What's this residue?

PHOENIX, AZ - When I played out this trip in my mind, I laid out all the ways I would minimize contact with people. I carefully thought through each potential scenario and how we would either either limit the exposure or avoid it all together.

Expect for the first night, when I insisted we get a motel outside of Pittsburgh because it was 9 degrees and snowing, we slept in the van.

To minimize the number of times we used public restrooms, I tried to pee along the road at every opportunity - much to my husband's discomfort with me potentially exposing my bare butt to truckers. I honestly no longer care - dignity being another one of Covid's casualties.

We lived mostly on drive-thru fast food, Burger King Impossible Burgers and McDonald's egg and cheese McMuffins. When we couldn't find a drive-thru, we relied on the loaf of bread and block of cheese, which we kept in the van's spacious cooler, and nibbled on cookies, chocolate, crackers and apples that I pulled from the back back I had stuffed with snacks. I packed two cases of Diet Coke for the caffeine to avoid going into truck stops and mini-marts for coffee.

Occasionally we'd run into the omnipresent Flyin' Js and Pilots to buy a forgotten item, but we were always careful, wore masks and used hand sanitizer afterwards. (For the record, I found the truckers pretty much took mask-wearing seriously. It was the general public who refused to wear them.)

Even though I was not entirely comfortable with our amount of exposure, I felt it wasn't that much more significant than we would be getting had we stayed home, what with running into the supermarket and local hardware store - where staff and shoppers wore their masks under their noses.

At least I believed that until we got pulled over by the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

We had just come down off the mountains into Phoenix. Instead of taking a straight route from Albuquerque to Flagstaff, we had turned south to avoid a snowstorm.  

Merging onto the highway from Route 87 towards Route 202, Jeff noticed the police car behind him, moments before the cop turned on his lights.

"Is he pulling me over?"

He pulled over alongside the highway and put the van in park. Patting his pockets for his wallet, Jeff said it was in the back on the countertop. Without thinking, I unbuckled my seatbelt, stood up and stepped through the door that divides the van's cab from the living area to fetch it. It took me a second, but as I stepped back into the cab and handed to Jeff. I realized my mistake. Two state troopers, already at the driver's side window, were staring at me in the doorway with alarmed expressions.

It was a critical mistake. A mistake so serious that had I been someone other than a privileged white woman in my 50s, I might have been shot. Instead, they told us we had been traveling too slow in a 65 mph zone.

Neither of the troopers wore masks.

While we waited for them to run Jeff's driver's license and registration, we fished out our masks and put then on. But when Trooper J. Milam returned, he was still not wearing a mask. "Where are you coming from?" I interrupted his questioning and asked him to put one on. To his credit, he complied. 

Trooper Milam and his partner - whose name I failed to get - peppered us with questions (which we answered) about where we were coming from (Pennsylvania, but we had stayed last night in New Mexico), where we were going (California), the reason for our trip (to visit my son), whether we had been drinking (We were not), whether we had any guns or knives on us (We did not, unless you count the kitchen knives packed with our camping gear.) and how much sleep Jeff had gotten the previous night (10 hours).

Not satisfied, the other trooper ordered my husband out of the van, "so we can figure out what is going on here."

Scared, I grabbed my phone and followed them in order to record the interaction. The trooper ordered me back in the van. "I have a constitutional right to record!" I said. "Ma'am, get back in the van!" he said.

"Tell her to get back in the van," he told my husband. 

"Lauri, get back in the van," Jeff said.

Things were escalating.

The trooper said he had a right in Arizona to order passengers back into the vehicle. I said I would get back into the van, but in protest of my constitutional right to record. I tried to keep recording from inside the van, but the light from the police car blinded me. 

For nine minutes, the trooper questioned Jeff from within two feet away without wearing a mask, looking for probable cause to search the back of the van. 

"What's this residue on the back of the van?" he asked.

Residue?

"I guess salt?" Jeff answered. "As we told you, we have been driving across the country. It was snowing in Pennsylvania and Ohio."

Each time he spoke, the trooper leaned in, probably so he could hear Jeff over the highway traffic - but so close that I imagined the spittle flying onto my husband's face and into his eyes.

After a half hour,  Trooper Milam handed us a warning for traveling 50 mph in a 65 mph zone. They asked us if we understood and had any questions. 

I told them that my husband had cancer and may be immunocompromised. That they may have risked his life with Covid.  I told them that was why we were driving across the country instead of flying. Because, until they pulled us over and issued us this bullshit warning, we felt it was the safer option. 

They nodded. They left.

As he put the van in gear, Jeff said, "You had to get the last word in, didn't you?" 

I said, "Hell yeah, I did."

“Residue” on our van

Monday II

Departed the truck stop on the western edge of the Texas panhandle in the dark at 5:55. Entered Néw Mexico. Still 25 minutes before sunrise, and just starting to see the silhouette of mesas in the pre-dawn light.

Monday

We spent a rather cold night in the van at a Pilot truck stop in the western edge of the Texas Panhandle. I expected temperatures would be higher this far south, but it was around freezing last night. And I felt it. 

I hope the truck stop bathroom that we used last night and this morning are not Petri dishes of Covid virus.  I’d estimate a third of the visitors are not wearing masks, but the bathrooms are mostly empty. However, I almost bumped into one woman, not wearing a mask, but dressed in the conservative Christian clothing with the long dress, bonnet, knee socks and sneakers coming out of the bathroom as I was going in. I glared at her and she apologized. 

I’m starting to think it would have been safer to fly than drive. Despite our best efforts to limit our exposure, there are just too many of these interactions. 

Finding a Good Place to Start

I didn’t realize it was missing until western Oklahoma. That intoxicating feeling of freedom from being on the road so powerful that I’m moved to doing cart wheels and dancing to music in my head in gas station parking lots. After being cooped up for more than nine months, responsibly staying in my home, I expected to be leaping with joy.

But at the gas station, I thought, “I don’t feel like doing a cartwheel.” Later, driving down the highway, looking through the windshield at an orange sunset covering the entire horizon, at a moment I should have been giddy with gratitude, I felt ...flat. I wasn’t feeling grateful.

I realize I am incredibly fortunate, compared to most Americans. I have been able to work safely from home all this time. We live in the woods, a terrific place to isolate. We have had some hard times through the pandemic, my husband had a major health crisis from which he is recovering. But no one close to me has suffered a serious case of Covid or is about to lose their home. I don’t deserve to be so fortunate. Still, here I am. 

Now on the road, traveling with my husband, my favorite place to be, why am I feeling nothing?

I may be a little depressed. I think all of America is.

I am reading things I wrote four years ago, after Trump was elected. Despite fears of what the future would bring, my words are filled with hope. And gratitude. I had just suffered a heart attack and three cardiac arrests and I was so grateful. Grateful just to be alive.

What changed? How did I lose my gratitude? And how do I get it back? How do we all?

It may have been the only way to deal with the hourly barrage of crisises that we have lived with for the last four years. Our bodies can only produce so much outrage before we become numb.

But I must work on returning to who I used to be. Maybe getting back to writing will help. Force me to feel again. Because how can you write without feeling?

My husband worked until 3 am the night before we left, getting the van ready for this trip, constructing our bed and a makeshift kitchen, so we could more safely travel, avoiding hotels and restaurants on the road. We are sleeping in the van at a truck stop and he is snuggled up tight against me in the bed he built. Outside it is 40 degrees, but in here, under the pile of blankets, it is toasty. I think this moment could be a good place to start.

I am freakin Jon Snow

I was dangling 120 feet in the air when the flashback hit me.  My guide, Ronald, had told me when we were still near the ground that I could lean back and trust the ropes when I began to get tired. “Stretch out your legs,” he said.

The climb into the jungle canopy had been my chief goal for my trip this year – my fifth visit to Costa Rica’s southern Pacific zone. I had wanted to do this for years ever since I saw David Attenborough, the great naturalist, make the climb in a documentary about the rain forest.

I won’t say that I’m the most adventurous traveler out there, but I generally try to be open to any new experiences that come along. Once, in Guatemala, a guide plucked a tarantula from a tree and asked if I wanted to let it climb up my arm. He said a bite would feel like a hit from a staple gun. I did a quick cost/benefit analysis and decided I could survive a hit with a staple gun. I said yes. His body was heavy and his hairy legs felt like pipe cleaners as it crawled across my skin.

But this climbing excursion had become more important to me in the past months. For me, it would be proof that I was healthy enough again to throw myself back into living.

I’ve always trusted my body to be tough enough to withstand whatever my brain throws its way. But six months ago, my body let me down.

Yes, I know. Eventually, all our bodies will let us down. And I try to remember that my experience isn’t unique. As a matter of fact, it will happen to all of us. But very few of us get to come back and talk about it. In that respect, I am rare. So, indulge me, accidental reader. 2016 will always be remembered as a shitty year for many Americans. But as much as I fear for the future, 2016 will always hold a special place in my heart.

The rope climb up to the canopy was harder than I expected. My inch-worm technique was poor, which forced me to rely more on my shoulders than I should have. I was breathing heavy and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I tipped my head back and thrust out my legs just like Ronald told me to - when the vertigo washed over me and my memory took me back to a life-changing event six months ago.

On June 15, I had just finished a four-mile run that felt terrific. Shortly after, I began to feel a twinge in my chest. Within an hour, unable to speak due to the pain in the center of my chest, my husband was racing me to the hospital. 

I walked into the emergency rooms and was quickly hooked up to an EKG. A doctor looked at the results and said, “You’re having a heart attack.”

To which I responded, “That’s not possible.”

About 10 minutes later, my clothes ripped off, and hospital staff running around like ants, I felt my arm go numb and the light fading. Someone said, “She’s going under,” as someone else rushed in and led my husband out of the room. I remember with clarity my head rolling back and the arms of people who I could only see through a grey haze catching me as I fell back onto the hospital bed.

My husband left the room without turning around and I realized he didn’t know what was happening. That I was dying.

I learned later that my heart had stopped. Clinically, I was already dead. The odds of surviving cardiac arrest are only about one in four. Had I not made it to the hospital in time, my survival rate would have been only about 6 percent. My husband and mother, sitting just outside the room, heard a voice shout, “Clear,” as the medical team shocked me with a defibrillator and broke my sternum with CPR. My heart stopped two more times that night. Each time, they were able to bring me back.    

Thankfully, I was unaware of the drama going on to save my life. What came next I can only describe as what is called a Near-Death Experience. 

While I didn’t experience the light, nor the dead relatives, I did have a sense of soaring, bodiless, over a vast lush green landscape. It was so beautiful. And I can recall that sense of movement. Of looking down and seeing the landscape rushing by below me.

The moment I came back, I awoke to feels of euphoria and well-being washing over me. I don’t know if I have ever been so blissfully happy. I tried to describe these experiences to my doctor and the nurses. I asked them, “Where am I?” And the doctor said, “Your heart stopped and we brought you back.” In that moment, I was annoyed. I wanted to go back to finish whatever it was that I had been experiencing. “I had the most awesome dream,” I told them. I tried to talk about it. Thankfully, they were preoccupied with other things, like keeping me alive. Because my heart stopped two more times in surgery.

So many details I can’t recall, even though I struggled to remember them before the pain came rushing back and I was overwhelmed by the whirl of activity around me, as people rushed to their tasks to keep me alive.

This is what the science says may have caused my Near-Death Experience.

Noradrenaline is a stress hormone produced in a section of the mid-brain that is highly connected with other brain regions that mediate emotion and memory, such as the amygdala.

Also, a lot of drugs like ketamine can mirror the euphoria often described in Near-Death Experiences. Ketamine triggers the opioid systems in the brain and cause hallucinations and “out-of-body” sensations. The same systems can be triggered naturally in animals when under attack.

As I leaned back at the top of the canopy, I was struck with this same feeling of falling that I had when my heart stopped. Instead of arms catching me this time, it was the ropes. I closed my eyes. For a moment, I panicked.

When I opened my eyes again, I was surrounded by green. It wasn’t the same view as what I saw before. But the intensity of being surrounded by such lushness was familiar. In the distance, I could see waves of the Pacific Ocean crashing onto the beach. Vultures soared overhead. Below, the platform from which I had climbed looked the size of a postage stamp.

That same feeling of happiness and gratitude came over me. Whatever synapses were firing in my brain at the moment were the same ones from six months ago.

And I remembered. I am freakin Jon Snow. Despite dying three times in one night, I got to see the world from the top of a jungle canopy.

Winter is here, but I am still alive.

Mr. Buddy

Hit the road at 6:23. Slept at rest stop west of St. Louis. Creepy guy in car pulled in to the spot right next to us in an otherwise parking lot. He  tried to engage Jeff in conversation, admiring our set up through the van’s side door and offered him "spray foam." (Euphemism?). I think the low temperature was 31 degrees. We used a Mr. Buddy heater, which is supposed to safe be for indoor use. But I could tell Jeff was concerned all night he was going to kill us with carbon monoxide poisoning. Despite the cold, I was thankful when the fuel ran out around 3 am. We had enough blankets to stay toasty, as long as I kept my nose under the blankets and we snuggled tight together. We'll be in warmer climes tonight. So no more Mr. Buddy. Creepy guy slept in his car next to us all night. As we were drifting off to sleep, we thought we heard a knock on the van door., which we ignored. All in all: Covid exposure: low.

Don’t Let Us Get Sick

ZANESVILLE, OHIO - We departed Christmas night on this journey into the waning days of this wretched year. 5:44 pm to be precise. Jeff kept finding one more project, one more essential item to pack, until long after the sun set and I, exasperated, reminded myself that one does not start a fight with someone right before beginning a 5500- mile journey together.  

We have just purchased a Mercedes Sprinter work van, which Jeff begun converting into a mini-RV, which we are now driving across the country to visit my younger son Mike, who I haven’t seen in more than a year. We have decided flying is not an option, because , if you are reading this in 2020, and not in some distant far-flung future, you well know why. Governors across the United States have asked travelers to stay home this holiday season. The plan is to social distance as we drive. No differerent than if we were at home - which we have dutifully done since March. We will consume drive-thru junk on the way out to California. Pee alongside the road as much as possible to limit exposure. (Fuck it. I don’t care who sees me.) Camp food on the return. Sleeping in the van along the way. During our stay with my son and his fiancé Delilah, take out only, which we will eat by the pool at the Airbnb we are renting. See? All perfectly responsible and safe. We hope. We’d be assholes otherwise. Hospitals are overflowing with Covid patients. We do not want to add to anyone’s burden. Warren Zevon just came up on the random shuffle. 
Don't let us get sick
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight