Aligning with the Signs

I rolled over for perhaps the half-dozenth time in as many hours. I decidedly did not have that many hours of complete sleep. The sticks under my back, covering the ground where I had collapsed in exhaustion, were the second most jarring stimuli in my experience that night preventing my sleep.

The first and foremost was the cold. It was nearly freezing. Though I was equipped with a winter jacket, several layers of clothes, a tarp spread on the ground and a 20-degree sleeping bag, the cold penetrated it all and made sleep impossible other than in brief spurts.

I was on a hillside above the mountain town of Franklin, North Carolina. Situated at approx. 2,000 feet above sea level in the end of October; my hodge-podge defenses against the cold weren’t doing the trick.

How did I end up rolling around on the ground on a hillside above an out-of-the-way mountain town in Appalachia? Excellent question dear reader… such an inquisitive mind you have.

The answer has to do with following the signs, opening myself up to the universe and life. Taking a step out into the unknown, into risk and uncertainty. Having set my heart and my intention to find the good and trust what is brought into my experience.

Now at this point in the story it may not seem that this hippy-dippy philosophy isn't working out for me so hot. But stick with me dear reader, there is more to see.

About 18 months prior to that restless night, my life took some very surreal and dramatic turns. My staid, suburban, all-American upbringing was shattered by three major occurrences.

The first was an inaugural trip of LSD with my high school stoner buddies that induced a major panic attack. That attack blossomed into 3 months of PTSD like symptoms and a radical shift in my world view.

The second was the overdose of one my former best friend at the age of 18 at the hands of opioids.

The third was the shocking death of another best friend’s mother due to alcohol poisoning and diabetic complications.

Suffice it to say, having never been to a funeral prior to these cascading events at 17, let alone being aware of the rampant and devastating effects addiction could have in life, I was overwhelmed.

I was ready to throw out nearly everything that I had been given in life and totally start anew.A core sense that so much of what I had grown up with was corrupt, distorted or destined to lead to some major catastrophe led me to question everything.

I felt encumbered by all the seeming self-serving half-truths peddled by those in positions of authority and guidance in my life. The classic formula of go to college, get a great job, get married, buy a house, be fruitful and multiple seemed to leave so many questions unanswered.

Everyone around me I knew had indeed done that. However, that formula drew up entirely short when faced with the reality that even in the most Shire-like conditions it fostered, the end result could still be virulent addiction and untimely, devastating death.

In fact these fundamental, gaping holes punched in my reality foisted upon me the concomitant questions needing to be answered.

What was the point of my life? How could I be happy? Who was I? What is health, wealth and happiness? What was evil, what was goodness? What was the point of all our lives? And so on.

While we all are faced with periods of deep reflection, at this time in my life it seemed that nothing else mattered if I couldn’t answer these questions emanating from the deepest parts of myself.

So I began to buck and slip my conformity-laced life. I dropped out of the large state school university I had been attending and went backpacking in Europe. My conservative, small-town family lobbed ominous warnings of terrorist attacks and visions of being inexplicably locked up abroad in some god-forsaken jail.

I only spent 10 days in Europe that summer, but it was amazing. The factors that cut my trip short was a lack of funds and the death of my grandfather. I returned home to attend the funeral and be with my family.

But I was energized by the incredible beauty and majesty resplendent in the world. The level of artistic endeavor present in your standard European city is captivating, and in the more exquisite ones (like Prague) it is mind-bending.

I spent another year back at the university I attended, but once I had the taste of freedom and the sublime happenstance of synchronicity, swimming in the drab stream of my previous surroundings paled in comparison.

With my youthful ego swelled to peak hubris, I dropped out the next year of that state school for good.

The plan was to become a travel blogger; combining my love of travel with my ambition for writing. Little did I understand that such a desirous lifestyle takes a tremendous amount of work, patience and cultivation of particular skills. Many of which I did not yet possess, or if I did, only in the most nascent form.

Such was the bathos of my life, that this period of ambitious intoxication was followed by the reality that people would not and could not pay me for skills and experience I did not have but could only imagine.

So, my Icarian dreams crashed down to the earth and I instead saved up for another trip to Europe by working at a local restaurant, a couple blocks away from university I had attended while my parents paid my rent.

God bless them and their patience.

Nevertheless, despite these halting and stumbling strides towards my dream I did make progress. I discovered a world of budget travel and unconventional experiences. Chief of which were meditation retreats and World Wide Opportunities in Organic Farming (or WWOOF). With another purse of coinage stored up for my next adventure, I set off to explore just these two paths.

The meditation retreat was held in the foothills of the idyllic Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts.

Based in the tradition of Vipassana, or the original meditation technique of the Buddha without the iterative mythology of other sects (as it was described). It was 21 days of silence and meditation 16 hours per day. The only punctuations between one’s ass going numb on a pillow were two meals and three group meditation sessions in the great hall. Other than that, only yourself and the endless body scans and in-out of breath in your nostrils.

It was a tremendous experience, with profound effects I am still growing to understand. Without the constant and varied stimuli that we are inundated with on a daily basis, one is left with the myriad contents of one’s psyche. Although it was quite uncomfortable at times, it is a fascinating and deeply peaceful thing to spend this time with oneself.

I was also happily surprised that it felt very normal to be with people without speaking. The group had some opportunity to chat and get to know each other prior to vowing silence for the 21 days. So we tech bros, carpenters, teachers and other assorted folk – all strangers prior to this event - practiced stillness together for three weeks.

It is amazing how much we can communicate without speaking. It is also amazing how similar people are even in strange circumstances. During many of the group sessions in the great hall people would fall asleep, snore, stretch and fart just as you might expect. In this way I came to deep accord with the fundamental simplicity and commonality of the human experience amidst the sanctity of forgoing speech.

Upon the conclusion of the retreat, stepping out into a sunny, effervescent September day. I found a sense of peace and joy saturating my body like never before. The entire world seemed to shimmer with a pulsating energy that only now I was able to attune myself to. The chattering and chirping of the insects in the large grassy field across from the retreat center felt as magnificent and alive as a stadium full of people during an Olympic opening ceremony.

There’s much more for me to say about this retreat but I’ll save that for a post dedicated to it unto itself. For the purpose of this piece, the experience left me in a state of great relaxation and eye for finding how best I could attune myself with the optimal fruition of love and potential in every moment that was presented to me.

A specific formula and outlook for life, but one that was made clear to me in those days, and something I could hold onto going forward.

And still in the mode of finding frugal and unconventional adventures, I turned my attention to finding an organic farm to volunteer on. I knew that I wanted to connect to a slower and more foundational way of life. I also knew that I wanted to explore America in an authentic and deep way. So, I looked towards the most foreign and perhaps oppositional part of the country that I could – the deep south.

I found a small family farm in northwest Georgia. They had good reviews, were close enough to Atlanta and pretty southern ladies in their profile picture (of which the mother, Darlene, was well aware). So I after a get-to-know-you conversation, I once again flung myself into the unknown. I touched down in Atlanta and was picked up by Calvin, one of the long-term stay farm hands and fellow volunteer.

The Dodson family farm was 5.5 acres of rusty-orang, loamy soil about 10 miles off of US Route 19. At the time the father, Daryl, ran the farm and made supplemental income as a handyman. Living in the custom-built house were two sons, Marcus (16) and Jesse (18) along with two daughters Grace (20) and Emily (29). There was also Cheryl (33), the stay in ‘best friend’ of Emily. And last but not least was the queen of the whole show – Darlene. The farm primarily planted Okra but also harvested pumpkins, kale, squash, peppers and had chickens.

My fellow volunteers were Calvin (25) and Sandy (24). Later we were joined by Emmanuel, a magazine writer from Germany spelunking across the US in between gigs.

Sandy was waiting to join the Navy. She was a bit awkward but pure sweetness at heart if only she couldn’t express it all that well.

Calvin was perhaps one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life (and I’ve met quite a few). He would work around 10hrs a day (when we were only required 5-6), pretty much running the farm himself. Not a word of impulse, envy or insecurity was to be found in his body. He’d offer you the shirt off his back without hesitation if you needed it.

A testament to his hardworking capacity happened one day when a category 2 tropical storm swept in off the Atlantic into our quiet corner of Georgia. It was still mid-day and our daily harvesting wasn’t done. With the storm on the horizon Daryl counseled us to come inside and wait it out until it passed.

Somewhat relieved and giddy about the sudden free time we were now presented in lieu of another muggy day picking itchy Okra, I stripped off my gloves and went to find Calvin to relay the news. It was about lunchtime when we all met in the kitchen to eat and we talked it over over farm-fresh fried eggs and biscuits.

As lunch was rounding out and it would have been our normal time to head back out into the fields, Calvin said he was going back out. I laughed at his declaration; sure he was joking. We had heard the crack and boom of rolling thunder on the horizon since mid-morning. The humidity was like an invisible blanket clinging to your skin.

Ever mindful of his effect on people, he told me he was serious and emphasized that I didn’t need to go out with him. Realizing he wasn't kidding, I laughed again and said something of the effect of “Dude you’re crazy” as he grabbed his 5-gallon bucket and gloves, heading back out to the 5-acre fields. I stood on the porch and watched him disappear into the rows of tall, lanky green Okra stalks.

Not 20 minutes later the thick, black ominous clouds pooling on the horizon broke into torrents of downpouring rain, blown about by 40 and 50-mile-an-hour gusts of wind. It came in sheets, sweeping the Okra in waves back and forth like the oscillating gyrations of those inflatable used-car characters.

Standing on the porch watching the storm wash over the landscape, I imagined this silly, pure-hearted son of a bitch picking the needle-like Okra somewhere out there by himself. I willed him with every fiber of my being to come back in. My telekinesis failed however.

Another few moments passed by and the words “fuck it” burst out of my lips to no one in particular.

I turned behind me, grabbed my buckets, my gloves and went out into the vast fields before me searching for Calvin.

Stepping out from the cover of the porch I was instantly pelted by the driving rain. I was soaked in 30 seconds. Trudging on through the slick clay I waded into the storm.

About a five-minute walk from the porch, in the far field on the other side of the road from the main one, I found Calvin diligently plucking the waxy, conical Okra into a bucket. He was surprised to see me.

“What’s up dude?!”

“Oh you know man, just out here working. I did a couple of rows.”

“Yeah, this storm sucks. The rain is fucking cold! But if you’re out here I’m not letting you do it alone man. I’ll be over in my rows.”

“Yeah, I was thinking of going inside. Alright man, I’ll see you when we're done.”

“Alright dude, sounds good.”

I trudged off back towards the house and the main field adjacent. That was my typical daily responsibility. The rain was indeed cold, shooting down from high in the atmosphere, it was probably around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I began to shiver.

I found my row where ripe Okra were bursting off the stalk and began plucking. I tossed them into my bucket mechanically. I began to laugh out loud at the absurdity of this moment, picking Okra in the middle of a tropical storm.

Only a few minutes had gone by when I felt a tap on my shoulder from behind. I spun around and there was Calvin, soaking wet and shrugging his shoulders.

“Yeah, this kinda sucks man, I’m gonna go inside.”

“Hahaha, finally! Let’s go man! It’s fucking freezing out here, you crazy motherfucker!”

We were close to the house at this point and we walked the last hundred yards or so still in the full fury of the storm. As we approached the porch Daryl was there to welcome us in. He was laughing heartily and snapped a picture of us wet dogs.

“What’re you two fools doin’ out there in the rain?! You know it’s a big ass storm right?”

We both shrugged, laughed and Calvin smiled sheepishly. I said he wanted to go and I couldn’t let him go alone.

Our little clan was inside and welcomed us in with dry towels and a hot bowl of Darlene’s famous chicken tortilla soup. We all cracked up as Calvin and I sat in huddled in our towels, sipping soup, as Daryle ribbed us on our mid-day, mundane heroics.

That’s the kind of guy Calvin was and is. Now he’s a blues player in Chicago.

The Dodson’s deserve and will get a post all unto themselves but suffice it to say for us now that it was an entirely eye-opening experience. A small selection of many highlights of which follows:

 One of the first things I found out was that the family had transitioned from a conventional Baptist church to one adhering strictly to the bible as a way of life. This was so to the degree that they followed the harvesting and holiday schedule dictated by said text.

This meant, among other things, we celebrated Sukkot. Sukkot is a Hebrew holiday where we slept outside under natural huts by a fire whilst feasting, telling stories, singing and playing games. It’s meant to ritually emulate and honor the Israelites' time in the desert of Sinai.

I was also stunned by several instances of sociocultural discrepancies.

One day when I casually went to use dryer sheets for the laundry, they were nearly smacked out of my hands and I was told I must be rich if I could use them with such a blasé attitude.

Another was finding out that the eldest daughter, Emily, listened to Alex Jones religiously and was convinced that Michele Obama was, indeed, actually a man.

A third was being offered to slit the throat of the chickens one morning, which due to my beliefs at the time, I politely declined.

At the end of my stay, we parted in the best of ways.

Of the three main categories of WWOOF volunteers according to the Dodson’s – lazy vagabonds, creeps and hardworkers – I was declared firmly in the latter. Yet I had to either get a job in the local area or move on, due to the lack of work at the end of season.

So I decided to pack my bags.

I had a friend from high school attending West Virginia University, and with the alignment of Halloween and the school’s reputation as a party school, I decided I’d make my way there.

Only, after spending some time meditating, a crazy idea dawned on me. Knowing my not so distant history, I was aware that hitchhiking used to be very common in the US not so long ago. But, perhaps for good reason, it wasn’t common at all anymore. In fact, it was and is seen in the US as a good way to get murdered.

But everything in my life since dropping out of the conventional way of doing things had shown me that if I opened myself up to trusting the universe, with the appropriate combination of clear-eyed precaution, that I could have faith in being supported and finding my way.

So I expressed my plan to hitchhike to West Virginia to the Dodson’s with the matching skepticism that I’d come to expect. Nevertheless, I was determined to take another step in my growing faith in following my own path and making my own adventures.

So when the day came for me to hit the road, Daryl took me (with some reluctance) to the town adjacent to the highway where I could thumb a ride.

Before I got out of the car, he handed me a crisp $50 bill, told me I’d been a pleasure to host and wished me the best of luck. We shook hands and I was out into the world, on my own again.

My first task was to make a sign enticing and reassuring enough to be picked up by a stranger. I found a strip of clean cardboard and began brainstorming my message.

I had happened to plop myself down on the lawn of the small townhall courtyard. One of the local sheriff’s deputies must’ve been tipped-off by a military aged male with a ruck sack and cardboard sign scrawling on the lawn, because before my trip even started, I had a middle-aged, clean-shaven man in a grey sheriffs uniform questioning me on what I was doing.

I had nothing to say other than what I had set myself on, so I told him my plan. He looked at me with a bit of shock and amazement.

I think he was wondering if I was on drugs or some kind of criminal, but I could tell that he eventually saw I was being truthful and just thought I was a bit of a fool. He sort of shook his head, told me I had to get off the town hall's property within the next few minutes and wished me luck.

The first surreal episode of my latest sojourn under my belt, I set off in earnest.

Not 5 minutes later, as I trudged down the road toward the highway junction to try my luck, a dark-green, early 2000s sedan pulled over in front of me.

I walked up to the passenger side window. A large, gelatinous, androgynous human peered out at me, asking if I needed a ride. I said in fact I did. They told me to hop in and so I did.

The gelatinous human turned out to be a man named Bob or some such generic white guy’s name. He was very concerned for me given that I was hitchhiking. I asked him how he knew I was hitching when I hadn’t been thumbing and he said the sign and the rucksack.

He told me he couldn’t bring me far – he lived in the town I was in – but he wanted to give me some stuff and he’d drop me off at the highway junction. Realizing this was the rubber meeting the road for opening myself up to the kindness of the world, I said that would be just fine.

He pulled up to his house in a modest suburban neighborhood a few minutes away and scurried into his house. He emerged moments later with a pair of mittens and a couple of packaged Smucker’s PB and J’s. I stored them in my ruck and thanked them.

We chatted the next 10 minutes or so until the highway about this and that. It’s funny the intimacy one can achieve with total strangers in transit. He couldn’t quite understand why I was doing what I was doing but his genuine concern was strangely comforting to me.

He pulled onto the highway and, miraculously in retrospect, dropped me off on the side of the 70mph road. There was chagrin on his face as he pulled away and wished me luck, but I smiled and waved, sending him on his way.

By now it was around 5pm. I had only a few hours of daylight left before I’d have to find a place for the night should I not get a ride. And good God, did it get close to that.

I spent the next two and half hours fruitlessly flashing my sign and thumbing at countless passers-by. My sign read a God-themed quote on the A side and a “Go Dawgs” on the B in a failed attempt to appeal to my audience. Hundreds of plump, Caucasian Southerners passed me by as the hours ticked away. Most of them hardly even looked at me.

Dusk began to fall. I started to feel disheartened and began running the scenarios in my mind of where I would crash for the night – in the woods with my hammock or walking to the nearest Motel 8.

But just as the sun was beginning to sink beyond the horizon, along with the hope for my experiment in openness, wouldn’t you know it – a rusty red van appeared in a flash - pulling over onto the shoulder a dozen yards in front of me.

All the sudden, it was real.

Jesus Christ, this is the van I get murdered in. I had a pocket knife on me and I snapped a picture of the license plate, quickly texting it to my friend in Morgantown. I ran over what I would do if I was attacked in my mind. Clear-eyed precautions.

I approached the passenger side window. A brown-skinned, middle-aged, man peered out at me.

“Looking for a ride?”

“Yeah!”

“Where ya going?”

“West Virginia! Morgantown…”

“We’re going to North Carolina, we can take you there.”

“Ok…sounds good!”

“Hop in!”

In a rush of adrenaline, the door opened and I was ushered into the cavernous van. I passed by two 20-something males and sat in the backseat. I settled in and took off my ruck as the van picked up speed and merged back into traffic. A few moments of uncomfortable, uncertain silence passed. Then I broached the first question that popped into my head.

“Are you guy Indians?”

The driver shouted back to me:

“Either that or we’re Mexicans!”

We all burst into laughter and the ice was broken. We started trading stories and getting to know each other.

The uncle was in his mid-40s. he had served in the Army in the 80s before getting out and becoming a drug runner. He’d go down on his Harley from the Rez in North Carolina to Miami and back. He told me he used to pick up hitchhikers all the time, the only toll being “Grass or ass”.

The other two were boyfriends, one of them being the uncle’s nephew. Both in their mid-20s, regretfully I don’t remember their names. But one was the youngest in the world still able to speak Cherokee fluently. He taught at the Rez and was also employed at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, during the tourist season. They were both kind and friendly.

They were all on the way back from a family vacation to Florida, where they had spent the time hanging out and weaving dream catchers. They gave me one as a token of good luck and to help this poor, wandering white-boy out.

We drove another couple hours through northern Georgia and up into the Smokey Mountains. By the time we reached Franklin, it was about 10:30 at night.

The town sits at a Y between highways, one going to the Rez they were headed and the other going further northwest towards Asheville. That’s where we parted. We wished each other luck and I tumbled out of the van, plunked down in this small mountain town.

The only thing open near the highway was a 24-hr Denny’s. I plopped down in one of the booths, waited on by one of the ubiquitously hospitable southern ladies who called me ‘Honey’ and ‘Baby’ in every exchange without fail.

I was exhausted and a bit shell-shocked. I don’t even know if it occurred to me to try and get a hotel. I was still committed to going all the way in putting my metal and my gear to the test.

So after walking around the town, which was actually fairly sprawling, I found nowhere suitable to crash other than a mostly clear hillside above the town park. It was on the downward side of a wooded slope comprising someone’s backyard.

It's here I spread out my tarp, bundled myself up in all my accoutrement (including the mittens given to me by Bob) and collapsed on the ground into a fitful, freezing sleep.

And so this story has unspooled into a longer tale than I was expecting, I’ll cut it off here for now. We’ll pick it up again soon.

Thank you for reading and much love.