It’s been six months since the dogs and I moved into the van full-time, and I’ve not written here much. Thanks for sticking around.
I’ve spent a lot of time with my family in the midwest, which certainly was a large part of why I wanted the van in the first place—to be able to be here for awhile and still have our own space, for the dogs (and me) to not be underfoot. After nearly seventeen years of living twelve hours away, seeing my family only twice a year, it’s been good for me to spend most of the summer with them. I’m acutely aware of our increasingly limited time together on this earth.
That’s precisely why I choose, for now, to live in a van. It offers me and the dogs more freedom overall, to be where we need/want to be without worrying about “getting back” to some other place. We are where we are, and that is home.
Living in the van has been wonderful and challenging and magical and unexceptional and, well, just life. Regardless of where or how we’re living, there will always be good days and bad, moments of doubt and moments of absolute confidence that what we’re doing is exactly what we’re meant to be doing.
Despite the fact that I haven’t yet been able to spend the bulk of my time in wild places, doing more of what I love: backpacking, traveling, making photos, writing, and letting the dogs hang out on their cots beside the van (my dream life at age 48), I’m absolutely confident that this is the right path for me, and that it will eventually become more fully what I envision. I have to build it first. That’s the hard and fun part.
Nothing I’ve accomplished in life thus far was quick or easy. This new path is no different. I’m constantly brainstorming ways to make it work as I go. If I waited to have everything figured out first, I’d never do anything. How does a seventeen-year-old kid from podunk know how to become a professional classical musician? Nobody I knew had done it before. And nobody I knew had any answers to my questions about it. And yet, I did it. Sometimes, you gotta just start walking in a certain direction and figure it out as you go. There are always reasons to be afraid, to not move forward toward the life you want. The more we practice living through that fear, the easier it gets to “just start walking.” As it turns out, the path we walk en route to our dreams is the whole point.
Perhaps this post was more for me than any of you, as it often goes. We writers sometimes write what we need to hear, and probably someone else needs to hear it, too. Same with any art. We photograph what we need to see. We make whatever it is that we need to have in tangible form in this world. And a few others may need it, too.
Above: I asked my brother if he would make some photos of myself, the dogs, and the van, and this is one of my favorites.
Until next time, be well, dear friends.
Have a great week.
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