My Mobile Writing Place
I am writing.
I have been writing…more than I have written in many days. I have been writing in what may be the place I have been searching for but did not know that it existed in this form.
My “writing place” is my Prius, my silent, sea foam rolling office.
I am sitting in the driver’s seat, pushed all the way back as far as it will go on its tracks. My back is upright but comfortable with the good lumbar support Prius provides. To my right, in one of the several drink holders is a nearly finished paper cup of red wine. No, I’ve not been drinking while I drive but I do confess to drinking while I write. Not a lot, just a sip now and then. I finished the last bit of the bottle a few minutes ago, the bottle remaining from several evenings of a small glass each night.
On the instrument panel ledge lies a snack of nacho cheddar spread to accompany the sea salt sweet potato wrinkled chips. In the seat behind where a would-be passenger sits, my fluffy and warm down sleeping bag awaits. When I finish my work, I’ll crawl in that and doze soundly for several hours.
As I lie down I will look up through the back window, overwhelmed, seeing the night sky as few in the world can. At California’s Pinnacles National Park where I am camping, I’m in dark sky country and I have ample opportunity to view it. I reminisce of. being nine years old, watching the Milky Way with my mother. I recall the clear Kazakhstan skies as I drove through the steppe at two in the morning. I remember a lover and I watching the first stars of the night arrive, looking upward but listening for bears in western Oregon.
I put my foot on the brake, touch the ignition button and turn on the Prius. I will warm the driver’s seat and recharge phone and laptop batteries. Display lights tell me how much battery I have, what time it is and how many miles this car has been driven. Beyond that and my computer screen, I see no lights. I hear no noise other than the fan employed by the laptop as it charges.
Most campsites are vacant tonight with campers having returned home for school and work tomorrow. Last night I could hear cheerful albeit a bit tipsy young male campers next to me laughing. They heard the Prius beeping as I tried, less successfully than I would have liked, to back into my campsite. Tonight they and all the others at this end of the campground have gone. It is only me, the numerous deer, raccoons, possibly some mountain lions, millions of birds, squirrels and other ground folk living here. The distant condors remain in their own world. Silence speaks loudly.
I have been wanting a place where I could focus on writing, to write, to write some more, and then some more. To be safe, to be comfortable and to write. I had been thinking of where I might find such a place, one which I could afford, where I would feel good, where I could be focused and creative.
Never did I think a campsite might be the place, yet this may be what I have been looking for.
No internet connection is at the campsite, only at the visitor’s center. This means that I am not constantly checking email or messages or Facebook or any other site. True, when I read and have a question about something I have encountered, I cannot check Wikipedia but perhaps that, too, can wait just as the other sites and those who posted on them can wait.
I see much online I want to read, from the major news sites to interesting articles written by various authors. I want to respond to emails. I want to check sources for the different projects I have going or would like to start, yet without the internet, I have limited choices and those seem to be good ones.
The choices include reading, meditating, doing nothing, or writing. In the day time, another choice of walking or hiking is a worthy one but at night, all is quiet. I have only me and my keyboard. And my mind. Thank goodness for that.
As daylight arrived, I drove through the campground, confirming I was one of only about three occupied campsites and with no one at my end of the campground. The car thermometer said the temperature was the same as the previous night but for me, it felt the coldest yet. I awoke more than usual, I thought, once to hear the Prius making an unusual sound, but fell back to sleep soon.
Others joined me only in my dreams. Soon daylight arrived. Another day.
