the coldest I've ever been

Moksha means liberation

The coldest I’ve ever been was travelling through the USA in an old Chevy van in 2012.

Obama had just been re-elected. His wide smile littered the streets on faded flyers.

My then boyfriend and I were in Gainesville, FL for a yearly punk rock music festival imaginatively called ‘The Fest.’

I wasn’t that into punk rock but I was very into my boyfriend and ever the chameleon, I slipped on the identity like the Motley Crue t-shirt I picked up from his floor a few days after we met. I slashed it with scissors and wore it until it disintegrated, always paired with the tiniest denim shorts I could find.

When I first met Jimmy in Woolgoolga, mid North Coast NSW I was travelling with my friend Rachel, also English who I’d met the year before in a backpackers in Byron. We were living in my Mitsubishi Magna, sleeping on a thin double mattress and spending our hard earned minimum wage on coffees and cafe food we couldn’t afford, writing endless pros and cons lists about the dizzying amount of options available to us as two single girls in our twenties with unlimited time and extremely limited finances.

‘Go to Melbourne - stay with that man who offered us his house, get work’

‘Go fruit picking in Robinvale, save loads of money, drive through the red centre.’

‘Find someone to sponsor us’

‘Fall in love with an Australian’

‘Find someone who will marry us for a visa’

‘Go back to home to England. Start being an adult’

That was on Rachel’s side. I knew going back to England wasn’t an option for me. I was staying here. I’d become accustomed to the turquoise waters and barefoot living and besides, I felt like I’d burned every bridge I ever crossed.

When she wrote ‘go back home’ I looked away and changed the subject.

I met Jimmy a few weeks later. He made me laugh. He was easy to be with. He didn’t take himself or life too seriously. He adored me. He was a passionate musician and reluctant chef.

The day after we met he told me he was going to the states and asked me, totally seriously if I wanted to come.

‘I’ve known you for a day’, I said, feigning disbelief, secretly thrilled.

And?

The decision didn’t even make it to the pros and cons list. Rachel and I had a rather tense, emotional goodbye. She continued with her adventures, understandably a little miffed I’d essentially ditched our plans for a man I’d just met. Without me and my endless indecision she sprang into action and ended up on the most incredible adventure, driving all the way through the red centre and sailing down the West Coast whilst I arrived on a different West Coast thousands of miles away.

2012/13 - Toronto, Gainesville, a few random places in the Deep South

Jimmy had only booked flights for a short trip, but ever efficient I suggested if we were going all that way, why not go travelling, buy a van, drive around the States, get working visas for Canada, go all out. It took about three seconds to convince him.

A few weeks later we jumped on the red eye to LAX and went back in time, arriving earlier than we landed. We bee lined it for the nearest bar and drunk ridiculously cheap margaritas before getting lost in the wrong part of town and eventually finding our way back to the hotel.

The next day we took a train down to San Diego along the stunning coast line before flying to Florida for The Fest a few days later. Our plan after the festival was to buy a van. We did absolutely no prior research so we were rather shocked to find out we couldn’t buy number plates in America without a social security number which of course we didn’t have.

After being turned down multiple times we finally got directed to a backstreet registration centre who would certify anyone for a discreet tip. We held the palm tree covered number plates in our triumphant hands. They matched the huge tattoo on Jimmy’s neck. We’d done it! Now all we needed was a van. We got a lift out to a dilapidated shack on the edge of the Everglade swamps. All the horror movies I’d ever seen flashed through my mind as it started to get dark.

‘Dont worry Darlin, this van is tip top’, the Dad drawled.

‘Only $3000. A steal.’

Jimmy and I knew nothing about cars. It looked fine. Ever optimistic, and increasingly desperate to leave Gainesville we handed over most of our travel budget and drove off into the sunset. Our first stop was a Walmart to get supplies. The van had no bed.

‘We’ll build one’ we said, ‘but for now it’s a luxury we dont need.’ Taking minimalism to a whole new level we decided we’d be fine sleeping on the metal floor with a few sleeping bags. I look back to these days in awe of my younger self. My level of optimism was bordering on dangerous. My mantra was ‘it will be fine’. And somehow, eventually, it always was. Every haphazard, impulsive decision, every crisis worked out in the end.

We drove for a few hours through the night. Eventually we parked up somewhere in Georgia, rolled out our shitty sleeping mats and attempted to sleep as the temperature dropped by about 20 degrees. The cold crept into our bones. The kind of cold that no amount of blankets or shared body heat can touch. We found an emergency blanket tucked into one of the doors. I dont know, I said. Is this an emergency? ‘Id say so!’ He said. But the blanket did less than nothing.

When we heard the knocking on the window we were almost relieved.

We peered out into the darkness. A police officer was shining a torch into our eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’

Good question I thought. Not for the first time I was questioning my choice to leave the idyllic Australian coast for the wilds of the Deep South.

The police officer was sympathetic, clearly deciding we were out of our minds. I can imagine his conversation to his family after that night shift. ‘I was in the middle of the forest and I found a van with two Australians sleeping on the floor. ‘

This would be the first of many interactions with the US police. As we drove through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi & Louisiana all the way into Texas we were regularly stopped and searched. They would always ask us the same question.

‘Why did you leave Australia to come here?!’ They genuinely couldn’t work it out. Time after time I’d wail ‘I just want to see America!’

The next question was always ‘are you carrying weapons.’ The first time I got asked this I panicked. ‘We’ve got a gas stove!’

He looked at me and burst into laugher. ‘Honey, you can carry a gun round here. It’s not a problem we just need to know’.

The first night of van life in the USA was a disaster but dawn had risen as it always does. As the sun rose we pulled into a Waffle House and spent hours warming our hands on refill coffees as the warmth crept back into our bones.

An hour later our van blew up. Our ticket to freedom that cost us most of our travelling budget was completely unusable. We called a mechanic and paid to get it towed back to Gainesville. As we sat in the back of the truck, dejected but determined, he looked back at us. ‘Yall bought a lemon. You gotta keep your wits about you round these parts. Take someone with you who knows what they’re doing next time’.

We eventually got back to town and bunkered in at the cheapest hostel we could find. Here we met an angel in human form whose name I forget so I’ll simply call him Angel. He was an older quiet guy. He heard us talking about our van woes.

‘If you dont mind me saying so, you could do with some help’ he said. ‘You two dont know nothing about engines do you’.

We shook our heads.

‘I’ll help you. Got nothing better to do. I was a mechanic for 15 years before I had to leave town’.

We didn’t ask what for.

Angel jumped on to the hostel computer and logged on to Craigslist.

‘This one is worth a look’ he said. ‘$800. It’s a Chevy. Those things go forever. It’s only got one working door and no heating, but for that price what can you expect.’

He must have liked us because he dedicated the next few days to our van mission. He took to it like it was his own. He drove us to test drive it, checked out the engine, gave it the seal of approval and sat in the passenger seat as I nervously drove on the wrong side of the road. When we finally left we were sad to say goodbye. We left him some beers and as much cash as we could afford to give him and started out for the big American road trip 2.0.

This little van was our home for the next 3 months and 8000 miles.

We started driving in October. Autumn was unseasonably warm everyone said, but once we reached Colorado there was no more escaping the cold. At night icicles would form over our heads as we slept. We knew it was time to get up because they’d start to melt and drip on our heads. One day we opened the door to waist deep snow and had to wait a few days before it melted again.

After three months of travelling through the US through the spectacular landscapes of Bryce Canyon, Zion, The Grand Canyon, Arches and Big Bend National Park, into the colour of New Orleans to the strangeness of Roswell with its Alien street lights and one last mad dash through the flat brown farmland of Kansas before our visas ran out, we made it.

We’d reached the Canadian border.

We spent the last night in the US in the nondescript town of Buffalo, crashing on the floor of another new friend we’d met at a bar.

The thing I think about most when I look back at all my years of travelling is the kindness of complete strangers. The amount of times people I’ve just met have gone out of their way to help me, feed me, shelter me, direct me, translate for me, change money for me and save my life over and over again is remarkable, and I dont think my story is unique. We are hardwired to help each other. I remind myself of this whenever I’m feeling a bit unsure. People are good. We are good. We’ve all got that goodness inside. No matter how hidden it may be.

At the Canadian border I expected to be welcomed with open arms. We’re in the Commonwealth, I thought, and everyone says how nice Canadians are.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

For some reason they thought we were trying to bring weed into the country. They separated us, searched us, made us take every single item out of the van and our bags, then the border officer tried to coerce me into admitting something that we had definitely not done. We were a little clueless sure, but we weren’t that stupid.

They sat me down in a tiny, windowless room.

‘Your boyfriend has admitted to carrying the drugs’ they said. ‘So you might as well tell us the truth’

‘He wouldn’t say that’, I said, with as much force as I could muster, ‘because it’s not true.’

Eventually they let us go and I collapsed into a heap. I was tired. It was beyond cold. We had no money. I had holes in my shoes. My Canadian working holiday visa had been denied. I couldn’t believe I’d left Australia for this.

But of course, every challenge was strengthening me for what was to come. Every decision leading me to this. To teaching. To the studio. To yoga.

In downtown Toronto, mid winter -20 degrees I finally experienced the true meaning of cold. I’d washed my hair that morning and left it slightly damp. A couple of minutes after leaving our apartment I went to turn my head and couldn’t. I panicked.

‘I’ve broken my neck’ was my first thought. Then I realised there was no pain. I was still standing.

As my hands flew to my neck I realised what had happened. My hair had frozen solid to the furry collar of my jacket in minutes.

My salvation at that time was called Moksha, the Sanskrit word for liberation. This liberation came in the form of a huge neon sign glowing from a St Clair West alleyway. HOT. YOGA. It begun.