I Feel It Coming

I am starting to itch. The open road is calling me.

It was a whisper buried beneath this wild ride of a transition. With nothing left to drown it out, it is getting louder and more demanding.

It sounds like the wind, full of promises, whispering sweet everythings into my ear like the swishing in a seashell.

It comes in snapshots before my eyes of open highways with picturesque landscapes, whenever I get into the van and look out my giant front window.

It's a restlessness in the depths of my muscles and my very soul, like it is pulling me toward new horizons by the seat of my pants.

Sometimes, I get wrapped up in my fears and try to quiet the voice -- please wait, I beg. I'm not ready.

Not good enough, I am hearing is it's new reply. It promises healing to all the things that are "keeping me here" -- my oldest child's emotional nourishment, my own "unstuckness", my social anxieties resolved, our financial sustainablity.

Promises of healing. Experiences to stretch. Opportunities to grow.

A long overdue vacation of the spiritual and soulful sort.

........

If I left November 2nd, eastbound, we would be in Florida for the coldest months of the year. When it started to warm up, we could head north. Then we could head west and spend the late summer in Oregon. And then back down here in time for next winter.

A year trip (depth). In the van (simplicity). Connecting with my tribe. Having experiences. Retreating in nature. Growing as a family and as individuals.

This feels right ♥

Look out, World, here we come!

p.s. - yesterday I felt lost and cried a lot. I love the clarity that grows from that <3

Reclaiming My Childhood

My view whilst swinging

People who know me face-to-face may be surprised to know what I have been up to recently. For all my radicalness, I am quite conservative in person -- not because I value it, but because I am still scared to burst out of my shell in front of people. I have been called weird more than once, and I have internalized that there is something wrong with that. Well, that internalization is being evicted :)) Weird, here I come :)))

I used to LOVE being active when I was a child. I did all sorts of physical activities. As I became an adult, I let those things go. Recently, I have become very NOT active. So, I am reclaiming that part of my childhood. I have been up to all manner of my childhood favorites: the glee of swinging every chance I get, racing down slides after my little ones, learning how to ride a Razor scooter, buying myself a pair of rollerblades (!!!!) (from Goodwill, my size, sparkly dark purple -- SO meant for me), running around a grassy park kicking a ball with my kids, trapsing up and down the beach as many times as we just do rather than trying to limit the trips, exploring places where I could fall (like the jetty), going for hikes, racing down to the beach at night to play tirelessly in the glowing water...

I think that wanting to travel with the van as homebase is a sort of revisiting travelling with my mom and brother in our minivan when I was a teenager and life was so simple in the van, and life was more about experiences and less about stuff, when I delighted living from a suitcase, when I stretched and grew in ways I never would have imagined, when I saw landscapes that strummed the heartstrings of my spirit and my soul, when I met people from so many different walks of life and learned to embrace the beauty of diversity.

This time around, I get to appreciate it in ways I couldn't imagine last time.

Last time, I was like a big open cup, just pouring these experiences in without really processing them and digging deeper into the ways that they were impacting me. I love that (the sifting) about being an adult, as much as I love the open rawness of being a kid.

Maybe this is a common part of life? It kind of reminds me of how being a parent is almost like closing a loop about having been parented. It feels like it completes a circle, as I can only imagine watching my child become a parent seals that loop! But I am not a crone, yet, so I am still in mother mode :))

Maybe this adventure is another chapter of finding peace with my past? Btw, even if this is true, the adventure alone is about way more than just that! But while we are on the topic of healing pasts, I can see this filling some empty spots.

Shortly after we settled back down and started growing roots (after moving often and travelling), I never wanted to move/travel like that again. I felt like I had missed out on so much by not staying in one place for a long time. I grew roots -- boy, did I grow roots. I stayed in the same town for 17 years. I was careful to provide the stability I thought was best, for Kassidy -- she went to the same daycare as far back as she remembered, the same school, we lived in the same apartment complex for 6 years.... And then when she was in 3rd grade, a shift happened. She wanted to shake things up a bit, wanted some change, wanted new friends and different experiences. We had to move, and she was THRILLED about it! Then, change just kept happening, and it felt so wonderful.

Finding unschooling was a sort of healing, because it helped explain the form of learning through living we had done while travelling (not formal homeschooling). It probably paved the way to me finding peace with all the unconventionalness and movement of my childhood. I also probably got my fill of growing roots and was ready for something new. Even though I ultimately trust that my kids will figure out their own journey and find peace with whatever decisions I make that may "mess them up" as they get older, I feel more confident that I can avoid those giant pitfalls altogether. Afterall, I can draw off of personal experience, and our parenting/family interaction style is healing along the way, as well.

Closing loops. Reliving my childhood. Reprocessing my childhood.

Good stuff.

It's All Downhill to the Beach

This is so symbolic of our journey

I was born in a town by the ocean, and lived in this giant county for 10 years of my life, until we moved to New Mexico and then Colorado and travelled all over the US. Then we moved back to this town by the ocean that I was born in (that is now a city). We have been here for 17 years.

Once I got over missing the Rocky Mountains, I really loved living so close to the ocean. I can feel it inside me, the pull. I have always loved the idea of the beach, although all that sand that gets in nooks and crannies and is hard to walk on has actually been a barrier to enjoying the beach.

I am a Pisces -- I am water. I am soooooo water. One of the biggest parts about living nomadically is being able to be as changeable as water needs to be.

Once I started selling everything we own, it all just flowed. The whole experience just flowed. We spent a lot of time working on the RV and postponing the adventures that come from living in the RV. But once we got to a point where the RV was done enough, we went to the harbor and stayed there for 4 days. That was when I fell in love with the beach, sand and all. In fact, the sand in nooks and crannies suddenly was a reminder that we were living on the beach, and it was wonderful.

We found peace in the sand, and the walk on the jetty still lingers in my awareness.

I feel so connected to the ocean and to the beach life right now, I can only begin to explain. Where the RV is parked right now is a block away from the beach, and we wake up to the sight of the ocean from our bedroom window. It feels so right to be so close to the beach. We have been staying pretty close to it in our adventures.

The picture above was taken on one of those adventures by the beach. The hill just led right down to the beach, and it seemed somehow symbolic of our life right now, in a way that I wasn't ready to explore just yet... Now I am.

Our life has been downhill to the beach over the last few months -- downhill (the flow of the simplification process) to the beach (I seem to be have been led to the beach and can't leave). The beach, the ocean is so symbolic to me. The ocean has always called me, being the water woman I am, and now I can be with it; the beach has been a barrier that is now "not easy" but brings it's own "life symbolism" that I have been enjoying soaking in.

Living in the RV really is much easier than living in a house. I feel like it is downhill. SO easy. I mean, other than the whole "stuff keeps breaking" bit. I think staying in the van will be even easier. The less distractions from what's important, the better :))

It's all downhill to the beach...