By Perri
I used to wake up before dawn. I’d make my coffee, start up the woodstove, and fill the birdfeeders all before the sun peeked over the wall of trees behind our house. Sometimes, I’d go out on the porch to watch the sunrise spread across the sky.
But, more often than not, by dawn I’d be deep into my work emails, or reading the paper or just…. unaware of that moment when darkness rolled away and sunlight recovered the sky.
Now that we’re living on the road, we never treat the sunrise so casually. Perhaps you’ve seen those sped up videos of flowers tracking the sun across the sky? We understand that now. The sun has a primacy, a visceral pull.
When we park up for the night, we consider where the shadows will fall come morning, the height of the eastern mountains, the direction Steven is facing. we try to ensure that we will have a spot for morning sun and afternoon shade.
When we wake, we lie in bed watching rays of sunlight stretch toward our camp. Only when they are close, do we rise.
This silly song goes pinballing around in my head virtually every morning (lyrics modified for my own purposes of course). Then Dan’ll pass by humming the very same song. Winter mornings are no joke: we truly are missing the sun.
We celebrate the moment the sun breaks the line of the horizon, often while huddled over our steaming coffee cups, our camp chairs facing East, East, East! Each sunrise is a relief and a celebration.
Later, when the desert heat builds and we have shed our winter coats, gloves and knit caps, we migrate to the shady side of the van. We block the light with reflectix panels when the sun is high and lush above us, wait out that swollen heat of mid-day like animals (which, of course, we are).
Dan’s first morning chore is setting up the solar panels to refill our battery. All day he adjusts them, tilting them like those flowers toward the light. Ditto with our solar phone charger and camp lantern.
As night approaches, we hurry to cook dinner before that same sun drops down below the horizon and darkness returns, a chill wind often creeping along behind it. The layers return: sweaters and coats, gloves and knit caps. We might make a fire if we have wood.
Sometimes we just crawl into bed when darkness comes, bundle up, and sleep.
Perhaps, if we had a larger van, one with a full kitchen, a heater, etc., we might not feel the primacy of the sun in such an extreme way. A cloudy day might elicit no more than a shrug. Rain? Wind? Whatever.
But by design, our little home forces us out into the world. We are “living out of our van” rather than “in” it. This means dependence on (and in utter appreciation of) the sun.
No matter the day’s adventure, each is, at its core, the same: a cycle of darkness and light, wind and stillness. Awareness of this, however difficult or inconvenient, is an absolute gift.
