The first 100 days

The song “Jacaranda” is about wanting to be anywhere else but where you are. Last spring (2019), the Jacaranda trees were blooming all across San Luis Obispo. As each tree burst into its own purple flame, I felt more and more claustrophobic. These electric lavender flowers seemed to yell: “Get out! Roam! Be free!” I wrote “Jacaranda” a few weeks before Dr. Cain and I left for a long trip/tour and finished it while holed up in a cabin in an isolated house nestled in the wilds above Napa in Northern California. We recorded it on that same tour, stopping over in St. Louis to cut it for our EP, Jacaranda. Funny, now. From this vantage point—Summer, 2020—peak Covid-19 quarantine—I am still learning my lesson.

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

The desire to spend 100 days on the road, living in a van, was to see the world, and maybe learn something unknown about ourselves, too. But between the first mile and the last, something odd happened. Our lives became almost routine at times, boring.

Reid, concerned with endless google maps, driving long haul trucker miles and listening to the rhythmic lashing of Dr. Laura. Me, a slave to WiFi, as our entire income (at least on the road) depended on my connection to it.

Sometimes we’d spend whole days in a fog, barely talking: him driving across the flat planes of the Midwest, singing along to the 90s country station on XM, and me in the passenger seat or cross-legged in bed with my back against the uninsulated metal (yes, we had installed a full size raised bed with a mattress in back). This story isn’t about all the fun road times—of which there have been a million (see: Instagram, facebook, my tour notebook).

Today, we will see the mundane picture of van life. That’s me, tapping furiously away at the keyboard, shooting off emails.

This is what it took to keep our dream afloat, to support the giddy run of tour dates, the sweaty punk shows and glorious midnight coney dogs. There was also, of course, the constant pings and questions and complaints from Airbnb guests, who occupied our San Luis Obispo home as well as a small back house Reid had built behind it, a little box decorated with lava-lamp inspired 60s wallpaper we had dubbed the “chicken shack” on account of the birds.

The nosiest of which—Beyoncé, a massive lavender colored hen—loved to waddle up to the glass front door and peek inside.

She would stare at her own reflection, confused by the entire world. I still believe this is what gave us so many rave reviews in the beginning, despite the shocking amount of chicken shit strewn about the yard. Of course, now our little flock of chickens was gone. I had given them away to fellow “chicken ladies,” before the start of this Midwest Tour, our second in 2019.

Seeing those hens leave, one by one, in cat cages and cardboard boxes, felt like the end of an era, a deliberate “un-nesting ” of our lives, which had become somewhat routine in a domestic sense—well, as routine as the lives of a married couple who play in a punk band and take on too many creative projects could ever possibly be.

We’d had plenty of flocks in the past few years, but this one felt special. It was sad, sopping up those last bright orange yokes. Now, I was attempting (and getting better at) cooking store-bought organic eggs on the road, with a portable Coleman gas stove and a small cast iron egg pan, the only kitchen item I knew I really had to bring.

We ate breakfast in parks and in parking lots. It was kind of glorious, honestly. The sense of freedom—to not have more stuff than you need—is heady. We didn’t have to worry about the chickens being let in or out of the coop each day, and our two rat-like dogs generally came with us on the road, all the companionship we’d ever need. How could we possibly expect to keep a flock of hens at home safe from raccoons when we ourselves were thousands of miles away, trying to find a flat parking space to eat or bed down for the night?

Our lives began to resemble a pair of miscreant raccoons—we had flown so very far from the coop, so far from California. Only one hen had ever ventured as far as we had. Reid had built her a tiny treehouse, visible from the kitchen window. I’d wash the dishes, and as the sun went down behind purple hills and palm trees, I’d see Dolly, so full of spit and vinegar, hopping up the tree to sleep in the crook of two branches. While the other birds huddled together inside the coop, she braved the cool night air, one wild eye cocked upwards toward the moon. She was one of the first to be eventually devoured by raccoons.
Without the chickens, van life became our new normal. I wrote all day and Reid drove all day, until we could find a quiet neighborhood or a decent Elks Lodge parking lot to call home for the night. Ironically, much of what I’d been paid to write—tourism copy—splashy words advertising the quaint charm of San Luis Obispo, the town we had just left—made me feel like a hypocrite. SLO is special in my heart, to be sure. Imagine a picturesque little spot on the west coast not far from the ocean, midway between Los Angeles (where I’d lived half my life) and San Francisco, where I was born. It’s hard to explain, but I wasn’t sure I belonged in California anymore. Maybe it was the constant wildfires, the fact that key members of my family had fled for Washington, Oregon and Europe (including my mom and my sister), the choke-you-out-prices, or the sneaking feeling I was “Central coasting” as much as I was crushing.

As I would soon learn, I couldn’t escape my roots, even as I longed for new horizons. I WAS California. There’s nothing like showing up in Michigan on a cold, gray evening, done up with bright red lipstick and a pink scarf, to realize you actually ARE that loud, picky, flamboyant (at times insufferable) California girl. Oops.
When we left SLO last, we thought we were ready to leave forever. Reid and I had been happily married for six years and had lived in San Luis Obispo for all of it, and then some. The van, a brand new Dodge Promaster, had arrived in our driveway like a gleaming spaceship, unreal even to our own eyes. Neither of us had ever owned a new vehicle and we were still wrapping our heads around how we’d pay for it. We knew it provided enough space to practically “live” in, stand in, and sleep in, plus haul all our musical gear. We had a cassette toilet (like the ones used on boats), and a standing metal toolbox bolted to the floor filled with utensils and things. Reid had built cabinets and nooks for all our few needed possessions—even a wooden perch for the coffee machine.

Reid’s trusty, rusty 2002 Ford E150, containing all the romance and memories of our very first cramped and cozy tours together, was on its last leg. So, we sold the old bag to a plumber and set our eyes toward something more substantial, more modern. In truth, We’d spent the past 2 years dreaming about buying that impossibly new van and rumbling away into the sunset forever. I felt guilty and conflicted because: What did that mean for the people back home that I love? It was like I was punishing them because I couldn’t breathe.
Reid aka Dr. Cain—this being the “super villain” name he’d pick for himself, and the name of the comic book shop he’d owned downtown for nine years—assured me this was normal, “falling out of love” with a place. It tends to sour everything else in the fridge, but I tried not to let it. I guess this didn’t mean we were assholes, although I felt distinctly like a jerk. A few months before departing on our latest grand cruise—which clocked in at roughly 8,000 miles zig-zagging around the country and more than a month of consecutive days on the road— he’d sold the comic book shop. I remember so clearly the conversation we had at the kitchen table. I had tears in my eyes.

“I’m afraid to tell you what I want because I’m scared you won’t want it,” I said. What I wanted seemed impossible and maybe even destructive. He’d had his shop nearly a decade now, and it had been his baby. I remember the relief when he told me he didn’t want to do what he’d been doing anymore either, working all day in the shop, only playing shows on weekends, never seeing new places, always tethered to the repetitive rigors of retail.

How had we both had the same feeling, yet never let the other catch on?

I relinquished my column at the local alt weekly, where I had written about the intersection of food, wine and agriculture for about five years. I felt scared, and equally thrilled, in a way I hadn’t felt since I was a teenager. Also like a teenager, I was angry at some vague idea of “this small town.” I felt held back, unappreciated. I had places to be. Things to do. I was basically having a silent tantrum, and anyone close to me felt the angst. No one came to our shows.

At worst, my attitude was repellent, even to myself. I didn’t like who I was becoming: Someone who dreamed of being anywhere else than she was now. My friends were having their own adventures, and I was happy for them: businesses, babies. I was ready for a new adventure. I thought of Dolly, being ripped apart by razor sharp raccoon teeth. Was the freedom worth the pain?

Our house is in an old suburban area of San Luis Obispo, a cute 1960s home that Reid’s been slowly renovating for the past ten years. It’s the kind of neighborhood where—as the old timers died off—you could find elaborate lamps topped with enormous squat lampshades on the street, or candy colored typewriters, or cool rotary phones. In fact, we’d found two of our best lamps—adorned with gaudy brass fixtures, massive shades, round iridescent glass bodies—right here in the sleepy neighborhood.

The adult children of the people who had died had put a lot of good stuff out, Including a box of matching gold cups made of bumpy dimpled glass, Reid's favorite (he ranks everything from “least favorite” to top choice). There are least favorite and favorite brands of wool socks, 90s slow jams, even local bartenders.

We both agreed, that—like toast—you want your bartender to be “crispy, not burnt.”

One time, in a box of junk found on the street in our sleepy cul-de-sac, I’d found a generously illustrated Cold War era pamphlet detailing what to do in the case of nuclear war. A self employed freelance writer, I’d worked from home since 2013, and walking our two small dogs along the sunny sidewalk in the afternoon became one of the defining moments of my day.

Passing fragrant lemon and orange trees sprouting right there on the front yards of quaint, almost identical pastel colored ginger bread houses—I wondered: was I walking over the tomb of boarded up bomb shelters? I’d heard there were more than in the neighborhood. I imagined the bomb dropping now. Everyone else was at work, at day jobs, out in the world with other human beings. I’d be in my little house in the cul-de-sac, just like all the other houses, except more demonic looking, thanks to the corrugated metal siding Reid had put up (the rest of the house, he painted dark gray, almost black). I’d live my last moments on the couch in my pajamas, typing, tapping.

Or, maybe I’d be puttering to the microwave to re-heat those last five sips of coffee, again, when the bomb blew. Maybe, I hoped, I’d be working on a song.

I looked up the word “cul-de-sac” on Wikipedia. It is basically French for “dead end.” I saw it as a sign, like the bright purple Jacaranda tree blooming in our yard. I figured, if I was going to be on my computer all day for work, why not do it while driving around the country?

At 32, I was a very different woman than the ghost of a girl who had washed up on my dad’s porch ten years prior. I’d just come from seven nutty years in the LA area, during which, from 16 to 22, I’d tried to destroy myself with all substances known to man: too much partying, bad love, walking around alone late at night, taking whatever substance was offered in any bathroom, eating nothing but cereal for every meal, falling asleep inside of warehouses, going off with boys, getting into the wrong car at the wrong time, sputtering around in my own 1968 Delta 88 and running out of gas all over the city, being chased by cops.

I ’d literally rolled out from under the stairs of a Long Beach punk house where I “rented” a tiny mattress barely larger than my body for $200 a month (and was thereby called “the stair troll”). It was not even a room, just the space beneath stairs—which is a great metaphor for how my life felt.

Somehow, I had managed to get my associate degree in print journalism from LBCC. I had an off again on again boyfriend who was more like a demon or a tumor with bad tattoos and bad breath. It was 2008 and the doom and gloom of the country was palpable. So, I moved back to San Luis Obispo County, where I’d spent third through ninth grade, the place my parents had come to escape city life in the 90s, before they split up.

I came to lick my wounds in my dad’s basement. He had a new wife, new kids, but the same ponies, the same rope swing I remembered from growing up with my mom and my sister there. He built me a room downstairs, which melted some of the ice that had been chilling my heart. He was supportive of whatever this new life could be for me. I know both my parents were scared. Maybe he saw himself in my darkness—his own wild youth. I got back on medication with his help. That stopped the spinning and the spiraling. I still ruminate, but that’s why I write.

I wanted to start something, and I also wanted to be part of something. So I started a zine about the local music scene and got a job at a local small town newspaper covering community news. I learned banjo and wrote songs on my guitar, an act that had eluded me in the chaos of the city. I hadn’t written so many songs since I was a teen. That’s how I met Reid, who was looking for a singer in his band.

Reid, 13 years older, had also found peace in SLO. Born in a small town in Carbondale Colorado he ran with an even smaller crew of wild mountain punk rock kids, until the wheels fell off and friends started dying (at 23, mine had just begun dying).

Terminally aimless, he’d moved to Arizona (now just a bad fever dream) and then followed a girl to Oakland, because nothing could be worse than the inside of an Arizona liquor store at 10 am. When he showed up to be with the girl, she informed him she actually had a boyfriend. But he stayed in the Bay, went to school for art and design and got into commercial construction (where he built some of the first Pete’s Coffees). When the increasingly petty Oakland scene felt too oppressive, he looked south to SLO. He started a classic style country band, learned to surf, and—when 2008 saw him laid off from his architectural design job—opened Dr. Cain’s Comics and Games.
What was so different back then? And how could we leave it all now? I often think about this. Of course, now we’ve settled into a more balanced state of living in SLO yet traveling as much as we can. What I wonder is: When does a place stop feeling like home and start feeling more like a stop-over? A decade or more ago, we had both been looking for a safe harbor, a way out of the madness of city and punk rock foibles. With its endless green rolling hills, costal sunsets and Spanish mission style cottages, SLO looked and felt like a glossy postcard for a great (if not really expansive) rehab. And maybe it was rehab for us. Maybe, after a lot of kicking and screaming, we’d been “cured.”

We’d found each other. But there’s something else, too—something about the town two lovers fall in love in. It’s like the third in the relationship. Yeah, even back then, SLO was generally old, white and monied, but there was still room for weirdness, personality. We felt we could create something new here, grow gnarled roots. We played classic country together first, then formed a successful punk band. Somehow, without touring, we could still open for legends like Adolescents and The Weirdos because there was still a supportive place for punk bands to play (and punk leaning people around to come to the shows). Regular people, even artists, still lived in SLO.

That’s nearly all gone away now. You could chalk it all up to new money, new developments, the big hotels, but that’s not fair. This is really the story of every town, every small city. Like heartbreak, it’s not a matter of if you’ll experience it, but when. The city or town you love will change and become a stranger to you. You will feel betrayed. You will need to deal with it or move on.

Like most everyone else, we were horrified when the best venue in town, SLO Brew, closed and attempted to reopen as a casual dining establishment a few blocks over. Of course, we also played that new location, but only because there were no other options at the time besides a 24 hour donut shop. Now, I wish we’d played the donut shop. Not only did the new venue lack the magic of the old joint, with it’s cozy green room and strangely placed metal beam (on which our pal Don had broken his arm while gleefully moshing at one of those aforementioned punk shows). I also had to fight the promoter to get someone to turn off the football game playing behind the stage. Since then, every local show has felt somewhat like this. It's all the same struggle.

We had one last show there, at the old venue, in the old SLO we remember from our dreamy, rose-tinted memories.

On the flier for the last show, Reid had written, “Fear Not the Future…” with a space man looking confidently into the new era. It was as funny as it was sad. He’d had hit the nail on the head. We, and our artist friends, were scared shitless as what this town would soon become. I knew then it was the beginning of my un-nesting. The moment I stopped living here, now, and began living for the next stop.