TO to the Sault. All the Biblical Weather One Can Handle. And Transitions. -ECSTATICALLY ALONE TOUR

 

I’m not good at transitions.

I’m aware that this seems like a fairly simple concept, and is maybe NOT what you expected to hear (read) on this, the first day of my drive…but stay with me, here…till about six months ago I didn’t realize how much time can be saved, fussed-upedness be thwarted and how much kinder I can be to myself, by reminding myself of the above fact.

Me: Sharron, you’re not good at transitions.

BE they big transitions or small transitions…they lean on ALL my shit.

Back in January, right after the holidays were over (weird pandemical holidays, to be clear), right after we wrapped season four of Frankie (also a bit weird pandemical) and right after I moved into a new place (which I managed during a weird pandemic) I had a VERY hard time.
After my new home was all settled, with every corner figured, and my last ADR session was complete, I couldn’t seem to get my feet underneath me, my body seemed a bit broken, my brain was foggy, my periomenopause symptoms were raging (all 37) and the future seemed to be stretching in front of me like a horror calendar, with it’s pages filled with ominous, empty dates.

I felt freaked.
I felt anxious and effed.
I could not be still.
AND I was plainly stumped and frozen by all of it.

One freezing cold,  rainy morning, I was sitting on my new blue leather couch (fitting), beside a mountain of recently wept in kleenex, talking to my most excellent therapist about my worries and stumpedness (on the Zoom…there is nothing like working on your mental health from very your own living room…I highly recommend it) and after I told her all of the above, she offered these simple words…and it was like the sun breaking out of the clouds…

She: Well, Sharron, transitions are really hard for you…and that’s okay.

Bloop.

I just sat there.
Silent.
Like a dog listening to a sound only it can hear.
I tilted my head, rolling my life over in my mind, like one of those flip books I had as a kid…and a million images of my story came clear.

Oh my god. They are.
They all are.
Transitions are really hard for you, Sharron.
Simple.
Hard.
Okay.

Today was a very strange day for me.
It was challenging, it was wonderful, it was tiring and it’s a fucking transition.
When I reminded myself the last part (for seemingly the millionth time)…the hardness made sense.
I’ve gone many places.
I have driven myself many miles.
I’ve flown all over the world…but for some reason, this trip…my dream trip…a trip that is simply for joy, where I’m not escaping from one single thing, at a time when I’ve emerged from a very hard life transition (fucking transitions), when I’ve finally unhooked from a past, on a trip with NO work involved, a VERY BIG trip I’m driving myself from the beginning to end…well, it’s leaning on my shit.

The pressure for it to be the best trip ever, you guys….well, I want to let go of that and just enjoy…but that’s a challenge.
But still…I believe it’s worth the trouble, I really do.
Life is real. It just is. It’s not perfect…dreams are not all joy, are they? They are also challenging.
But starting to pursue them is one of the hardest parts…why?…transition.

BOOM.

Ari and I drove for 7 hours today.
Alex and Debi Weinberg sent us off with grapes, a freshly shined apple, homemade protein bars and deli.
They are good people.

In our respective cars, I’m listening to a book about a woman who survived a skydive in a broken parachute that her husband tampered with, bearing the on-the-nose title, I SURVIVED, and Ari is listened to Patti LuPone’s autobiography, simply titled, A Memoir.
To each, their own.
On each of our driving/pee/gas getting breaks…one with chip truck french fries and the another with diet cokes…we would tell each other about our books.

Me: This woman has spent the last three chapters catching her husband cheating at every turn and deciding to pretend it’s not happening. The result? He finally just tried to kill her. Twice. Why? Why do women do this?

He: Well, let me tell YOU about Patti and Andrew Lloyd Webber…

The weather and the traffic matched the transition…the beginning of the dream…it was FUCKING BIBLICAL.
We started with shitty Thanksgiving traffic (everyone is closing down the cottage, people), then it rained so hard that people put on their hazards, then it was foggy like in the Ten Commandments, then when we finally arrived in wildness that is northern Ontario, the sun came out like something out of a Group of Seven painting.

BIB.
LI.
CAL.

On our second stop, as we ate our lunches in my car (COVID SAFETY) and Ari told me about Patti in a show called The Baker’s Wife,  we spotted a dude parking his much-weathered bike set up beside us.
He had a number of license plates jutting out from a side pannier…those plates, a missing front tooth and just about everything else about him said that he’d been through something.

Me (out the window): Well, wherever you’ve been? It looks epic.

He: I’ve been biking since May. I’m on my way back to Toronto from the Yukon.

Me: Holy shit.

He looked at my bike, hanging off the back of my KIA.

He: Get that bike off your car, and into some puddles, yah?

Me: Oh yes. I can promise you that. Safe Home!

And he strode off, like a man who’d rode to the fucking Yukon on a fucking bike.
He was quite inspiring.
Although, for the rest of the drive, I couldn’t stop thinking about his missing front tooth, and if he’d lost it on his travels to a bear or other wilderness creature, and just said, FUCK IT.

On this trip, my talisman is a picture of me and my Grandma at my second birthday party.
My Grandma, Clara, was born outside of Espanola (we drove through there today) on a farm and I think she would be jazzed that I was doing something like this.
She was a real go-getter, during a time when women weren’t really appreciated for their go-getterness.
I plan to put my arm around myself this whole trip, like Grandma put her arm around me on that second birthday.

Maybe I will tell you farther on why that birthday was so important. Not today, though.
I’m tired.
Oh, I also want to tell you about the LAST time I was in Sault Ste. Marie and the “motel” I stayed in charged me $200 for smoking in my room.
Yeah.
I don’t smoke.
So, I called them a number of times, angry as hell…and then a couple of times that week, called them with a fake accent, pretending to be someone else to find out if they were grifters…yes, maybe I will tell you about that.

Anyhow, back to the now, WE made it to Sault Ste Marie before the sun went down today, checked into our room, ordered and then ate Pumpkin Ravioli, while lying around in our underwear watching Drag Race.
Now, Ari is playing board games on his computer, while I write, and Star Wars is playing on the TV.
I feel so relaxed.
Good night, humans.

Tomorrow? We hike.

Namaste.

P.S. I am not sure how often I will be writing, but this seems like a good journal so,  beloved subscriber,  if you open your morning emails and see me a lot, I hope you don’t hate me too much
I will NOT be promoting the posts all the time…so if you wanna follow and are not YET a beloved subscriber, enter your email, and become one  below.
Again, I will be active on my INSTAGRAM at @sharronmatthews

Have a good day, warriors.