Lost and Found

Here we are, seven months in to our crazy brave adventure! Currently we’re parked up outside of Nashville, Tennessee, headed north to be with family in Michigan and then Toronto. We spent most of today waiting for the heavy gray sky to go ahead and get it over with, Dan working online and me (Perri) sneaking out between bouts of weather to explore the fossil strewn edge of J. Percy Priest Lake.

I intended to write about the various “found objects” we’ve collected on the way: a one eyed finger puppet, a bright green army man, an elk bugle, Better Homes & Gardens vanilla scented candle, very fancy flashlight, etc. etc. So many cast off things!

But my draft kept wanting to be about other, less tangible lost and founds. So here it is, more of a rumination on what we have lost and found in this period of van living.

Seven months! It feels like all we’ve ever done at this point(!)

Lost

That face-to-the-future need. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t wishing for the next thing, planning what we would do in a year, two years, five. The road has taken that. We wind across an ever changing landscape, ever-adapting, considering no more than our next camp, our next meal. As far as we can go is where we go. What we have in our tiny fridge is what we eat. Eventually, we will have to do some longer-term planning. But for now, I sure don’t miss the long term. When people ask us how long we will be traveling, we say “until we don’t want to anymore”. And that is the long and short of it.

A certain kind of ease. When you are living on the road, laundry, shopping, sleeping, all the everyday things require more work. Google maps are a constant: “Parks near me” for breakfast, or lunch, or a bathroom, “Supermarkets near me”, “laundromats near me”. We never know what is near …and never know the sort of place we will find ourselves. Some city parks are sketchy, some laundromats too. It is part of the experience to navigate each new place. But it is not as easy as having a home laundry room, a familiar grocery store. (At a Winn Dixie in central Florida, the produce guy laughed in my face when I asked after tofu). Showers take a similar level of planning. Ain’t gonna lie: all this contributes to the “adventure” of life on the road and effectively waylays thoughts about the long term. The immediate is indeed immediate. It takes up brainspace.

A Schedule Time is vague on the road. We start each day reminding ourselves where we are (It can be in turns disorienting and liberating) and use our instagram feed to remember the specifics of our travels. Van living is a little like traveling down a river, the current keeps pulling you along, the bank a kalaidescope of places and moments and things already a little gone. This sort of living stretches time (a day or two can feel weeks long) and also condenses it (which is why it is hard for us to believe we have been on the road 7 whole months!)

“Stuff” Between us, Dan and I have two closets of belongings. Most of them are photo albums and family mementos, some are chatchkas and rocks collected on other adventures. After seven months, we barely remember the particulars of these things. When we go through them again some day, they’ll no doubt bring on the nostalgic pull we look forward to and dread. But we don’t miss them. It is freeing to have only what you really need. We could probably get rid of even more; the van feels a little loaded down with things we don’t use.

Found

The little things that are really big. The subtle shift of color as the morning becomes day becomes midday becomes afternoon becomes night. Living outside, sure shifts your awareness. The turning of the earth is real and immediate and so welcome.

A gazillion new routines: Coffee means heating water on our propane campstove, pouring it through grounds in a mug-sized cone. Sleeping means setting up the Jackery power station and rearranging the dog and the bed. We set up our “living space” anew at each campsite. Sometimes there are folding chairs and a screen tent. Sometimes a picnic table is provided. If there are trees, we might get to use our hammock chair. Sometimes there’s even a bathroom or shower! Each configuration requires something different of us.

Weather Eyes Weather looms large in our van-living life. If it’s chilly, we are cold. If it rains, we are (mostly) stuck inside our 77 square feet, or– on extra lucky occasions–confined to a coffee shop. Heat can be worst of all, as we seek out shade to park in and kick our ceiling fan into overdrive. In a house, weather is something you notice; In a non-climate controlled van, weather is what you live.

Clutter! More than you’d expect in 77 Square feet. We notice when things are out of place. And it IS possible to lose whatever you immediately need even in a tiny space. We are practicing “mindfullness” when it comes to moving around the everyday objects that make our van-life function. There is a lot less upkeep in a van. But often, our tiny counters are covered in tiny belongings and we still have to clean up.

Lost & Found

Community We gave up a solid community to go out on the road, and we do miss our friends– and our easier connection to family (especially our kids). Sometimes we feel soooo far away. Keeping up on phone and zoom, facebook, snap and instagram, though fun, is not the same at all. But we have been able top spend much more unhurried time with our family in Florida, which has been a blessing. Our work schedules never allowed for this in the past.

Also, we have, at long last, begun to build a community on the road. We are generally pretty introverted folks so the idea of “moochdocking” (camping in friends’ driveways) and chatting up our constantly changing campground neighbors, took some getting used to. We have made some inroads though, and we have met some wonderful new friends along the way.

New beginnings again and again

Whether you are living in a van or a house or anywhere else, every day is a new beginning, right? Heck, if you get down to it, every hours or minute is too. Even every breath. But we humans like our moments more well-defined so I guess you could say we are about to start a new leg of our crazy/brave adventure. We will be visiting family in Michigan, Canada and the Northeast, and taking care of some chores back home in Massachusetts through the beginning of June. We will be camping and exploring along the way, but perhaps not as consistently. I (Perri) will do my best to keep the journal up-to date and will share details about the last leg (a swing through South) in the next post.

After June, it is anybody’s guess where we’ll end up. We had an idea we might head up the St Lawrence River in Canada to see the beluga whales, but we are also thinking mountains in Colorado and visiting family on the west coast of both the US and Canada. Any suggestions?