Washington (ii)

There was a time we lived off in the woods.  As I lie here in the comfort and security of my bed, listening to the rain fall outside my window with the blinds drawn, I can almost imagine that we are in the middle of that forest again.

It was a good place to rest.  A good place to escape the life that had been imposed upon us, and to redefine life according to our terms.

No need to dress up or look a certain way.  I mean, who really cared?  There was no pressure.  The residents were mostly down-to-earth, unassuming people living in a rural Pacific Northwestern town.  Some of them were retirees.  Some lived on Social Security like us.  For others, the RV park was just an in-between place.  One guy had been in the process of building a house on his own land for about a year.

I even worked for the RV park for a while doing bathroom maintenance.  But it wasn't really a job.  Just an hour per day.  Didn't really get paid either - just every four weeks of work I did would earn us a week rent-free in the park.

I was seriously considering making it work out there permanently.  The first best scenario would have been if I could have entered the Washington Bar by motion.  But they only did that if you come from a state that had reciprocity with Washington.  Florida is pretty notorious for its non-reciprocal Bar admittance.

So it would have been back to square one with the bar situation - cramming for a test for about 3 months and then sitting in a grueling exam for about 2 days.  Not to mention completing another bar application, getting a boatload of documents, doing a marathon of legwork and paying for all of the above.

Living on just social security and doing freelance articles on the side, I had to ask myself whether I really wanted to go through all that trouble in Washington just to be a lawyer again, or automatically become one just by crossing over the Florida state line.  Granted, it was a country and a half away at the time.  But when I got my book royalties at the end of the year, we'd have the money to make the trip.

Maybe it's the state of mind I had in Washington (and other places) that I miss the most.  Much more relaxed.  Come as you are.  Nothing to prove.  The forest doesn't judge you.