Roads From the Ashes. Megan Edwards
waited until she had enough money, well, forget it. Somehow, both completed projects that cost thousands and thousands of dollars they didn’t have.
The fact of the matter is, money isn’t what allows you to do things. It actually keeps you from doing things if you believe it has to come first. What really has to come first is resolve, a burning desire to accomplish something no matter what.
We did receive insurance money to cover the belongings inside our house. We used a large piece of it to pay business expenses: all the inventory we lost had not been paid for, and it was not insured. There was enough money left over to buy an inexpensive motorhome or make a down payment on a custom- designed one. The route we chose would make a financial advisor cringe.
It’s been five years since we’ve received money on a regular basis or from traditional sources. We’ve used up our savings, we’ve worked, we’ve borrowed. On spectacular occasion, we’ve been visited by miracles. Sometimes we’ve felt hopelessly short of cash, and other times, we’ve felt as though we had plenty. We’ve been scared, and we’ve been confident, we’ve come close to giving up hope, and we’ve ridden high on waves of abundance. Every once in a while, as we’re barreling down a highway on a fine day, we look at each other and say, “Well, here we still are.” And we are. It must be magic.
If it is, then life is magic. Nobody waits for enough money to raise a child before they have one. They just go ahead and make things happen as the journey unfolds.
It wasn’t money or its lack that sent us on the road. It was something far simpler. We wanted to. We wanted to more than we wanted to do anything else. We had a burning desire, appropriately ignited by a wildfire.
A Large Shake
By January, we were a few steps closer to rolling. The Revcon Trailblazer was slowly taking shape in the Irvine factory. It now had its own name, the Phoenix One. I’d wanted to call it Phoenix because it was rising from our ashes, and Mark said okay, as long as we added the One. “It means there might be a Two someday,” he explained. “It’s forward looking.” We were forward looking, too. Most of our sentences began, “When we leave,” or “Once we actually hit the road . . .” We were living in the future, and I was getting impatient for the future to be now.
Then, on January 17, I 994, something happened that riveted us to the present. It was still dark when the first jolt hit, and it threw me out of bed. By the time the second tremor rolled under us, I was wide awake, and Mark had joined me on the floor. Car alarms were screaming. Dogs were barking.
“Unless the epicenter is right where we are,” I said, “This is a really big earthquake.” Another series of shakes rattled our windows. I crawled over to the television and turned it on. Already, a disheveled announcer at a local station was on the air. Behind him, shelves had toppled. Books were scattered on the floor.
It was a serious quake, all right, 6.7 on the Richter Scale. The worst damage was sustained in the San Fernando Valley community of Northridge, where gas mains exploded, apartment buildings collapsed, and more than 50 people died. Twenty-two thousand people were forced to leave their unsafe homes, and even more evacuated out of sheer fright. Public parks were transformed into tent villages, and the National Guard turned out to keep order. Once more, legions of insurance adjusters and FEMA staffers arrived in Los Angeles to set up temporary shop in the latest disaster zone. The fires of October were forgotten in the dust of crumbled freeways.
A friend of mine in North Hollywood lost the contents of his apartment. Everything was smashed, and he was in shock. I told Mark about it while we were eating dinner. “I wonder what we can do to help,” I said. “Well,” said Mark, “We’ve accumulated a lot of stuff that we aren’t going to need when we hit the road. Maybe it’s stuff he can use.” It was true. What would we do with a microwave or china bowls? Only a crazy person would take crystal glasses on a road trip.
I called Rich the next morning, and the things we’d acquired matched remarkably well with what he had lost. We loaded up his car to the roof.
So I guess you could say that the earthquake cleaned us out, too, and we were happy it did. When we took to the road, we wanted nothing material tethering us to a specific spot, especially a storage locker. I’d travel to the edge of the world to see a friend, but an aging coffee maker is hardly a worthy grail.
While I’m still on the subject of earthquakes, I must share a bit of wisdom gained from experience. You’ve heard the standard admonishment, “When you feel a tremor, get in a doorway.” I’d heard it, too, all my life, and I’ve even told other people. Well, folks, there’s a little more to it than that. A friend of mine found out the hard way. When the Northridge earthquake hit, Barbara rushed to a doorway. As she stood there, another tremor struck. The doorframe hit her between the eyes. She lost consciousness briefly, and the next day, she had two black eyes. So remember, when an earthquake hits, go to a doorway, and CROUCH DOWN, COVER YOUR NECK AND HEAD, AND BRACE YOURSELF INSIDE THE FRAME.
The only other piece of useful earthquake advice I can share I heard from a Caltech seismologist. “If you live in Southern California,” he said, “Push your expensive Scotch to the back of the shelf.”
Wheels!
Slowly but surely, our Phoenix was rising. Mark drove to Irvine nearly every day to make sure it was rising to his satisfaction. I was still working at the job I’d held before the fire.
It got to be January. It got to be February. It got to be March. It got to be a week away from the day we were supposed to assume ownership of our new home.
We had started applying for loans the day we decided to have the Phoenix One built. We’d heard “no” three times. We were on the fourth application, and the prognosis looked no better. Why would a bank whose usual M.O. is to loan people only money equivalent to what they already possess, lend us a cent? We were crazies with an irresponsible gleam in our eyes. We were exactly the kind of loan applicants that lending agents are trained to escort firmly to the door.
With only a week to go, we needed a miracle. We needed a bank that would loan us $56,250 because they liked our smiles, one that would believe we meant it when we signed a piece of paper saying we’d pay it all back.
Eighteen hours before we were due in Irvine to assume possession of the Phoenix One, water turned into wine. The last bank, represented by a woman with a lovely smile, funded our loan. The next day, we drove to Irvine, signed a bunch of papers and kicked the tires one last time.
The Phoenix was ours! Mark climbed into the cab, turned on the engine, and pointed it toward Pasadena. I followed in the car. I tailed him along Irvine Boulevard as we headed for the freeway. Outside the rarefied atmosphere of the Revcon factory, the Phoenix stood out like Santa Claus in July. It stopped traffic. “My god,” I thought, “We’ve bought an eyesore.” A sharp pang of buyer’s remorse struck me in the gullet. “I’m a conspicuous consumer. I’m a frivolous spendthrift. Those other three banks were right. We really are insane.”
The Phoenix paused at a traffic light, then turned onto a freeway ramp. I followed. I had 26 miles to think about what we’d done. It only took two for me to recover from my momentary lapse. What did I care if the Phoenix drew attention? We’d picked it out because it was different. The ordinary possibilities hadn’t appealed to us. They hadn’t suited our new lease on life.
As we headed north, my mood rose like a hot air balloon. The truck rolling smoothly along the highway ahead of me meant everything we’d planned was suddenly real. We had our wheels! There was nothing stopping us! We were ready to roll! We were free!
We drove to Mark’s parents’ house. They came out. “It’s beautiful,” they said. My sister and brother-in-law came over to take a look. “It’s obscene,” they said. But everybody looked inside and outside. They climbed underneath and up on the roof. They sat at the table and lay on the bed and turned on the faucet and opened the cupboards. Before the afternoon was out, the Phoenix had attracted twenty gawkers, and it was parked on a secluded cul-de-sac.
I can’t tell you who was right. Maybe the Phoenix was beautiful, and maybe it was obscene. I’d wondered