Happy Birthday to me!!

Well gosh, my brother gifted me with a new blog format on WordPress! He says that as a traveler it would be wise for me to have a format that is easy to read for other travelers. Touche, young sir. Here it is: www.freerangelass.com./

The Silver Palace, she is home!

The Silver Palace, she is home

Last Monday I drove down to Portland to get the Silver Palace. I was given a two-hour walkthrough tour of my Airstream (which took more like three and a half...I'm a nurse, one should expect that I would have a million more questions than the average Airstream-purchasing bear). My guide showed me how to drain water, fill water, switch propane tanks, manage electrical capability, lower my awning, and finally, how to reverse into a parking spot. My guide had the patience of a saint - I think he only ripped out one or two small patches of hair. Finally, I pulled of the oh-so-safe dealership lot and white-knuckled it all the way home. 

Now begins the process of moving from a house to a very small camper. This just got oh so real. In the intervening time between having my Airstream stored and picking it up and hauling it home (six months), I imagined the storage in the Airstream getting larger and larger – in my head. I would look at an item – should I take it or not? – and think “Oh, I’ll have room.” Reality says “No, indeed you do not. “ So now I must revisit every item I thought I would need in my new Airstream life. My Vitamix? Nope. Blender? Nope. Small food processor? Nope. Collapsible laundry basket? Nope. Fabric closet hangy thing in which to store folded shirts, bras and the like as if I were a storaging genius? Nope. And nope.

The thing is, I have a pretty severe weight restriction, and things are heavy. The stacks and stacks of books I intend to read one day cannot come with me. Ideally, I would cohabitate with one book at a time instead of hoarding volumes and volumes in the hope that one day I’ll hunker down and get to the business of enriching my mind. And clothes – I have heartlessly thinned out my closet, but I can tell already that not even half of my clothes will be able to come on the road with me. Gleaning my already-small pile of wearables will be made easier by the fact that I have nowhere to store even a moderate foldable laundry basket. My solution is simple: Wear only clothes that can all go into the same laundry bag. Or laundry lunch box, as space dictates.

I’ve had to change my mind about what constitutes a needful thing. My move-in process involves two steps: Move all the necessities in first, then the luxuries in the space left over. Over the thundering sound of God laughing, my list reads as follows:

Necessary:

• -        Work clothes
• -        A few books that I know I’ll read
• -        My bike
• -        Spinning wheel
• -        Vitamins
• -        Small pan, pot, and dishes
• -        Printer
• -        Clothes for both hot weather and cold
• -        A small ceramic heater for cold weather
• -        Towels (bulky, but light. Hooray!)

I’ve decided to not take any cookbooks – I can look recipes up online. I will not take a blender – I can mix things with a whip. I will have to seriously cull my spice collection. My movies will have to stay in storage – if I want to watch a movie I can rent it from the library or read a book. I will greatly miss my Miss Marple mysteries, but alas, the grand dame of intrigue just won’t fit on the little shelf allotted for DVDs.

Thinking about "what is a needful thing" makes me feel slightly silly about studiously cramming every nook in the Silver Palace with something I "just can't live without." I mean really, if I only take the necessities, I could probably do a cartwheel in the postage stamp-sized kitchenette. And no, I am not ready to throw out my little makeup bag. Could I do without it? Indeed, I live without it on almost a daily basis, but I am not ready to throw it out. I was very brave and parted with ALL of the clothes in my suitcase that would look absolutely killer....when I lose that ten pounds. But the makeup? Not yet. Maybe one day I'll ditch it. Maybe one day I'll also ditch the ego and hubris that go with thinking that makeup add one whit to the deliciousness of life. But not today. 

Shedding stuff is not easy

I’m sitting in my favorite place – a noisy café, tea at hand, life going on all around me in the form of unceasing chatter and loud, loud music. Monday I drive down to Portland to get the Airstream, and am spending my days until then busily packing things away in my storage unit. Every item must pass muster before it takes up valuable space in my little 5x10 box – does this item really need to be saved? To be maintained? So far, most of my storage space at this point is dedicated to wool and alpaca, which is more reasonable than you might think, as fiber is very squishy and can be made compact with equal measures of determination and animal fiber obsession. I may yet be able to downsize to a smaller unit.

What constitutes a needful thing? One of my most memorable moments traveling was getting lost in a small Turkish village with a group of Scottish tourists. We were all carrying backpacks, full of snacks, guides and extra clothing, had on wristwatches and other pieces of jewelry, and had still larger packs stashed at our hostel. We navigated mud huts no taller than an average human that housed whole families in one single room. Many didn’t even have a door. We saw a young woman picking vegetables in a wood with a donkey to carry her harvest – our guides told us that this donkey was shared among the whole village and was considered a source of wealth. Our guides slipped away to have tea and left us to wander, and wander we did – aimlessly. We walked by this house and that, and were greeted as we passed each yard by a woman or a child. One ancient tiny woman sat in her yard and waved at us, calling “Hello tourist!” One thing was consistent – all the villagers were trying to offer us tea, some waving toward their houses and calling “Tea! Tea!” I was struck by the dichotomy: Here we were, obvious westerners with all our requisite apparel and gear, being offered tea and hospitality by those who seemed to have so little to give. It would be arrogant to say that these people had nothing to offer – of course they did – and I wished I could say that we accepted tea and got the pleasure of experiencing a village visit. We didn’t – we were lost, we were deviating from an invisible schedule to never get lost, and did not want to take the time to stop and experience another culture. Knowing what I know now, I would make a different choice. I would have subdued my panic – it hardly would have been the case that our guides would have left us in this tiny village forever – if anything, they wouldn’t have gotten paid. I suppose it was a lack of control in a strange place that made us hungry for the comforts of our bus.  Looking back on that, I see that owning things has absolutely nothing to do with what wealth is. I’m talking about Real Wealth – riches not only of the material, but of mind, body and spirit as well. How many can say that they are wealthy in a way that really matters?

I love looking at pictures from photojournalist Peter Menzel’s pictorial Material World, which shows families from all over the world in their homes with all of their material possessions on display. The American family, among others from more developed countries, had loads and loads of things to arrange for the photo shoot. Oddly, I don’t think these pictures are accurate – I think typical westerners have more things than the people portrayed in the book. Later documentaries (such as Affluenza and The Story of Stuff) show us literally drowning in things, with garages, extra rooms, and multiple storage units overflowing with more items than we could possibly use in a lifetime.  Contrast this with a family is a less developed part of the world whose possessions take up the surface of one small table, and yet they enjoy health and family companionship just as the rest of us do.

Which isn’t to say that I’m any better. I’m as well trained a consumer as any American advertising company could want. Until, that is, I stopped watching TV. Owning a lot of things has always rankled me in a way I could hardly describe. In a way, I often feel owned by my possessions, especially when I can’t immediately find an item I want at a particular moment. Why can’t I find it? “Too much stuff in the way” is always my answer.

And yet, I have difficulty getting rid of many things. My Vitamix, which I use almost daily. My new ice cream maker, because who doesn’t like homemade ice cream? Never mind the ridiculousness of lugging around an ice cream maker in an Airstream.  Never mind that the amount of gas money I would save by not hauling and maintaining an ice cream maker would likely buy me a pint of ice cream on the rare occasions that I do eat it. I suppose if I dig I realize that I’m not only giving up on the idea of having freshly-made ice cream when I want it, but also bragging points for being such a rugged individual who makes her own ice cream. Ego takes up a lot of space, too. And the books, always the books. Never mind the public libraries that are everywhere, are free, and don’t yell at certain patrons when I turn my books in late…again.

Inspiration abounds about those who have embraced the simple life and are walking the talk: Tammy Strobel with RowdyKittens.com; Dave Bruno of www.100thingchallenge.com/; Joshua Becker at www.BecomingMinimalist.com. I applaud these people in following their own hearts and minds and for doing the very hard work of ditching their stuff in a stuff-centered society. As for me, if I am very brave I will give away the suitcase full of clothing that don’t quite fit (but are so adorable…I’ll be able to wear them if I just lose 10 pounds!...), as well as my little soft case full of makeup.  Maybe then I’ll feel a little less like a tool of every marketing campaign ever and more like a thinking, independent individual. 

It's about to get...uh...fancy

So, here I go. I mean, I went and did it: Last December I bought an Airstream Flying Cloud, a 19-footer, and a few days ago I put my notice in at work. My last day is July 20, so that's a little time to get everything squared away, but there is so, so much to do and it's all very overwhelming. How will I get everything done? It'll all get done of course, because there isn't really any other alternative. But, it's still scary. 

I plan to work as a travel nurse and travel around the country. I plan to do a lot of hiking, biking, camping, contemplating, reading, writing, and generally living my life as if it were a fantastic tampon commercial. I want to see as many national parks as I can and live as close to nature as possible. I want to meet hoards and hoards of interesting people and hear their stories, and share some of my own as well. I want to see every nook and cranny I can of this amazing country. I want to go to lots of concerts and take up too many hobbies. I also want to continue selling things I make at local farmer's markets when possible. And I want to talk about it all, here.

I deleted my last blog, because my last blog was about my life as a property owner, and what it was like living in this thing called a house. Well, I'm kind of over it. I'm over all the stuff that seems to accumulate in a house (I swear it multiplies on its own), and all the other stuff I need to buy and maintain and insure as a homeowner to take care of the original stuff. It's stuff, on top of stuff, and frankly, I'm just not a "stuff" kind of person. I figure anything that I have to maintain on a regular basis that doesn't serve a real daily need is just a silly waste of time and space, so why have it? Part of my goodbye to domesticity is getting rid of a whole lot of stuff, and seeing what stuff I can live without. I have a feeling this will be a long process, this divorce from stuff, and I will continue learning lessons on the way. Right now the hard part is giving away things that I originally paid a lot of money for, and I find if I give myself permission to get rid of valuable things and give that permission some time to sink in, the purge gets easier. 

Here is the Silver Palace:

The Silver Palace

The door is open in welcome, it's so inviting! The Silver Palace is begging to go on a camping trip.

The living room

This thing is tiny. I plan on taking my dog Lucia and two cats with me on the road. I think there will be moments when I look back on this and think: "That was an extraordinarily bad idea." I trust that the likely hilariousness of traveling cats will be worth the effort, and by hilariousness I mean hell for me and hilarity for everyone else. At least someone will be laughing.

So this is my little soon-to-be home. I drive down to Portland next week and bring her home on June 10th. While reading the "Airstream for Newbies" guide given to all new Airstream owners at the dealership is invaluable, I am very grateful for Kyle with whereiskylenow.com for his excellent post on how to live in an Airstream full time, his relevant technical advice, and his generous encouragement. Thanks Kyle. I look forward to being as comfortable and capable as you on the great open road.