Uncertainty

In exactly one month, I will graduate. Soon after, I will leave North Carolina.

I am eager and ready to move onto the next stage of my life—whatever that is—though I must confess that I feel a nagging and overwhelming sense of anxiety about what the future beholds.

A large part of this anxiety results from my precarious financial situation. I have $330 in the bank and—thank god—a $692 tax return coming. That gives me a little over $1,000, plus whatever I get for the van if and when I sell it.

I could care less about having money. Apart from health insurance, I can’t think of one thing I want. What I do care about, though, is my freedom. And an empty bank account will severely curb my freedom, as I’ll either have to depend on others for help or—gasp—get a job.

I am obsessed with freedom. I am a freedom extremist. I’m not trying to sound grandiloquent; I have issues. I can sense the slightest abridgment of my freedom like a princess feeling the impression of a pea under 40 featherbeds and mattresses. I feel it when I’m in romantic relationships. I feel it when I’m given a gift. I feel it when someone holds even the faintest influence over me. And when I feel it, it comes in the form of rage—a heart-thumping roiling rage in the pit of my chest that feels so overpowering I have to talk myself out of rashly fleeing and separating myself from that which controls me.

I’m not in any way bragging about any of this. Frankly, I think of it as a curse—a curse that, for one, inhibits me from maintaining relationships that might otherwise prove beneficial. But this is just the way it is.

Perhaps I feel this way because I’d once felt enslaved by my debt. And if I were to go back into debt or the workforce or reduce my freedom in any way, I would feel like a freed slave who must seek succor from an old master.

This is where my idealism clashes with reality. Without money, I will no longer be able to enjoy the degree of freedom to which I’ve become accustomed these past couple years.

What am I going to do? In all likelihood, I will not get the book deal. I’ve tried freelance writing before, and I’ve never gotten paid more than $150 for a week’s worth of work—so making a living with the pen is simply out of the question.

I could go back into rangering or try teaching—jobs that I find necessary and honorable. Yet I know that—despite the useful social service I’d be providing—I’d feel like, as biographer Alfred Lansing described Ernest Shackleton when he wasn’t in the Antarctic, “a Percheron draft horse harnessed to a child’s wagon cart.”

I feel a terrible need to do grand things—what those “grand things” are, I’m not sure. But I am beset, cursed, plagued by an unreasonable amount of ambition. I’ve been this way since my undergraduate years and I used to think that it would go away after a big trip or adventure; that a road trip or a mountain climb or hitchhike might somehow scratch my itch, calm my nerves, lull my wanderlust, granting me, finally, a peace of mind that would permit me to settle down and enjoy the simple life like any normal person. Yet, this has never been the case. I’m like a soldier who—upon completing his tour of duty—wants nothing more than to go back to the frontlines. In two months, I’ll be 28. When will it stop?

Where can one put these ambitions in this anomalous age—an age where there are no frontiers to settle, no honorable wars to fight, no continents to discover… Many—in my situation—resort to wild, extreme sports, like bungee jumping or sky diving or ice climbing. Yet those seem so sterilized to me—fleeting “rushes” that seem to function like an addict’s “hit.” What I wish for is some purpose or task or crusade to which I can dedicate my life—not just some cheap thrill.

What happens to someone when they have nowhere to put their ambition—does it just go away? Does it dwindle? Does it rot them from the inside out?

Acorn Abbey nature shots

Ah, summer’s coming, or it least it feels like summer’s coming. Things are blooming, bumble bees are buzzing, and the insects have begun to roil above standing pools of water. I, however, have–for the last several weeks–done nothing but sit on my sore ass.

I just finished the first draft of my book. (19 chapters, 65,000 words.) It’s laughably rough, and I’m not exaggerating when I insist that it could take me another six months of editing before I think it’s in presentable shape. I’ve been working double-time since the draft is due in a couple days.

Anyway, I finally got off my butt and did some work and took some pictures around the Abbey. This is a red bud tree. This one is owned by a neighbor of David’s down the hill.

The Abbey has a small creek running through the woods.

These are called “May apples.” Supposedly they will have berries come late summer.

David has a rocky cliff, good for reading and contemplating.

You can see the fishing line that I tied above the fence. Much to my chagrin, we had another hawk attack. I have no idea how it dodged the wire, but luckily no chickens were harmed.

Forest is turning green.

We got two new chicks. We were hoping that one of our three adult chickens would adopt them, but Patience and Chastity (the dark chickens) showed no interest, and Ruth (the red one) did nothing but peck one of them on its head. They have their own cage in my room.

Mr. Groundhog is back. We assume he has been hibernating in his hole since October.

We have a large garden now, so we needed to construct a fence within the fence to keep the chickens out of our crops. They’re allowed to stay on the orchard side, where they can’t do too much damage.

I also planted 25 asparaguses in this bed, which was a couple day-job since I had to dig a two foot hole, as asparagus have long roots.

Here’s Chastity, enjoying a dirt bath.

Ruth, for whatever reason, will pose for hours on end if I have my camera pointed at her. I won’t call her “photogenic,” but she seems to like having her picture taken.

Back at Duke

I came back to Duke to attend the second of two “final project seminars,” in which liberal studies students in their final semester share excerpts from their final projects.

This means that I’m back in the van—at least for a couple days. When I first got in, my first thought was the common refrain: “What the hell is that smell?” It was an awful garlicy, oniony sour smell. And it was everywhere. I figured another mouse had expired in my van’s ceiling, but after a thorough search, I gave up and laid in bed. That’s when I got a whiff of my armpit, and realized the smell wasn’t the van; it was me. (Explanation: So I don’t have to buy another bar, I’ve been rationing my usage of this one by applying deodorant only once every three days.)

After mysteries of mice and smells were solved, I realized: Oh—how I’ve missed my dear, darling Econoline! Last night, I slept in ideal vandwelling conditions—a brisk not-too-cold, not-too-warm 45 degrees, perfect for bedding beneath my unzipped sleeping bag. This morning I awoke to a squirrel running across my roof, warm breezes blowing through my windows, and songbirds frolicking in my neighboring blooming bamboo forest. (Why there’s a bamboo forest here is beyond me.) This past afternoon, I laid on my bed for three hours, doing absolutely nothing except contemplating the Milky Way and reading Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. (I’m trying to spruce up on the “memoir” genre.)

As lonely as Duke can be, it is a refreshing change of pace. Most of all, it’s just nice to be around members of the female gender. Having lived in seclusion with David, his cat, and three chickens for the past three months, I’d almost forgotten what a woman looks like. I find myself eyeing them all amorously, falling in love with strangers 50 times a day (especially now that they’ve packed away the rather unbecoming “leggings” and “Uggs” for the season).

Sadly, my vandwelling days are drawing to a close, and I will only be able to enjoy a few more nights in what has been my home for much of the last two years. Between car repairs and insurance costs, I’m running out of money. (I have only $450 left). I’ve had to cancel my cell phone, and I don’t even have enough to renew my ($34) gym membership. (Though—with the help of one of my professors—I’ve been getting in for free at the faculty gym.)

So—as much as it pains me to say it—in order to financially stay afloat I will sell the van at the end of the semester. I say that with sadness, but also with excitement. It’s time to plant myself in a bigger flowerpot—it’s time to move on.

Thoreau said he found it hard to say goodbye to his Walden cabin, but left because “it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.” I think I could live in the van quite contentedly for years to come, but I suppose that I have “more lives to live,” too. What those lives are—I’m not sure quite yet, but I look forward to a life full of new experiments and daring endeavors—each, a trail-marker, not leading me to a particular destination, but keeping me on a never-ending journey and my eyes always fixed toward the direction of my dreams.

Van or no van, I can say that I’ll always be—till the day I die—a vandweller in spirit, as I believe that a simple existence is conducive to a happy existence. And while I may come to reside in homes without wheels, I will not fritter away my days filling them with frivolous stuff.

My graduation date is May 14. That will be the conclusion of my loan-free college-degree experiment.