can't escape the feeling that things are falling apart. First, the computer. Then the rain, which pours on me whenever I use the payphone in the town square, which I use because my cell phone doesn't work here. For two days my car has reeked of mildew, and it wasn't till this morning that I discovered a jug of water had spilled, soaking stacks of newspapers and magazines, yet unread. A piece of ripped upholstery on the car door keeps catching my foot. After I boiled water on my camping stove this morning, the propane tank starting leaking, a cold, white plume of foul-smelling gas spraying out in a loud, unstoppable hiss. My back aches from the driving, my feet ache from the walking, my teeth ache from the grinding. Here is the secret, which I will tell you now: Sometimes I don't care where I am. Sometimes it just doesn't matter at all.

It was in Bar Harbor, Maine, that I first started sleeping in my car*. It was the Fourth of July, and the cityslickers clogged the campsites. (If you want the countryside, I am thinking, then can I use your house?) Hotels were out of the question -- $150, $200, a joke. I knew it would come to this sooner or later, so I cleared out the backseat and made a little bed for myself. Flannel sheets tucked in at the corners, my teddy bear (another secret; don't tell) resting on the pillow. I pulled into the parking lot of the Golden Anchor Inn and Pier and snuggled up in my backseat, incidental noise drifting by as the bars closed, street lights in my periphery like close constellations. I expected to sleep fitfully, maybe even fearfully. Earlier that evening, I had walked myself through the worst-case scenario: A deranged, drooling man appears in the window wielding a knife, what do I do? Here is the lock, there is the ball-peen hammer, and over there, the payphone to which I will run. (A ball-peen hammer? Who is this attacker, Elmer Fudd?) But I sleep great. I feel as though I am finally making total use of my little gas guzzler. I can't believe it took me three months to try this. Did I really pay $20 for a square of dirt in a flat field? For shame, when my car offers such a cozy splendor, and all for free. It's not the sleeping-in-the-car bit that's depressing me. It's an aimlessness, an indifference. Searsport or Rockport? Whatever. That's fine.

Today I will explore the Maine back roads. I am tired of the tourist towns, the numbing and endless procession of fudge shops and ice cream stores and overpriced anything. I will finish the book I am reading, Mary McCarthy's "The Company She Keeps," which is fantastic, which -- like sleeping in the backseat of my car -- I discovered so late in life, and I will try to find other things, some hidden something -- the taste of a plum, the friendship of a stranger -- to add to that list.

(*Note to my mother: No, no, of COURSE I'm not sleeping in my car, Mom. I wouldn't do that. This is just a story, you know, poetic license. Like when Updike writes about his family or Eminem raps about hating gay people. Don't worry! I'm FINE!)

written in Searsport, Maine