Between Wyomings: My God and an iPod on the Open Road

Read an Excerpt

BETWEEN WYOMINGS

Thomas Nelson

Chapter One

BETWEEN DAWN AND DUSK 2

IDAHO, I DON'T KNOW, I THINK I'LL TAKE MY BANANAS AND GO 4

Between Dawn and Dusk

I seem to be working and thinking. But I am really running through a meadow. I seem to be a canyon with love and happiness filling me. But I am really a mountain reaching up for more. I seem to be a sparkling smooth running brook cool and refreshing. But I'm really dawn and dusk joined together to make the stars come out. I seem to be like the moon floating along lazy like. But really I am a cricket trying not to be eaten tonight.

It's California, and it's 2009.

I have carried this poem with me since I was nine years old. The author, a twelve-year-old Navajo Indian lad, remains anonymous.

I never knew why, but I've always had a deep sense that someday I would be required to penetrate its meaning.

I examine the piece of paper, noticing for the first time that I have never trimmed its edges. As a young boy I had simply torn it out of a magazine and put it in my first official billfold. This sensitive essay has been wadded, stuffed, and beaten up over the years to the point that it is on the verge of disintegrating. As I hold it in my cupped hands, I raise it to my eyes almost in reverence and realize it is the single touchable constant in my life. It also looks a lot like how I feel at this moment-ragged around the edges.

As I read it I am once again taken back in time to the feeling I would get in my youth when a Camas prairie rainstorm appeared on the distant Idaho horizon. I remember a certain smell that preceded its moving reality into my life. I hadn't felt the drops yet, and didn't know whether I was going to be drenched or refreshed, but that was never the point. Something was coming my way both familiar and mysterious, and it possessed the sweet dichotomy of being both welcome and threatening in its unknown offering.

This native poem is a long-ago kind of thing, but it now tells me that the ending time of my life is crowding the beginnings of my days, and I am left with a long space in between that needs definition. I now realize that I have spent my whole life peering over a hazy edge, an ethereal inch away from understanding what was happening, what had just happened, what was going to happen next, and now-most important-what the sum of it all had been about.

In looking back I have this sense I stumbled through my life with the music of my circumstances blaring so loudly that I missed the meaning of the lyrics. The years flew by at such a cacophonic clip that a lot of incredible things happened where I didn't take the time to perceive the enchantment. It was like I had gone from conception to coda with no verse, chorus, or bridge in between. When I say this I am not talking about the people, places, and performances I experienced during those fascinating decades in the guts and glee of the entertainment industry-they are what they were, and there is a definitive edge that I can recapture.

The part that is less discernible is where I was in all this as it was going down.

Idaho, I Don't Know, I Think I'll Take My Bananas and Go

It's Idaho, and it's 1955.

I didn't like where I grew up, that small, smelly town in northern Idaho. I believe this perception had more to do with me than the town. Lewiston wasn't always smelly. In fact, when we first moved there it smelled downright nice. When I was thirteen years old, a pulp mill joined the sawmill on the river. The sweet scent of fresh-cut white pine was replaced by a yellow, rotten, eggish aromatic mist that filled the sky and eventually found refuge inside our cars, clothes, homes, and senses.

It is strange to write something that would appear unfavorable about my hometown because all that I am today seems to have come out of that place. Growing up, I hated school, and my hormones hurt. I didn't seem to belong, and yet it was my world and nothing was more important. Don't get me wrong-I had everything that goes with the freedom of youth and was in the heat of the fray at all times. It's just that those teen years are tough years for anyone at any time and in any place. It was especially confusing to me because I had this feeling that I belonged somewhere else. Somehow I made it work, growing up there in the Northwest, but mentally I felt like nothing fit-I couldn't get up to speed without something always flapping in the breeze.

I would be walking down a dusty Nez Perce county road, looking for Hollywood and Vine. I had the sound of cowboys and dirt in my ears, and what I really wanted was to rock out with the Tinseltown sun in my starglazed eyes. I ate taters three times a day, and I longed for vichyssoise even though I had no idea it was just cold potato soup. I liked the departure counter at the railway station better than I liked the local gas station. I liked the paved road out of town better than I liked the dirt lane that led to my house. I liked the music on the radio station from far away much better than I liked the songs of my church choir. I liked what I wanted ... I liked what I didn't have ... I liked elsewhere.

They called that remote area in the Idaho panhandle the "Banana Belt"-supposedly because of the reasonably moderate weather we experienced, considering we were only 220 miles south of the Canadian border. I find it ironic that anyplace that could have 10-degree-below weather in the winter could be called anything suggesting bananas. I guess it was a matter of comparison at best. I didn't like the cold, I didn't think the food was that great, and I wanted to talk like the people I would listen to on the radio programs that emanated from romantic sounding places like Van Nuys, California. I was petrified at the possibility that I would someday find myself old and still living far away from these exciting locations.

I turned seventeen, graduated from high school, and joined the navy just so I could get out of town. I heard their boot camp was in San Diego, California, and that meant I was going to be living only a hundred or so miles from LA and Hollywood.

I now realize it has always been about the miles-about the spaces, the dreams, the people, and the distances in between.

Therefore here's my decision (kind of a cowboy way of going about things): I need a long period of separation from the stuff around me. I need a relative quiet space to reflect and gather some sense of order. Because I spent most of my life "on the road," as is the case with most people in the entertainment business, I have decided that in order to be comfortable in sorting things out, I need a sense of movement beneath me.

So, like the Lone Ranger, I, too, shall become a contradiction in terms and go about my travels not alone. My Tonto will be my wife, Connie, who for over two decades has been my faithful companion in life and adventure. The main difference between us and the cowboy and his Indian sidekick is that we shall sleep together.

For some odd reason I am avoiding thinking through this too clearly. Thinking is what you have to do to deal with the "man things." This is a "God thing." As I find my success with man lessening, I find my faith in God increasing. I find I am being separated from fun things and becoming immersed in joyful things-His goodness, mercy, and unfailing love. With these soul goodies, plus a mixed bag of T-shirts, reversible sweats, two pairs of blue jeans, a white shirt, my favorite tie, and an all-purpose suit for the churches on the way, I am prepared to head out onto the back roads in search of something. Connie and I have spent weeks loading up our personal iPods with our favorite music, anticipating that they will provide needed separation from each other in the months ahead. Hers is green to match her eyes-mine is black.

I am expecting nothing and looking forward to everything in between.

I am becoming an emotional martini-stirred but not shaken.

Join me at that midpoint between the mind and the heart, and wear heavy shoes, because we are going to have to step over a lot of junk.

Let's not define things too clearly or they will lose their mystery and magic. When I was a child, they turned the lights up in the theater after the movie, and the fantasy was blown away when my eyes adjusted to the light and I saw the sticky floor, torn seatbacks, and scuffed walls. Let's not do that. Let's keep the lights down low and the music cranked up.

Poetically and romantically I know I need to give my van an identity. (I don't want to go "through the desert on a van with no name.") I think about it for a while and decide that maybe Moses would be a good name. Yeah, I like that. Moses is the perfect name because together in faith we will head out across this beautiful land of promise I was blessed to be born in, and hopefully I'll end up in a better place.

It's time to go.

If it looks like I am getting smaller, it's because I'm leavin'!

Chapter Two

TOWARD TOMALES 8

EIGHT MILES HIGH 12

OUTWARD BOUND 20

A SLATHERING OF ANGELS 23

MONTEREY POP FESTIVAL 26

BETWEEN THE ROCK AND MY HEART PLACE 32

CATCH A STONE PONEY 36

WAFTING On WATER 38

PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES 40

GOD IN AB MINOR 44

Toward Tomales

I drive out of our little town of Bodega Bay on the northern California coast to the cliffs at Bodega Head and say good-bye to memories of the shattering sunsets and visions of the migrating whales. I then direct my faltering momentum up the coast a couple of miles and climb the steep Coleman Valley Road to a favorite prayer spot on the hillside.

Once there, I sit on an ancient Pomo Indian rock outcropping. From that magnificent vantage point, I gaze out at the miles of rugged coastline that holds tight to the turbulent shores of the Pacific Ocean. After a long look, a relentless wind drives me away from this familiar perch and I head back to town. As I drive through this odd fishing village, I can't look at the handful of stores and shops that line Coast Highway One. I don't want to see the people who have filled my life for almost a decade outlined in the windows. I drive to the south end of town where I take one last walk on Doran Beach. I want one final kneel on my knees into the timeless sand that has cradled my hurt, confessions, and jubilation for a million amazing moments of silent meditation. After telling the sea, the seals, and the seabirds that I'm leaving, I make my way to the van that will carry me away from where I thought God had placed me for good.

As I pull away from the dunes, I have that same sense of leaving home that I did when I was seventeen. Once again I find myself excited and filled with rapturous anticipation. Back then I was going away-now I have a feeling that not only am I going away, but that in some odd way I am coming back. To what, I don't know.

I sense this unexpected euphoria may have something to do with the half century that has passed between these two events. Back then I didn't know any better, which had an inherent freedom in its naiveté. Now it is better that I don't know what lies ahead so I won't become imprisoned by the disenchantment of past misadventures. If I didn't trust God with all my being, I think the uncertainty of what lies ahead would have me freaking out right now. But this is a heart tug, not a mind-set. The feeling of adventure is stirring inside so loud I can't hear myself think. I know it may sound like I am being forced from these vibrant shores, but that's not what it is-this feeling I have borders on being a "now or never" situation. It was Christmas 1996 when I was diagnosed with a rare, incurable cancer and given the news that I had one to three years to live. I was also informed that because it was so rare, there was currently no research on it, leaving me with little room for hope. I figure now, because it is over a decade later, I have used up more than most of those years, so maybe I will just cop out to that old news as my current reason for this journey.

As I drive back toward town, I look out the window and realize deep down that the distance between the ocean-hugging Highway One and the pounding surf yards away is honestly about as far away from that coastline as I ever want to be. But at the same time there is an adventure blowing in the wind that rushes by the window on the inland side of Moses. Trusting in the long friendship I have with this incredible place, I feel a sense of security in knowing that it will always be right here for me when I come back. To put an honorable handshake to the commitment I am making to this puzzling excursion, I stick my arm out the window and clasp the wind in my palm, holding on to it all the way into town.

Suddenly the pieces of this inner juggling fall to the ground, and it is at this moment I truly understand what is happening. My reason for leaving all this serenity is very much like leaving home for the first time. I remember how easy it would have been to stay there, but I remember even more clearly the desire to explore other worlds. I believe that man has three stages in life: (1) boy, (2) man, and (3) boy. I have the same feeling I did as a young man, drinking wildly from a strange maniacal brew of trepidation and anticipation. I need to leave another safe harbor because I know something is out there to discover. It has been many years since I was "out there," and I have forgotten what the allure was. As I get older I have a hard time remembering all those exciting things I discovered in my early ramblings. Now I am being called forth not for discovery, but for rediscovery.

I pull up to the local grocery store, get out, and gallantly hold the door open for my wife, Connie. She has just gathered some last-minute supplies for the maiden portion of our journey. I shut her door, run around to my side, and jump in. We turn away from the bay, heading south toward the tiny town of Tomales and Tomales Bay beyond. Connie has dropped her seat back a bit and is resting her head on the headrest with her eyes closed. She could be sleeping by the way she is sitting there, but I get the sense she is simply hanging on. I believe leaving is different for a woman who has that inborn sense of nesting.

We leave the ocean behind for a while and head south, retracing a favorite, familiar trail. Suddenly the reality of this move sets in for both of us in the silence. We have just committed to spending the next year roaming the highways and back roads of our homeland. I can see our entire dwelling in the rearview mirror-it is an odd sensation, knowing we have committed the next few months to living in a van in a space smaller than the bathroom of the house we just left. I retreat inside my thoughts for these first few miles. Connie knows me well enough by now to instinctively understand when I have mentally left the planet. Although I can't imagine two people being any closer than we already are, I have a premonition that we are really going to get to know each other over the next few months and miles.

It's not long before we are skirting the edges of Tomales Bay. Everything gets incredibly serene in this place that was created by monstrous upheaval and the thunderous watery intrusion that opened the land into a bay. You can see it on the California map just north of San Francisco. It looks like God fashioned the bay by pulling a piece of the Pacific Coast away from the continent to make a crack where the waters could come in. Out of habit we roll down the windows when we glide through the eucalyptus groves that gather at sheltered spots along the water's edge. Sea air and tree scents intermingle, and for the moment, everything is OK.

After barely an hour we are driving down the main street in a "stuck in the '60s" town called Point Reyes Station. Beads and crystals fill the shop windows, while faded tie-dyed T-shirts and bell-bottom trousers cling to the perpetually long-hair hippydom inhabitants who hang about the comfortable streets. We both came out of this era, so we venture ahead without stopping, for fear we may forget our quest if we get too involved in what we see. Simultaneously we look over at each other, place our thumb and index finger against our lips, and make a loud sucking sound like we were taking a hit from a joint. We do this the full length of the main street, rolling our eyes back at each other and leaning out the window with our long exhales.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from BETWEEN WYOMINGS by Ken Mansfield Copyright © 2009 by Ken Mansfield. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---