When Lou and I got back to Monterey after that long trip down to LA, money was getting very tight for us.
Money was always tight. In fact, I can’t remember a time in the past ten or eleven years when I haven’t been concerned about how little money we have. But whenever we were on the verge of something coming through for us, I had a heightened awareness of our finances, and this awareness made me very vulnerable to panic. And at this particular time in our journey, panic was the primary emotion fluttering in my chest most days.
The reality had just started setting in for me that all of the little side deals Lou had been working on since we left Utah had already closed, and Lou had already been paid out his share. So I had a very specific kind of clarity that the money we had in that moment might be all we had to work with for a long time.
One of the unique things I can see about my marriage during this particular season of our lives is that on the days when Lou was spiritually and emotionally depleted by our circumstances, I was able to find a way to be up and positive. And conversely, when I was down, Lou found reasons and hope to be buoyant and strong. So luckily, right after our return from LA, Lou was on one of his emotional rallies, because I was dragging around my canoe filled with fear.
Plus, Lou had started to get some serious nibbles of interest from two different groups who were considering putting up some funding for him to start his wine company. That news should’ve been exciting for me, too, but I think a fear-based paralysis was starting to take over in my being, and I honestly remember feeling incapable of belief at times. All I could do was be still and do my best to trust God to figure things out in a way that I could understand.
But Lou kept us going in our reality. He stayed positive, and he always had a little plan in the back of his mind for how we were going to get from one day to the next. Looking back now, I see that Lou would be a good person to be marooned on a deserted island with because he is very clever with survival strategies. He’s smart and resourceful, and he even came up with ways for us to ration our food!
But during that very dark time in my memory, some of the things we did to survive truly stun me when I think about them now. Even after all the years of struggle, I never in my life imagined what it would feel like to be so low, and so out of ideas for how to keep going… Here is just one tiny example.
One day, when we were at the grocery store near Mike’s condo, we saw a sign for plastic and glass recycling. There was a huge shipping container in the parking lot that was always locked up, but on that day, we happened to see that there were two guys working inside of the container. They were using a large scale and a compression machine to crush plastic into a compact square, and they were paying people for their recycled items on the spot.
So the following week, Lou and I started collecting every recyclable container we could find in Mike’s condo complex. I remember feeling kind of giddy when we noticed the 10 blue recycling bins all lined up in a row near the huge metal garbage container in the building’s refuse lot.
As the sun was going down on the night before the next recycling date, Lou and I quietly pilfered through the large blue bins, and we loaded up the entire back of our truck with other people’s discarded plastic and glass. I remember feeling ashamed at first. I wasn’t sure if this was stealing, or if it was being resourceful.
But as the back of the truck started filling up with more and more plastic, I started to get excited about how much money we were going to get for all that recycling! (That night, Lou and I started thinking up other places we could go to get more recycled items for the following week – we were going to make a fortune!)
The next afternoon, we drove down to the Safeway parking lot, and we got in line behind a few other people with plastic to sell. When it was our turn, we discovered that quite a few of the best glass bottles in our mix were not recyclable — which was super disappointing. But that still left a lot of bottles that did qualify. So after all the crushing and weighing was said and done…
Lou and I received a whopping $7.25 for all of our efforts.
After Lou pocketed the money, we both climbed into the truck, and we drove away in silence. It was startling how little an entire SUV full of plastic was worth. And it was even more startling to see how desperate we had become…
We still went for our daily afternoon walks back then, but because we were in full-on survival mode, we had started limiting ourselves to only one trip a week down to Carmel-by-the-Sea to take our strolls. Even though it was only a few miles away from Mike’s condo, we had to start conserving the fuel in the car because we were anticipating going up to San Francisco for meetings on the funding at any time.
So we came up with a new six-mile walking loop — that was less stunning but equally important to our mental sanity. But we both started to really look forward to the one day a week when we’d go to Carmel for our walk. It was inspiringly beautiful, and being near such a gorgeous setting for a few hours always seemed to give us a real boost of peace about our lives.
The day before we were scheduled to go up to San Francisco to do a full pitch and presentation to a potential funding partner, Lou and I decided to splurge on a walk along Carmel beach. We had just filled up the tank with gas, and so it felt safe and OK to drive the car to our little oasis to get our hearts and minds right for the following day.
We did have a memorably great walk that day. Lou talked me through his pitch, and we allowed ourselves to get a little bit excited. We talked openly about what our next moves should be if the funding came through, and I remember feeling kind of hopeful for the first time in weeks.
As we made our way back to the truck, Lou stopped to stretch his legs. I was getting chilly, so I made my way around the back of our SUV to get to the passenger side of the car. And that’s when I saw it.
Our back tire looked like a pancake.
It was completely deflated. I remember shouting, “NO!” followed by a sudden flood of tears that I didn’t even have to summons. Lou quickly came around to my side of the car. As soon as he saw the tire, he leaned against the back of the SUV and put his hands over his face and groaned.
We quickly realized that we only had one option: we had to get a new tire because it looked like our back tire was a total goner.
But first, we had to put on the spare. Of course, everything that could make that process difficult made that process even more difficult — including the way the car behind us was parked. Then there was the fact that the spare tire for our SUV was mounted underneath the car chassis, and required the use of a screwdriver that was missing (for some reason) from the standard-issue tool bag.
Then there was the fact that we were parked on a sandy patch of road, that was also at the top of a slight incline — which made it more difficult for Lou to get the car jack to stay put. I remember being frustrated and scared, and any of the positive and optimistic feelings we had from our lovely afternoon in Carmel vanished from my being as soon as I saw the flat tire.
Eventually, Lou got the flat tire off, and the spare tire on. But there was no way we could drive up to San Francisco the next day on that donut. So we knew we had to figure out a different plan. We decided if we were going to have to borrow money from one of our sisters to get a new tire, we at least needed to find out how much one would cost.
After hitting three different places, the “cheapest” tire we could find was going to be $240! I remember calling my sister in near hysterics. I was beside myself by this point for so many reasons, but this tire was honestly the last straw for me. I was terrified and irrational, and even though my sister was coming up with ideas and strategies to help me, the fact that I needed to ask her for help like this was crushing my soul like never before.
Lou was trying everything he could think of to negotiate a better deal on the tire, but no one was willing to work with us. But then Lou remembered something from our ugly six-mile walking loop. Lou was pretty sure he’d noticed a used tire shop, and he felt like we should give that place a try before we settled on a plan that involved my sister and her credit card. So I told my sister I’d call her back once I knew more.
I have the most vivid memory of being angry with Lou on our gimpy drive over to the used tire shop. I don’t know why I was mad at him – absolutely none of this was his fault. But I think I was just scared. I think I had feelings inside of me that had been building up for so long, and I needed them to come out of me, and the only way I could get them to flow was by being mad at someone. (Poor Lou.)
I knew I was being ugly, but I couldn’t help it. So I decided to stay in the car and sulk like a crappy teenager when Lou went into the used tire shop to discuss our options.
Pretty soon, a dirty man with a piglet ponytail and a grimy work shirt came out to the SUV. Lou opened up the back of the truck to show him our tire. The guy started inspecting it. He flipped it over and put his face so close to the tire it looked like he was smelling it. Then he pushed something shiny out from inside of the tire. He held it up for Lou to see.
“You got a nail. I can patch it. It’ll be good as new.”
Within fifteen minutes, Lou and I were pulling out of the used tire lot with our own tire on the back of the car. The man told Lou that the nail in our tire was in the “perfect location” for him to repair, and he even gave Lou a 30,000-mile guarantee on the patch!
The tire guy told Lou we were “lucky.” It was “the best kind of puncture” you could get. Lou was clearly relieved, but when it came time to ring us up for the repair, Lou told me he had to hold his breath. We didn’t have a lot to spare, and everything at this used tire shop happened so quickly there was no time to ask any questions about the cost before the guy got started.
So you can imagine all the feelings that hit us both like a tidal wave of relief and humility when the guy charged Lou a whopping $7.00 for the repair.
