On Friday, I woke up a teacher for the last time in the foreseeable future.  My classroom is now boxed in my carport storage, an easy fit.  The question was what to do with my rolling teacher desk.  My principal called it the Cadillac of carts, I called it my classroom on wheels, and my students called it fidget toy one-stop-shopping.

I unpacked it in the carport, put the screws back in, looked around at the sea of green and blue country, heard the birds, felt the breeze, and realized I’d unlocked the greatest writing real estate.

Welcome to my new and improved writer’s perch. Not only is it twice the size of my study indoors, but it provides sufficient shade cover and rain protection 24 hours a day, unlike the porch and patio. 

Saying goodbyes at my job was bittersweet and unexpectedly heartwarming.  We’d fought the good fight together this year, and I didn’t realize just how much I would miss my coworkers.  I turned in my keys, laptop, and end-of-year checkout list, then drove home with my teacher desk in tow. 

One of my best friends was, at that moment, driving to see me from Virginia, but I still had a couple of hours to kill.  I took my dog Tito for our typical walk at the Doodle Trail in Pickens.  He stopped at all his favorite free smell spots.  I thought about how I wasn’t a teacher anymore.  I wondered what it would be like to wake up Monday morning as a writer. 

That thought was untethering and exciting to me in much the same way as the ocean makes me feel.  When I lived in Hampton Roads, I would take a journal and a beach towel and make a perch in the rocks you’re not supposed to climb.  I’d write down thoughts, prayers, and lines of poetry.  The expanse of the shore and sea, the beginning of the Atlantic, had always inspired me.

In Vigo Beach, Spain in 2005, I’d been on the other side of that ocean, writing a poem about a little girl and her father walking down that shoreline. In 2016, I watched the sun rise and set over the Atlantic on a cruise ship bound for The Bahamas and blogged about it. In San Juan this past spring, I faced that same body of water from the south and sold a story about bomba music in resistance there. The sea has no foreseeable end from any of these vantage points, but the cumulative measure anchors me securely in my place, infinitely small and intricately connected. 

I’ll be visiting Hampton in a few days, I’ll put my toes in the sand at Fort Monroe Beach, and then it will really be summer.  We’d keep walking the Doodle Trail for now, and by the time we’d finished our walk Friday afternoon and I’d set up my teacher desk in the carport, my friend Rob arrived in time for a graduation party.  I’d pitched a story to my editor about a family member, and it had been approved, so I was able to snap a couple real-time photos for the project at the event. 

While Rob got ready for a trip to Falls Park on the Reedy the next morning, I edited photos and reached out to my editor about a few stories I’m working on.  My brain wasn’t really waiting until Monday. Until I put my feet in the sand, it’s my writing that makes me feel infinitely small and intricately connected, even out in the country, typing this post in my writing sanctuary with my Cadillac of carts; this laptop is the only fidget toy I’ll ever need.

Greenville is appropriately named, and I dare say you won’t find a downtown area greener than this one.  Rob and I walked through the park, over the river on the suspension bridge, and past the waterfall sculpture.  We passed a street performer, and I told Rob about a man I’d heard there back in August talking to people about Jesus.  We wound our way up to Gather, an intersection of some of the best cuisine in Greenville in an outdoor food court complete with play area.  Over lunch, we people watched.  I thought of stories I want to write.

When Rob left Sunday morning, it was raining.  When I returned from church, it was raining.  When I sat down in my writing sanctuary, I could hear the pitter-patter on the roof above me and see the rain falling, and I could sit at my laptop and write, safe in the middle of the storm, infinitely small and intricately connected by the art of storytelling. 

Monday morning rolled around, and I awoke to the unfamiliar sound of my doorbell.  Tito found his way out from the covers faster than I.  Embarrassed at the state of my hair and in my housecoat, I hesitantly peeked through the blinds and opened the door.  There was a man around my age with a disarming smile and kind eyes. His name was Evan. Did I want my grass mowed?  Some limbs removed?  A little curb appeal upkeep? 

I was tempted.  My neighbor kid never showed up last week, and the week before that, he didn’t even weed eat.  I’m capable of doing my own yardwork now that my hands have healed, but I like thinking of that as my way of investing in him.  I thanked the gentleman and explained I couldn’t give the kid’s job away. 

I had no sooner closed the door than I turned to open it again and found myself calling Evan back.  My yard needed more attention than a twelve-year-old gave.  Even if it was just this once, I invited him to go ahead and work.  His dog Diamond got on well with Tito, and I ended up taking to the garden beds to weed while he doctored the rest of the property. 

We got to talking.  He was a Christian. He’d had a rough road.  He found Diamond, his diamond in the rough, in an alley a couple years ago, shivering in the rain, a tiny bundle with a broken leg.  He asked around for an owner, and when he found none, he took her home and nursed her back to health.  When his landlord said he couldn’t have a pet, he opted to be less-a-home rather than give her up.  Evan was bursting with stories I couldn’t wait to hear… on the record.

I asked Evan if he’d let me interview him when he finished, and since it was nearing lunch time and he’d been working several hours, I’d fix him something to eat.  Remember that Cadillac of carts?  It came in handy.  There we were, covered in lawn fixings, Evan sitting on a bar stool eating grilled cheese and tomato soup, conducting a recorded interview with my podcasting mic in my writing sanctuary. 

As I listened to Evan share the details of his story, from his only vacation while in foster care to using and dealing drugs to incarceration and losing his son, and then to faith, freedom, gospel, and church… in that strange order, I was blown away.  That man sharing about Jesus by the waterfall statue I had mentioned to Rob a couple of days earlier?  It was Evan. Short of being with my brother P.J.’s family at Fort Monroe like years gone by, it was the best Memorial Day I didn’t know to ask for.

Listening to Evan made me feel infinitely small and intricately connected.  After a couple hours in the hot seat, Evan turned the tables on me.  Recording stopped, but he asked me questions about my faith journey and my teacher to writer transition.  We were two humans recently planted in Pickens meant to intersect.  I was supposed to open that door, and not just for the glorious front yard that’s the backdrop for my writing now.  I was supposed to stop, listen, and connect with Evan.  It was appointed. 

I never had a chance to wonder what my life as a writer was going to look like.  God dropped Evan on my doorstep.  The story pitch was approved this morning.  I’ve got two interviews on the books tomorrow, then I’m Hampton-bound.  Writing doesn’t take a vacation, I’ve learned.

And I don’t want a vacation from writing, just give me a taste of that Atlantic Ocean for a couple weeks.  Give me some memories with my nieces and nephew, my brother and sister, the Crawford family, and Rob.  Let them fill up my love tank, as Gabrielle would say, and strengthen me for the exciting and untethering new road ahead. 

I’m thanking God for sending me Evan and praying for the next story He wants me to tell.  I can write those stories from any side of the ocean… limitless potential.