A Fool and His Dog
In classic tarot iconography, the Fool is always represented accompanied by a small dog. On the Fool’s Journey I embarked upon, reluctantly and fearfully, back in May 2019, that dog was Kyri. I had rescued him eight months earlier in Portland, but he would rescue me daily through the 93 days of that open-ended road odyssey.
It was a journey that would carry me more than 20,000 miles across half a continent and through 14 states.
Like the Fool, who carries all his worldly possessions in his bindle, I left Portland with everything I owned, packed, in my case, into the back of a Prius. And like the tarot Fool's, my journey involved leap of faith after leap of faith, not least because I didn't see how my cash and available credit could buy me more than two weeks on the road.
Yet in quintessential Fool-ish fashion, each of my leaps was rewarded with enough magic and miracles to sustain me until the next...until the journey ended itself with the biggest miracle of all.
I chronicle the odyssey in my newest book, Pilgrimage: A Fool's Journey. What follows is an excerpt, from Day 17.
Day 17
Thursday, June 13, 2019
North Platte, Nebraska
Three days have passed since the end of my second week on the road. In one sense, it’s hard to believe I’ve been gone seventeen days. In another, my Portland life feels galaxies away.
The last visible reminder of that life is Kyri, who I rescued about halfway through my time there, days before my sixty-fourth birthday. Who’s the rescuer now? If it weren’t for Kyri’s company, his cuddles, his unconditional love and all the ways he makes me smile, I doubt I would have made it this far.
Two weeks and three days... When I was planning my exodus, two weeks was all the time I figured I had before my cash and credit ran out. But here it is, Day 17, and I’m still standing.
I haven’t shared this here before, at least not directly, although I’ve hinted at it, but the reason I left Portland so dramatically was financial. Simply put, I was pushed out for lack of funds. I was two weeks late with my rent, and I was facing certain eviction.
If I couldn’t find a way to stay where I was, a semi-furnished rental in the Pearl District, I also lacked the wherewithal to make other arrangements. Nor had I been in Portland long enough to have developed the kind of friendships that could get me a free room or a couch while I tried to sort my life out. Even a homeless shelter, something I briefly considered, would have been challenging with Kyri.
If money, or a lack of it, was the surface reason for my departure, there were also deeper ones. There inevitably are, even if I can’t always identify them.
I hadn’t been long out of the city when it became absolutely clear to me that I was on the right path, that if circumstances had pushed me out of Portland, it was because it was time for me to move on...to take another Fool’s leap into the unknown.
This journey is a leap of faith in so many ways. I rarely know from one day to the next where I’m going or where I’ll end up. Not surprisingly, that’s how I write: moment- by-moment and word-by-word, with little idea of the story, except as it unfolds. I never plan, plot or outline, and I always end up where I need to be. For nearly half my life, I have been pushed to live that way, too, although never as radically as this.
These days, the scariest leap comes in trusting that the resources I need to keep me going and, ultimately, to “land” me, will continue to manifest.
That trust was seriously tested this afternoon, when I discovered that the pet deposit on my Portland condo would not be returned. That’s no reflection on Kyri, who was and remains a model pup. It has to do with me breaking my lease. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
My immediate response was panic. I had been counting on that money, and watching it evaporate over the course of a phone conversation was unnerving.
One of my core fears, and one that must go all the way back to childhood, is a fear of abandonment (how perfect that I adopted a rescue dog who mirrors that fear back at me daily).
Yet if you have read my Acts of Surrender memoir, you know that I have never been abandoned. Magic and miracles have always shown up for me, and I have always been taken care of (although, as I’ve said, not necessarily in ways I would consciously choose). It took me a few hours of driving across the Nebraska emptiness today to remember that.
It will work out. It always has.
I will be fine. I always have been.
From the “Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining” Dept: The same leasing agent who refused to refund my pet deposit promised to give me a stellar rental reference should I need one when I finally land. In the long run, that could prove more beneficial. Somehow, I will be fine.
Adapted from Pilgrimage: A Fool's Journey © 2021 Mark David Gerson
"An emotionally raw testament to the power of spiritual faith. A must-read!"
– Estelle Blackburn, author of Broken Lives
"Mark David Gerson is not only a master of the word, but also a master of the heart!"
– Joan Cerio, author of Heartwired to Heaven: Unlocking the Power of the Creative Heart
"A compelling journey of rare faith and courage. Insightful, poignant, inspiring!"
– Nancy Edelstein, author of Your Path to Oneness
Photos
#1 – Day 3, by the Columbia River’s Wanapum Dam in Central Washington
#2 – Day 48, near Kanosh, UT
Book cover – Day 7, back road between Helena and Billings, MT
Meme (below) – Day 84, Turlock, CA
