my son john and my grandsons johnny and danny one more time. i bring dinosaurs. i steal many hugs and kisses.

it is difficult to pass from one era in your life to another. i am sailing through a time warp in an invisible vehicle of transendental dimensions into my "next life." and i miss my children already.

-- by lauren

November 8

In my mind, we left on Saturday morning, arms and red hair waving from our sapphire blue convertible mustang. The sun smiled warmly as we started on our grand adventure...a three week drive from Maryland to California via Virgina, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

In reality, we left Sunday afternoon, after a frantic week of packing and last minute errands. We were utterly exhausted, far too tired to wave our arms. It was cold and grey. It rained. We kept the top up and slipped out of town into the grey horizon.

---

November 9

we backtrack a bit, to see williamsburg, then jamestown. i am struck by the hardship i can feel here. we press on to norfolk.

all afternoon i can feel the Holy Spirit buzzing over my skin; humming in my blood. like walking into a good cook's baking kitchen, with pies on the cooling rack and a roast in the oven, i could feel His holiness wrap around me. it took too long for me to become strong... i think this to myself. but He always says, it took just long enough.

we pass an hour in a prayer service at the bruton espicopal church in colonial williamsburg --one of those places taht stirs romantic notions of reverence seldom a reality in the 1600s and 1700s. but didn't these united states begin yearning for religeous freedom? and we are still searching for Him today.

---

November 9

We spent the day in colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown. It's so touristy that it's difficult to tell the authentic from the replica. We were invited to a prayer service in an almost 300 year old church. It gave me a warmly reassuring sense of continuity in the Faith to pray in the same place as the founders of our nation.

---

November 10

we wander down the outter banks and stop at kittyhawk. i love to wander over the place where someone's imagination carried them to unimaginable places, and broke out unimaginable realities from unimaginable dreams.

---






November 11

ocracoke --how i love you. so impossible to think i'll never see you again... blackbeard's haunt. being the very end of the outter banks and only available by ferry, you are by far the best and fairest of them all. how do i say goodbye?

we sleep in the exquisite quaintness of the bluff shoals, and dine at the pelican; which is busier than they expected so sheri, a customer tonight, gets up to seat people, and take orders, finishing her cold dinner in bits and pieces. next day, we pack up; i get coffee and say goodbye to sheri; i don't say i won't be back --maybe; maybe one day i'll come back; to stay more than a day, and write more than these few words. so we pick up a few testimonies of local artists, beautiful things we cannot live without.

November 10

We drove along the North Carolina Outer Banks today. We saw where the Wright Brothers first flew. The flight took about 12 seconds. It doesn't take much longer than that to walk the same distance...

We spent the night on Ocracoke Island. This is a marvelously peaceful place. Ollie is the self-appointed island ambassador. He is a large orange and white tabby cat who spends his time escorting inn guests to their rooms and eating bits of fish and shrimp at local resaurants. He took a special interest in us, hopping into our car to help us pull out suitcases and walking us across the street to the restaurant, purring enthusiastically the whole while.

---

this is one of those rare, marvelous places artists love to run away to, hide out --and make their art... paint, pot, write, etc. i could write beautiful words here... but He is drawing me away --away to somewhere else. tell me, i ask Him, have You arranged an artist's lair for me? for i am so afraid my heart will starve.

---

November 12

it started well enough, this day-before-my-birthday day. at somewhere not far from charleston, south carolina, near myrtle beach, we drive all over creation (it seems) looking for the house of blues which promises the best blues around; and since blues (and good jazz) are close to my heart --we look for this place for 2 hours only to find them closed for a private function.

this disappointment, and a voice of dysfunction bleeding through the air into my ear, causes trepidation to rattle my bones and my courage. then rich's voice and poetry breaks me to tears --the final blow --a poet i love so profoundly, so dearly and he lives with my Father in a place i am not permitted to go---yet.

we stop for gas and meet buck and bubba who flirt as only good ol' sutherrn boyz can. they lead us to a great seafood restaurant and as they leave, bless us as angels. you would not believe the enormous plate of crab legs, nor how fat and fresh the meal that overlooked the waterman's trawlers. we eat too much.

about 8:30pm we crash into an endlessly long semi-flatbed truck, sitting lengthwise across both lanes, the median, and the shoulder. the car smokes instantly and fire spurts up in front of me. the airbags deploy. we grab some stuff and run. a woman on the side of the road is shouting at us to run further away.

i am in a dream someone else is having. i stand and watch everything i have with me burn... all the notes, books and research for my books; the hand written drafts, character sketches, plot structures, letters, clothes, etc., etc.

the police take us to an amenity-mean motel --the last room available in beaufort, south carolina because tomorrow is graduation day for all the marines at paris island --lucky us.

---

November 12

Myrtle Beach is a surreal place. It's one of these stringy coastal communities...twelve miles long and four blocks wide. There are discount beachwear stores called Eagle or Wings every few blocks. There are clusters of seafood buffets on almost every block. And there are miniature golf courses every few blocks. So the end effect is that it seems like you are driving the same mile over and over again, like and endless loop...and then abruptly it ends, leaving you in the midst of the South Carolina countryside.

Air bags are yellow. I know this because I saw one tonight...We were headed for Savannah on Highway 17. It was a dark, moonless night. We didn't see the lightless, reflectorless flatbed tractor-trailer parked(!?!) across the median strip, both lanes of highway and the shoulder until it was way too late to stop. With no where else to go, our pretty blue car slid under the trailer, and there we were with yellow airbags in our laps. Then the engine caught fire. We got out and started pulling bags and whatever we could reach out of the flaming car. Bystanders and officials were amazed. By the grace of God alone, we walked away from an accident that should have killed us.

November 13

today is my birthday. i am homeless, penniless, possessionless. i have nothing. i have no one. there is no one i can turn to for those tiny, powerful words: "it's ok; everything will be ok." no one to hold me so i can cry out the shock of the insanity of crashing into a truck parked across a highway. no one to kiss my cheek and soothe away my tears with gentle sshhhhing.

i can barely talk. words are alien morsels, too tough and dry for my mouth. i sleep. i walk to a store and buy bubble bath. i sleep. my beloved pastor calls. i cry. i stumble like a blind, mad woman over the simple words. i cannot think or talk beyond: "help me, please help me." he is so gentle, so kind. his voice spreads warm protective love over me. he prays for me.

late, late at night, i call my most beloved brother. our spirits have been twinned for more than 15 years. he says "i have to tell you something i couldn't say at your farewell party-- God is changing your life now. it will be a new era; old things must pass. it's as if your life were beginning anew." i tell him airbags are yellow... with white powder.

we know and love each other so dearly that he knows exactly what i mean. so it is that i can cry into a cold, hard phone, into my dear brother's ear and though we are hundreds of miles apart, in the tenderness of his sighs and the gentle breathing of my name from his lips, i know i am not alone and that i am loved and that it is ok to cry and give voice and words, finally, to the terror of the endlessly repeating video in my head: suddenly seeing a lightless, reflectorless, endless truck parked horizontally across both lanes, the median and the shoulder; and how my heart clawed up through my throat, gagging me because there was no where to turn to avoid hitting the truck; and how invisible, imagined vermin hacked out my guts as i knew we would crash into the flatbed of the truck; and how the smoke-monsters raked my eyes and nose and throat as i pushed and yelled at my sister to "get out! the car is on fire! it will explode... get out now!"

i choke out the hazy-dreamlike rhapsody of hysteria: my 2-minutes-past-crisis hysteria of clever, witty cracks and laughter.

how life-infusing, how revitalizing to be loved and accepted unconditionally. in my heart-broken, teeth-chattering, shell-shocked moment of need he loved me. he gave me comfort. he gave me mercy and grace-- he was Christ to me. he didn't hurry me off the phone; he didn't give me vague, cliched responses; he didn't tell me to read scripture; he didn't say "well, with God, all things work together for good..." he was not afraid to say: i love you.

---

November 14

insurance companies are almost as painful to deal with as childbirth. instinctively i know these are intelligent people but my brain just cannot grasp that they insist on being obtuse and merciless. it takes us all day to rent a car one way to pick up another rental car to drive one way out of the state.

i drive down route 17 south; again. i pass the place where my beautiful 1996 sapphire blue mustang convertible became toast. all i see that remains are the long tire streaks that end in a rather smallish black splotch at the edge of the intersecting country road. i keep driving of course, without so much as a wince. i have a different perspective today. i grew again-- a kinda big gulp for just 24 or so hours and 2 nights of restless, on-again/off-again sleep.

by 8pm we are checking into a best western in savannah, georgia. our room is walking distance to the river, and skipping distance to the grand openning of a new rock club... lucky us!?

---

we now have a silver bonneville
to finish our westward journey.

next installment