January 17th, 2022
Perri here! As I write this from my comfy couch in my comfy house in rural Western Massachusetts, we are six months or so from our new adventure. We have been building out the van (well, mostly Dan has been building out the van, with assistance from me). I have been purging our unneeded stuff– games and toys from when the kids were little, boxes and boxes (and boxes!) of books, clothes, linens, extra kitchen gear.
It’s surprising how much emotional valence a long unused game of risk contains. I remember the birthday when our son got it, the snow days the kids spent gathered around it at the kitchen table. But it is time for someone else to enjoy it so out it goes.
Ahead are the harder things, even more sentimental. I am hoping the kids might feel attachment to these things too– gifts, chachkas, picture books and etceteras– and take them. But they are all in their earliest of young adulthood and without so much nostalgic for the distant past.
We are making lists of what we need– or might need. Pricing out items (like roof racks and ladders, solar components). It is immensely exciting and immensely daunting! Hard to fully imagine our new life fully when I am snuggled up by the fire, and it is snowing outside. I watch frigid little juncos cluster around the feeders in the yard. The periodic sound of the plow on our road is the only break in the silence. The woodstove radiates warmth, the summer seems so far away.
Six (or so) months from now we’ll take the van out on what we are calling our”summer shakedown”(We are fully expecting that some things we’ve attached to the inside of the van may ACTUALLY shakedown.) Then it will be back to Western Mass to modify our build and get our house in order for long term leaving.
Our current plan is to rent it out to pay the mortgage (or most of it). I will arrange some remote work for myself. (More on this as I figure it out!) and we will have to consider our aging dogs. Luka is 16, feeble and incontinent… but healthy enough to tail behind Dan on daily walks through the woods out back. Milo is 12, though he acts like a puppy, a big goofy smelly puppy. We are expecting that this winter might be Luka’s last and that Milo will travel with us. (Not sure how he’ll feel about that– more to come on this too)
Really, there’s more to come on everything– but for now, I sit beside the woodstove dreaming of dirt roads, deserts, deep woods and long trails.