Behind the wheel of my Ford Ranger XLT pickup, and with the sun moments from peaking over the horizon behind me, I was westward bound on Interstate 40 and a few miles from the Oklahoma/Texas border. I'd spent a good portion of the night before packing the truck and arranging the cab - busy work left for the last minute, being the perennial procrastinator that I am. I was operating on less sleep than I would have liked, but I'd been determined to get on the road before dawn because that's when all road trips should begin. Before dawn, in the dark, when the excitement of the trip is contained neatly within the walls of darkness ready to pop out like a jack-in-the-box at the first light of day, which has to be, just has to be on the road. But, as the first rays of light raced over the horizon to catch me on my trek westward, my excitement turned to pure, stone-cold fear.
Flashback to nearly 20 years earlier, another westward bound trek. This was to Phoenix where I was to join a group of total strangers in a household whose purpose was to form a theatre - a grand experiment with lofty goals which had me heading back eastward in under three months. But that's another story. The relevant point is that this first trip westward was made with little trepidation at being on the road alone - I had my CB and made friends with truckers and others on the way and we looked out for each other. It was fun - I was on a new adventure, changing my life, opening a new chapter, pursuing a dream.
So here I am, nearly 20 years later, on the road again and scared nearly out of my wits. I wrestled with the anxiety and struggled to push all irrationality out of the way. But the nagging little voices in my head were picking at me. "What do you think you are doing, a woman alone, traveling cross country to California? What if the truck breaks down? What if you have an accident? What if you get really sick? What if you... What if you... What if you....???" melded into the rhythm of the tires on the road. Somewhere in there I'd become A Responsible Adult™ and as a result, it seems, I'd become cautious. Oh, so cautious. The fear of the unknown was threatening to keep me homebound and I had to do something about it.
And so, pushing caution aside, I planned a trip to California to visit a friend who had recently moved there. I could write a book as to the tectonic shift that trip had in the direction of my inner life, but that's another story, as well. Returning to that moment of unadulterated fear, it nearly had me turning the truck around and heading home, but I won my battle over it as I looked in the rear-view mirror at the sun-rise behind me. I slipped Peter Gabriel into the CD player and let him wash away the last vestiges of it, finally releasing the excitement of being on the road and starting a new adventure. I again made friends on my trusty CB, caravanning across the mountains, and reminding the more colorful truckers that they had wives, mothers, sisters and daughters...ahem. Blue Ranger, as I came to be known, zipped confidently across the desert, up and down LA and Longbeach, back across the desert, spontaneously up to the Grand Canyon, and, finally, home.
Fast forward another 10-15 years. That nagging fear snuck quietly into my conscience as I contemplated another adventure west. "What if you..." began to pick at me again, only this time it was more persistent. I had nearly given in to it but then remembered the lesson I'd learned from that earlier trek, and many treks since - that fear draws its sustenance from the unknown and the way to conquer it is to make the unknown familiar.
This is my way of saying... I'm heading to Vegas, baby. I'm flying out December 10 and will be at the WBPT Holiday Classic the next day (check the info at the right or visit Pauly's place for the details of the tourney). A new adventure - a completely different adventure. I am a Total. Vegas. Virgin.
