waiting

This morning I had a very strange dream.  I was on a barge that a close friend of mine owned, and we were about to haul a shipment of chairs down the river.  My friend piloted the barge, and I took charge of handling the crew, or rather, the guests; they weren't much crew at all.  Early in the morning, before we set off, two guests arrived, acquaintances, and my hand brushed itself across one of their chests while I was explaining how the ship would run.  This did not go down well, and doubt was cast upon my ability to be first mate.  Other guests milled in and arranged themselves on a sunny deck.  I established a new policy: in order to speak to the captain, the pilot, guests had to ask for permission to speak.  Then we set off down the beautiful, snakey river.  

I woke from my dream and went outside to view my garden.  My tomatoes have been bothering me lately.  I am waiting for them to ripen so I can turn them into sauce.  The trouble is that they don't all ripen simultaneously.  They stagger-ripen.  I am not in charge of this ship.  There are ways to "hasten" ripening, but it's not ripe tomatoes so much that I am waiting on; it's this trip to New Mexico that I have been plugging away at, calling the Oilchanges X-Country Road and Farm Adventure.  I am doing all kinds of waiting lately.  

 
I am waiting on two thousand dollars.  As of this morning, we are at $950.  That's very good.  (Thank you.)  Between me and you, this fun(d) drive has done all sorts of things to my psyche, to my family, my friends, my work, and even my garden.  The support I have been shown has forced me, in the space of one week, to stop considering myself an amateur.  The support forced me out into the open, a place where I am not entirely comfortable. I now must be able to deliver the goods, I must now be able to successfully galvanize the crew and get those goods downstream.  Yesterday I had my way with the garden.  The flowers and the tomatoes grew so much, I could no longer work around them.  I'd been "letting my garden go" because, truthfully, it was vanishing with each donation, with each indication that my departure is indeed drawing near.  I am more afraid of this trip than I know.  

Tomatoes on the left, flowers on the right: this is the space that I crawled through, a couple posts ago, in The Marigold Murders.  If you flip back to that video, you'll see for yourself that it was choked with weeds and overspilling plants.  I'd let it go; all my thoughts trained on this fun(d) drive and on my big trip, I'd simply given up on my garden.  But that won't do.  I am still here.  I am a little tired, but I am running the Oilchanges X-Country Road and Farm Adventure to the end, and I am still gonna make a boatload of tomato sauce.  We are nearly half-way to our goal of $2000, and we have not given up.  We can't.  I can't.  Two days ago it dawned on me that, because of this X-Country Adventure, I will be unemployed and without pay for four months: September through December.  Scary.  Exciting.  I thank you for your support.  Please click the gas can to get on board.  Yrs, 


Jono