The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--53. Eighty Percent of Each of Our Nows Are Essentially the Same; We Can Learn to Live All with Novelty and Wonder

Sunset, Galveston Island State Park, Steve Brown 2025

10/29/25 

Exactly one week ago I woke up in a tent in Galveston Island State Park, Texas.  It was still dark, and I had to go pee.  Marci was awake for the same reason.  It had been a hostile night for sleep.  First, there was unbelievable heat and humidity.  Late October, and it was still in the low 80s when we set up our tent after 9:00 that night.  Then came fantastic electrical storms and great winds that swept across the tent and vibrated the poles fiercely.  The tent held; the rain never came.  Things did cool down, and I eventually crawled into my sleeping bag, but sleep was short and sporadic.  I so wanted to close my eyes and drift off now that things were calmer, but my bladder wouldn't let me.  Marci was also stirring, so I asked her if she wanted to drive up to the restroom.  She did.

Here at the beach, our days would begin basically the same because of our same basic need.  The change in our sleeping conditions from our typical Tuesday night's rest didn't change at all what we would be doing Wednesday morning.  True, the restroom was a lot further from bed than what was typical, but what drove us out of bed against our will was exactly the same.  Nothing had changed.   The journey to the toilet would be more filled with adventure and wonder than normal, but only because it was new.  If I had been blinded all my life and woke up one morning to a full bladder and full sight, the short journey across my bedroom would be even more spectacular than stepping outside my tent to a misty, dark morning and the sound of waves hitting the beach across the dunes behind me and the flames of a refinery across the bay lighting up the fog in a big, pulsating ball of orange-glow.  

Novelty awakened my senses and created the wonder of the beachside bathroom journey.  What if I could learn to bring that same sense of novelty and wonder to each bathroom journey?

The bathrooms in Galveston are alive with the sounds of bugs because bugs there are everywhere.  The restrooms are big and clean with showers and concrete bench seating areas and shiny hooks for clothes and shiny hand dryers.  There was even liquid handwashing soap, a rarity in campground restrooms.  Yet, there were bugs bumbling and buzzing in the sinks and crawling up the walls and swimming in the toilets, and because it was new, although it was an irritation, it was also a wonder.  Flies out west indicate a restroom or outhouse is unclean.  They are vile because they go hand and hand with the vile smell.  But here, the restroom was clearly clean, and the bugs took on a different meaning--at least to me:  Here is an ecosystem so rich and diverse you can't even bleach the life out of it.  I'm sure that's not true--man is capable of sterilizing life out of anything--but that's how it seemed.  Fecundity everywhere.

Outside, waiting for Marci, I listened to the waves lap the shore somewhere beyond the mist that seemed to gather around the light poles.  The air was damp and I could breathe.  I was glad my bladder had woken me up to take in this moment.  Yet, if I was more disciplined, I could answer every morning call to use the restroom similarly.  Although the bathroom is four feet from my bed, I could slip on some shoes afterwards, step outside, and walk up to the end of the driveway and back.  In fact, I think I will.  That will be part of my morning routine, to bring a sense of wonder to each day.  I will set my shoes beside my bed with fresh socks for my short morning walk to bring the wonder and adventure that going pee has when camping into my everyday life.  This is a promise to me, to start each day with to natural intention bring me into the very real present--which in January will be very real indeed.  Shockingly so.  I can't wait!

I loved our short visit to Galveston.  It is a place I once knew fairly well and loved immensely.  The heat and humidity and ocean and bay are alive with life and fecundity.  Yet, that is true anywhere, even Death Valley.  Although there is much less life in Death Valley, there is so much more silence and space, that the life and the fecundity that there is, takes on so much more significance, and one is still drawn to the rattles of life stirring all around.  Life is always alive all around us.  It's our senses that become dead, and they are always deadened by the same old thing: a wandering mind driven by an ego always soldiering up to protect our self-image even though at least 80 percent of nows are essentially the same and realistically pose no threat to us at all.  The looming deadline this week is essentially the same as the one last week, which even though we survived it just fine, somehow, we don't get that in our head: it all works out; all is well, all is well.  

But it doesn't have to be that way.  We can choose to be essentially on vacation always while going through the motions of meeting those pesky deadlines if we focus on the wonder around us.  Light still streams through the window and bounces around the room while you do dishes.  There is that certain slant of light igniting suburbia on the way to take the family to the soccer game.  And there is always the silence of your own mind anywhere, even downtown, waiting for a bus on a busy street corner, with car horns and heavy exhaust, if you're willing to wade out into the warm, lapping water and feel the hush of the ever-present now fold all around you.  Every moment can be filled with novelty and wonder if we choose it to be so.

Sink Light Show, Steve Brown 2025