The Forlorn

Or How I Learned to Finally Stop Worrying and Love the Wagon Wheel

Something a little different this time. We don’t often like to speak of ourselves, but we wanted to share this personal reminiscence.

For two years—from roughly 2019 to 2021—I lived in my car. My life revolved around truck stops, convenience stores, and fast food restaurants, all while sleeping in the rest areas here in Virginia.

I travelled up and down Interstate 81 so much I know just about every inch of it. I81, for those who don’t know, has a dual reputation, as one of the worst, most dangerous Interstates in America: two lanes with heavy traffic—but also as one of the most beautiful.

And it’s true. From Roanoke to Winchester is gorgeous. As is all of sacred Virginia.

I would traverse between Staunton, VA and Roanoke, sometimes spending time at the in-between point in Lexington. If I spent the night at the rest area near Staunton, on Southbound 81, I would drive away around 6 am to go to a nearby McDonald’s to use their wi-fi. Murders of crows would gather in the parking lot, foraging in the hazy dawn.

I would have no e-mails.

Then, if I had any money, I would go over to a nearby 7-11 and get a cup of coffee and sit in my car and scroll through Instagram. Sometimes I would post stuff pretending like I was alright.

Then, if I still had any money, I would go over to a nearby grocery store and buy deli chicken wings or a loaf of bread. I would sit in their parking lot for a while, eating, before driving into Staunton in the early morning light to sit in the public library parking lot waiting for it to open.

Then I would go in and read.

Other times, though, I spent around Roanoke. Again, I would leave the Rest Area around 6-ish. There was a little gas station nearby that had cheap, bad coffee and friendly female cashiers and I would buy a cup and sit there for a while. They had an old red barn that I would photograph. Then I’d drive to the Hollins University library.

And I would go in and read.

During that time I would often feel a pit of despair during the day, yet a soaring sense of freedom at night. The highs are high, the lows are low. But those highs, lemme tell you, are pretty damn high indeed. Sometimes I would touch something probably only St. John of the Cross could understand.

If I was awake around 3:00 am in a deserted rest area, with its arboreal settings and stinky bathrooms, I’d often reflect on St. Bernadette. Y’know when the Immaculate Conception made her appearance at the grotto at Lourdes, it was used as a pig sty and a trash dump.

So when on a later visitation St. Bernadette started digging through the muck and drinking from the water there, that’d be like me leading you to a gas station bathroom and drinking from the toilet.

Because that’s what I learned during that time—and I would not change it, as difficult and despairing as it often was—that God is not found in Cathedrals, palaces or churches. All you’ll find there, usually, are people with their games and gossip. But, rather, you’ll find the Divine where you’d least expect to. The Aghori and Tantrics understand this implicitly.

So go, then, run, run, to the darkest, wildest, most unknown and forlorn place you can imagine.

You will find Her there waiting for you.