As a little girl, I’d hike through the rusty splendor of Southern Utah with my parents. The smooth curved rock would beckon fantasy: This is my home. By day, I roam the land. At night, I sleep curled in a cave. I intuit the plants’ gifts—food, medicine, braided rug, snug roof. I move like light and shadow, share secrets with all who breathe this desert air.
Today, some decades later, my bedroom window is the back of my ’96 Ford Econoline, Rambling Ruby van Jangles. Over the past year and a half, I’ve traveled from Oregon, where I found Ruby and started her build, to Arizona’s southern border with Mexico, to the tip of the Pacific Northwest rainforest looking across a fog-covered Salish Sea toward Canada, and back to the Grand Canyon State.
Signal Peak, Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, Yuma County, Arizona.
My top five life-on-the-road loves (plus a bonus sixth at the end):
The sunsets, sunrises, landscapes, paths, however beaten or not. The grandeur of this planet, her power and rhythms, teach me to honor the paradox of my speckhood among and embodiment of her.
The connection with where my needs come from and how I thrive. For the “wild times” (they outweigh their urban counterpart greatly since the pandemic), I delight in carrying enough fresh food and water to keep my plants and myself alive and me clean for two weeks between restocking, in using what I have wisely, sorting and minimizing my refuse, getting the power I need from the sun. Figuring out how to accommodate whatever I dream of for my little home on wheels pleases me no end. Hence, the squeegee bidet, the well-stocked liquor cabinet, the easel, the guitar and van piano, the inflatable kayak, the “just enough” shoes.
The building of my knowledge, tools, and resourcefulness. I’ve learned the names for tools I’d never seen; gained a tentative understanding of 12-volt systems, once splicing and rewiring the melted cord for my fridge on the fly; ripped out runner boards, repaired a roof leak; resealed windows.
The generosity, talent, skill, and support of amazing humans. From friends and family to strangers to strangers now friends, my cup runneth over with the kindness that has been offered me again and again. I’ll feature them—the body repair shop guy with the heart of a teacher, my Marborg hero, and many more—in future blogs.
The perspective shifts. To evolve is to see anew is to evolve. For me, there’s no higher value than to constantly learn, to clean the lens you’re seeing the world through.
My top five challenges:
The whims of the elements and uninvited critters. I’ve been taught a thing or two about the power of the wind. Rain and snow have had their say too. As have the diametric but equally mind-numbing bitter cold and scorching heat. I’ve lain awake listening for the tell-tale scratch of claws in vents and battled with an army of mosquitos in 60 square feet.
The poo dump days.
The times when you can’t find … you name it—a place to shower, to stay for more than a night, to stay period, to refill much-needed fuel. You’re irritated, unsettled, exhausted; your body’s cramped; everything’s disheveled; “the knock” looms possible.
The loneliness. I often cherish the solitude and sometimes ache to share it.
When you’re reminded you can’t plan on anything going any specific way, and something will always need taken care of. No change from life anywhere lived in any which way on the planet here, though.
Enjoying a great ride to the base of Signal Peak.
In truth, all of the challenges—even the afternoon I dropped my toilet lid into a hole in the ground where unspeakables get pumped (cue Marborg hero!), the morning I lay on the desert floor weeping apology to a mouse whose death I’d brought unskillfully, or the time I high-centered Ruby on a craggy rock and watched transmission fluid pour from her underbelly (more heroes)—have been their own adventure.
I promised a sixth road life love. Here it is. Since I moved into Ruby, the inner voice I’ve nurtured since my days as an angsty youth nursing an unhealthy burden of self-loathing and disconnect, will often whisper, I’m so happy.
“Yes, baby girl,” I’ll say, grateful for her wisdom. “That’s what this swelling in our being is.”
In today’s world, that happiness has felt a juxtaposition. And it has been. Loneliness; heartache over the losses we’ve collectively sustained—in lives, in progress for those who identify as women and people of color, in time, economically, educationally, in safety and security for millions of the most vulnerable around the globe—fear for loved ones. They’ve all had their way with me too. It’s also felt a little unjust at times. Why should I allow myself this joy?
Here’s what I tell myself: There’s much work to do. And we can hold multiple truths alongside each other. We can bellow with the pangs and taste the elixirs. We can look forward to the changes needed and follow the threads that lead us (back perhaps) to what fills us.
I leave you with this wish. If you can, in whatever way you can, and to whatever degree you can, may you turn toward the swelling in your being your inner self recognizes as bliss.
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Nighttime at Kofa National Wildlife Refuge.