A Wild Now: Reflecting on a Year of Van Living

Our “vanniverary” has come and gone. What a thing that is! Hard to believe a whole year has passed. It feels like a moment… well, a series of moments that stream seamlessly by– so HERE and then so GONE.

Driving, I need to hold it all still, to experience each place we pass. Part of me wants yell “Stop the van!”, to get out and climb every hill, to check out each quartzy cobble in a creek, to sample a meal at every small town diner.

And also, I want to continue speeding around the next bend, into the constant, wild NOW of the road.

One year of travel! These days, we have to anchor ourselves. Waking, we stare at the scene outside our windows, trying to remember where exactly we are.

We help each other hold the memories in place: “Remember that bad thrift store in Rock Springs?” ……”That overlanding couple we met at the brewery in Ten Sleep?” …… “The tiny town park in Shoshoni, where we ate breakfast beside the train tracks and watched the old man with his border collie?”

Life on the road is flipbook fast. Every day so remarkable and … so ordinary. Why isn’t this, just this, enough?

It could be…. just moving and living and experiencing this amazing world. Each day, a series of “wow” interspersed with chores (set up, take down, cooking), a comfy love grown over 24 years together.

Though I miss being close to those I love– our kids, my parents, friends, neighbors, and former students, I don’t miss my “old life” at all. I rarely crave the comfort of waking up in a familiar place, padding to the kitchen to make coffee in easy warmth, constant wifi access, TV.

It did feel more grounded, though, the routines ingrained, the lush comfort of a shower, a woodstove, an oven– even toast! Time is a whole different thing when you’re living in one place, a slow, warm river into which one might wade. Days pass, so much the same that you hardly notice a month has slipped by. It is comforting and terrifying by turns.

But we are feral now, and time is like the wind pushing through our windows, blustery, a little violent even. Its passing is noticed. A day can feel long, really (really) long. Each new place, its own intense sort of “now”.

It should be enough.

Yet I feel some pressure to do more, to be more. Some of this comes from outside myself– people asking, hinting, suggesting. And there is the financial reality. (We manage fine on Dan’s one salary but two would be easier.) But some of it is mine alone.

“Retirement” — so far– has been one crazy brave adventure. I have learned a lot about myself, what I love (exploring new places, learning about the land, rockhounding, camp cooking!) and what I can tolerate too.

I have read more books this year than I have in ages… and taught myself how to make a website (this very website, in fact!) I have not done much writing though… or art.

But now that I’ve got my “van legs” and a whole year of winging it in the rearview mirror, I guess I should set a few goals for myself.

…Maybe revisit some of the goals I (naively) set for myself back in the planning stages of this adventure: To write every day, to sketch (do I even want to sketch???) to become a more intentional blogger, to learn to make videos, to volunteer at a park or museum. Or maybe I should get a job.

Then again, isn’t being here, now, in this awesome, wild world enough?