So, The Road Became Home
As my niece and I put it, we weren't homeLESS, we were homeFULL, because we converted the car into our home, like a life size version of polly pocket.
Building out the car was a feat outside my imagination lines. I am the designer, the dreamer, the visionary when it comes to building anything. Anna is usually the one to make it all come alive. As gifted as that human is with toddlers and babies, they are gifted with woodworking and bringing creative ideas to light.
I learned how to sew for the road. Something I swore I would never do, alongside mowing a lawn; because that's why people get married. I also mowed a lawn before we went to live on the road. I sewed all of our pillowcases and helped sew together my custom massage table bag. It was a very big deal at the time.
Anna had full faith in my ability to do the hard things and luckily we both grew up with our dad's working construction and having construction-job based backgrounds of our own. I love doing hard things in life. I know I have a Barbie front. It's the whole point. Y'all keep thinking you know me.
It didn't take long for me to realize who I am on the road, and I love that person. Anna and I had very different reactions and responses the moment we shut the door to our house for the final time. We both quickly realized we were having two completely difference road life experiences. For one, it didn't take long for us to realize we did NOT want to beome troad life youtuber's.... the feeling of who we became when the camera was on made us feel fake and icky and we noticed we weren't able to have authetnic moments or experiences out in the world. As for our differences, Anna had some withdrawals from seeing society, whereas I was reluctant to ever want to see the face of society again. Anna really appreciates eating three meals a day, and I was prepared to eat three meals a week; otherwise living off the energy of fresh air and freedom. I liked doing nothing at a campsite all day but writing poetry or reading and sleeping in. Anna liked having an agenda; something to help them feel productive. We hiked everywhere we went. Anna became skilled with an axe and I became a fire woman with a flint and stone. There is something in nature for everyone.
We both quickly fell off our budget. By no means were we supposed to ever galavant inside big cities or buy chochskies, one thrift store became two compromises and so on. We had to settle on an agreement to keep the spirit and ultimate goals alive on the road where we both felt we were getting something out of it for our souls, and with joy. The worst feeling we both went through at different times was "did we make a mistake?" - that's a hard feeling to have when so much preparation and forethought was put into making this dream real. The brain is not designed to be our friend. Recognizing this, it is much easier to move through negative self-talk that is full of doubt, despair, fear and change the narrative. Teach the brain how to think in healthier ways when we can catch it in time.
Anna found a ranching trade-to-live job in southern Utah just a few months into living on the road. I am from Utah and we love the desert and wanted to explore so much of it. For no other reason than absolutely earnesty; we got the job. It was a desert animal sanctuary ranch that allowed for campers + their horses to come stay. There were a few cabins for rent and a bunkhouse. The other ranch hands all had trailers and we ended up living in the bunkhouse and learning how to live on a ranch.
This ranch was were we met two soul family members! What I would do without Kate and Dalton in my life, I am not sure, nor do I ever wanna know. To have a brother and a bestie the way I have with these two in unparalleled. It was like falling in love as a group, us four just sort of smushed ourselves together. Then came along Mary and Vida Wu and it was all over. We had found our desert people with all our desert dogs and horses and red dirt covered work pants and mucking dust in our hair. There was nothing like our 10am morning coffee and cigarette gatherings or lunchtime Pepsi breaks. One night around the fire with the 40 Something Cowgirls, Dalton set up his mic and guitar on the bunkhouse stage and became our own country music show. He played amazing covers better than originals and best of all he even played some of his original music! He is gifted with a voice of a country man angel. Brought tears to my eyes once. That was the night the ranch owner Jeff told hilarious stories, and everyone brought out their instruments and we jammed. I played my harmonica and learned that night how to play the tambourine. Our gypsy neighbor came over and we all rolled joints and swapped stories and looked at the stars, and for that night under the early October air, we were bandits, cowboys, natives, nomads, and renegades gathered around a fire together. Sharing medicine, magick, differences, talents, laughter, and togetherness.
Home looks different when you move out of a house. When you declare living on the road, Home becomes something entirely different than what society has conditioned us to believe. When you are living on the road, Home is no longer a dwelling in which you reside on a daily basis, but a feeling of genuine fullness. Home becomes the night with loved ones and strangers your heart never forgets. Home is the feeling of loving something or someone soul deeply that you may meet once and never see again. Home becomes the shared memory and experience between a group of different backgrounds, minds, cultures, beliefs, and boundaries; and somehow it all works perfectly in sync. Proving that so many kinds of humans can come together. Home becomes everything laced in Love.
What a great place to learn this concept. And we were just four months in.
until next time, xoxo
-Z.
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