Where Did the Year GO!?!?!?!

Already November and it feels like 3 years worth of living gone by! Too much to tell in one blog. Needless to say, we have been busy this year. In order to be closer to those we have neglected for too long, and to give the kids a new challenge to soak up, we drove the bus to the West Coast in July/August and have been there ever since!

While my husband gets to be closer to his mommy, the kids have been homeschooling with me, engaging with the world around them and have found themselves tangled into a homeschool group 2x a week called Spider. What a phenomenal experience for all of us!! Make no mistake, this is not easy. Let me say it again, for those of you who think we are living on a cloud or some idyllic dream that we are bragging about...this experience is not always easy. But neither was being an exchange student when I was 16 - and, yet, the richness of the experience is very similar.

We've taken hikes, swam, waded, built forts, huts, shops, biked, bounced, organized shells, rocks, colonized crabs, stalked seals and sea otters and loons, bears, coyotes, watched eagles swoop and soar overhead, salmon spawning (totally magical) and photographed more than our fair share of disk space.

We've had gourmet chocolates that were given to us on a tour at a chocolatiers, potlucked, Thanksgiving turkeyed, trick-or-treated, sampled smoked fish, salmon, investigated local BBQ, Indian, Sushi, and "gumboot" cuisine (not to mention the finest food served around - Omi's!).

We've ALL learned from local painters, singers, teachers, blacksmith (and son), carvers, makers, musicians, fisherman, storytellers, scientists, and students of life, culture, compassion, patience, kindness, learning, and citizenship.

Despite some of the hardships of living outside our comfort zones, we survive with our humor intact. Not survive, THRIVE! We could write a book from the things we are learning about life in a bus, living in another culture(s), homeschooling, etc. But for now I leave you simply with a blog. I have some ideas for future blogs: the intricacies of living in various set-ups with the bus (i.e.: when we have no power, no water, no heat!!), learning at home, food in a small space, life closer to nature, creativity and the life of a gypsy, the compassion of people on the road, what "multi-cultural" can mean, citizens of the world, etc. If you've read this far you must be interested. Leave us a comment about what you want to know and we'll write it.

Til then....keep calm and VonRowdy on!!!!

The Merry Month of May

I have Internet again and can post a blog or two in the next few days to catch everyone up. Here was the entry as we rolled into May and I'll throw in some random pics from our last weeks at the house:

As I start packing up the bus and preparing, I start to say goodbye. I decided to take an early morning walk today all by myself - a rarity for sure. My first thought is, "Holy crap there are a lot of worms in this world!" The number of worm trails carved out through the mud and how far they travel absolutely astounds me! Who knew there were so many worms just in this one patch of earth alone? Truly. The things we take for granted. And I guess that's mainly what I'm thinking about today - what we take for granted, as well as the paths we choose in life.

I walked through the trees and down the road to a place most serene. It looks like heaven to be at this place and I thought about the people living in the house there surrounded by this vast expanse of beautiful pond and creek water with peace and starlings hanging from cattails, a garden that they are creating, chickens and goats, and the most beautifully manicured house and property I've ever seen. They were clearly still in bed because not a sound was to be heard from within the house. I envied their peaceful and serene life hidden here down deep in the countryside with rolling hills hat-brim level, trees galore, frogs and fish to toy with and lush grass as far as kids could run. I wonder if they know that they are living within a dream.

I watched two beautiful Canada geese standing on top of a thatched beaver dam in the middle of the water. They stared at me for a while and then they decided to pack up and move to water on the other side of the house. As they flew over onto that side they made such a fuss that I thought of the people lying in bed wishing the geese wouldn't frequent them so early in the morning, wishing the geese wouldn't be so noisy. At this point the geese alerted the dog in the house to my presence and the dog began to bark wildly. I felt bad for being the thing on their Saturday morning that caused them stress, waking them up when perhaps they wanted to sleep just a little later that day. I thought of them lying in bed, their thoughts a ticker-tape parade to do list on a Saturday morning in May when there was garden work to be done, animals to take care of, a house to fix up, kids to pay attention to. Suddenly their peaceful, serene life didn't seem so peaceful and serene anymore!

And then I remember, that I too am living within a dream. We all are. It's the voice in our head that keeps us from realizing it - that constant chatter that doesn't allow us to look up and take stock in what we actually have instead of what we wish we had or what is stressing us out at that particular moment. And I also remember that this was one of the reasons for the bus. Gratitude and not taking things for granted. It is difficult to take something for granted that remains in your hand but for a few heartbeats.

I will never take this house that I have lived in and this property I have grown a part of for granted. We will never take our time in Clarksville or Delmar or Brunswick or Yellowstone or Vancouver or Ventura, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, any of the places that we have been, the people we have been fortunate to spend time with, for granted. And even as I say this, even as I write this, I wonder if it is true. I suppose the day will come when even change and travel and the people we meet and love and gratitude will somehow be taken for granted. And maybe that's when we settle down, sink our teeth permanently into the ground where we stand and appreciate whatever we have, wherever we have it.

I reach in my pocket and find a squashed penny from the redwoods and it winks at me. I guess it's too soon to tell :-)

Unsung Heros and On the Road Farming

It’s time to get back into the bus again. I’m not entirely sure where to or when, but I feel it coming. The itch. Even the kids feel it. This picture below is from one of our son's reading books that came home with him. It's the second time one of his books mentioned a "bus house". Coincidence? :)

We had an opportunity to take a brief trip in our minivan to Wilmington and Savannah last week and it was such an adventure. It was the first real trip in something other than the bus and, wow, what a difference. While it was certainly faster for us and easier to maneuver, I missed the space and independence of it. The kids did really well on 7 and 8 hour days (which we rarely ever did even in the bus) but they were definitely cranky about being jammed so tightly together. Landing in Wilmington was a breath of fresh air.

And it was certainly in and out…there was no slow, meandering and finding hidden secrets and new faces. However, this enabled us to literally drive through DC, jump out for an hour or two at the National Museum of Natural History (you practically drive through DC anyway unless you circumvent, the parking is free, and the Museum is donation-based).

And, from there, we drove to NYC, crashed for a night, roamed the streets, pillaged a three-story candy store and whooped it up in Central Park before returning home! So, a whirlwind tour to be sure. I am a bit concerned that my children believe all lives are like this and all people this fortunate. But there is time to show them it is otherwise.

And so, for the unsung heros (I will scatter our Savannah pics throughout this part of the entry - more unsung heroes in the people that love us and open their hearts and homes to us time and again!). These are the people who can maintain a 9 to 5 and an actual routine year-round. These are the people who maintain sanity despite the hardest of times. Way above superheros, who traipse around in fun outfits finding excitement, I value the people I meet who manage the ordinary of life with grace and wonder and strength and make it extraordinary and beautiful. Every winter I aspire to this - falling into a very healthy structure and regimenting our daily experience - and every spring I lose it! But these are the people we meet in our travels or our community that give me strength.

Recently, I was with my three year old at the YMCA swimming. Nearby there was a mom with an extremely autistic roughly 9 year old boy. After watching her teach him how to swim (“Swim, Steven. Swim. Swim. Swim, Steven” and then moving his arms for him to help him.) I encountered her in the locker room. She was trying to get him to put his pants on. It sounded like this: “Steven, put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Steven, put your pants on. You are a big boy now. You can put your own pants on. Steven, for the love of God, I cannot do this. Pull your pants up. You can pull you pants up. Steven, put your pants on. I love you so much, and I need you to put your pants on. Steven, put your pants on.” This went on for another 10 minutes at least. In my mind I replayed how many times I have lived this experience with my own three when they were littler, but with only a fraction of the experience that she deals with and an even smaller amount of patience than she has. Wow. What a lesson for me. I still am holding it so deeply.

She emerged from the stall with that hardened face that I carry so often. I thought of the time, when wearing the same face and shouting at my own children, a neighbor’s gentle act of wiping snow off my car enabled me to soften. So I told this swimming mom that she was my hero. She laughed slightly and said “But you don’t get to see me at home”. I said it was OK because I know I have a fraction of the frustration she has and still a fraction of her patience level and wished her a good day. It was enough. She softened and I can still feel the impact of such a beautiful lesson from an unsung hero. It reminds me also of what beautiful souls Mya Gardener and her family are (who we saw on our trip). I wonder how their endeavors continue and when our paths will cross again. How fortunate we were to share such a moment in time. This is why, time and again, when we want to recoil and ignore and hide from the world, we have to get back on the bus! and meet it where it is.

Sometimes I struggle with our weird way of life, when I let my brain worry about how different we are and are we “normal”. Well, shoot, what the hell is normal anyway? I actually feel as if we are getting closer to living genuinely - if there is such a thing. I feel as if we are farmers in our own weird way. We respond similarly to the seasons. In the winter, we burrow in someplace and enjoy the cold/snow/ice. We sit by a fire and read our little eyeballs off. We create and renew and rest. Then, when we hit the spring I nest like NOBODY’S BUSINESS! (In fact, I’m freaking out right now that I am not cleaning and sorting something.) Spring cleaning, the birth and newness a farm or homestead sees as the weather changes, and preparing for the planting season.

And then, jumping back into the bus…whether we go someplace or just park and live in the middle of a field, it still has a major impact upon us and those around us. It forces us outside and to connect to our environment in a very real, candid and unapologetic way. We plant our seeds - ideas, inspirations and creativity that takes flight either in the fall or in the future for us or for others. When the fall arrives we return to “school” (though for us this happens really all the time) and work and harvest all the seeds we have been planting throughout the spring and summer. So, while we are not tied to one patch of earth, we try to be open and accessible to all the land, plants, people and animals we encounter and we endeavor to connect very deeply with the terrain and our neighbors. Here's our oldest, a girl scout, at the birthplace of the founder of Girl Scouts - Juliette Gordon Low. What an inspiration for girls and women! And another girl that never took "no" for an answer (I know a few of those ;) She even got to sign her name in the girl scout book there - a tradition that thousands of girls have done through the ages.

I suppose this farming analogy assuages my fears by connecting our very modern, non-traditional life to an ancient and traditionally rhythmic existence! In any case, we are feeling the rumble of the ground beneath our feet and looking forward to bringing you all along on our next big adventure!!!! Here are some more Savannah pics from an "Oyster boil" held with some loved ones...Thanks for riding this wild carpet with us :)

Reflections on More Than a Bus Trip

What a wild ride it has been…even beyond the bus until now! I just had the good fortune of having four days off for self-reflection and I made some notes about the bus trip. Someone there mentioned Facebook (and blogs to some degree) to be self-advertising - which I don’t disagree with - so I try to be aware of this constantly when I post and give as many ups as I do downs. I’m trying less to paint us and more to take you with us, if at all possible. In any case, my thoughts: 1. We started out just BUILDING A BUS…to see if we could do it with less of an idea about where it would take us. If it would even, in fact, take us anywhere. And it sure did. Wow…that happened. It is totally hard to believe.

2. We also wanted to investigate the road to see if full-time “ROAD-SCHOOLING” is or could be a reality for us. While this is still an option, the schedule would have to be very specifically worked out. This trip, with a desire to catch up with so many loved ones we haven’t seen in many years, took on a MONSTROUS life of its own and an actual road-school schedule would have to be slowed waayyyyyyyyy down so as not to drive us or the kids as crazy. And to enjoy the places we visit more fully more as “temporary locals” and less as tourists. Further, while this worked really well educationally for them now at their ages, I would like to do it when they are a bit older, can enjoy the richness of the experience more, and are no longer in carseats!!!

3. The NATTERBUS truly has a life of it’s own and we need to honor and move with it (no pun intended). What does that mean? It means that everywhere we went this bus spoke to people in a way we never imagined and by being flexible (to a point) with our time, attention and our route we were able to connect up with really amazing people and ideas. Something about the bus - the adventure, the reckless abandon, the dream of seeing the world, nostalgia for family trips, bucking routine, the education, the wilderness, the acid-flashback paint job!!!! - whatever it is struck a chord in people very deeply.

4. Everyone loves to DREAM BIG (just look at Powerball ticket sales!). Well, everyone except for those who don’t allow themselves to and are afraid of it. Often these people, as a result, are bitter when others dream and even more bitter when dreamers succeed - waiting for the right moment to criticize and pounce when there is failure. But, if you don’t set out to prove anything…just to DO something, ANYTHING and see where it takes you, how can you be proven wrong? For even at that point, a failure is a lesson and, thus, a success. Plus, even MORE people love to see a big dream REALIZED to give them hope, courage, inspiration. 5. People want to feel PART OF SOMETHING bigger than themselves. Period.

6. My LAUGHABLE naiveté about what a big, open-spaced land this is with millions of places to “BOONDOCK” (simply park off the road free someplace to enjoy the land) has been squashed. What am I, a damned HIPPIE?!?!? Pretty much everywhere in this country has been bought and packaged and even the public land is rarely just “open to the public”. There are rules and fees and bookings and guidelines and loopholes that other full-timers and scammers committed to memory long ago and are twenty steps ahead of you. We are definitely the land of the “nothing is for free”, not that I expected that much, but all these fairytale notions of “Land Management” and the US being much more wide open and available than here in NY have gone out the window. Having said all that, there are some great opportunities in this country that involve camping coops for full-timers and even some Walmart parking lots (except on the West coast where they sold their parking lots to avoid dealing with vagrants) and Cabela’s parking lots.

7. Now, granted, one reason this lala-land image of mine was dashed is that, with three tinies in tow, you start to think a whole lot more about SAFETY than when the two of you pulled over and whipped out a tent someplace. Did we have any real security breaches/issues on this trip? No, thank heavens. But we also tried to make smart choices. Sometimes you can get away with parking off on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere (particularly when broken down!), sometimes you stay at a Walmart parking lot if it feels right, and sometimes you keep driving until you find a campground with a spot you know you paid for and a community of eyes watching each others’ backs. And sometimes the biggest troublemakers are when you are parked next to the sidewalk in an affluent neighborhood and the drunken teens come to call! Safety was hands down the biggest factor in whether I was tense or not on the trip and was a real lesson. You certainly get used to it as you go - especially in a steel bus locked tighter than a drum - but for me it took at least a week or two on the road, sleeping in unknown places, before I could fully relax if my kids were sleeping more than an arms length away (which, believe it or not, they were). And even then I am a totally light sleeper (I hear my kids fart) and that helped me know that I’d be up before the first eyelash of an intruder tried to enter the bus. However, in our house/apts no one ever walked by the open windows talking about us, sometimes directly to us, sometimes shouting at us, graffitied us, or banged on our walls in the middle of the night. The bus apparently welcomes this behavior. Definitely makes us feel grateful for the amount of security we normally feel; there are an awful lot of people in this world, sadly, who never feel that.

8. The Build - things we did right, things we did wrong. Dang, that’s probably a whole other blog! 9. FOOD!!!!! Yes, my favorite topic. Well, there were some ups…like all the homemade tortillas you can get across country. Delicious! We shared some really great meals with people, had a few campfire dinners that were fun and nostalgic, and worked out a great routine of dips, veggies, cheeses and crackers. I’d like to tell you that we hit a fair number of farmer’s markets all around the country. This was a dream I had in my crazy little brain that was logistically near impossible. Sadly, with our hit or miss power for the fridge (we hadn’t yet purchased a dual propane/electric fridge) and taking things in and out of the cooler in the heat, the easiest thing often became carrying as little food as possible and running into Walmart for supplies whenever we parked there overnight. Now, we were still mostly gluten-free at the time so this was hellish and we just jumped right off of that cart and fell into the fire by the end of the trip. I will say that we were pretty good about not eating out a ton (you wouldn’t believe what I can whip up with a genny running, a propane stove, or even a fully-moving highway salad meal!). And, except for some Dairy Queen stops on realllllly hot days, fast food was something we reserved for when we broke down and had to walk somewhere nearby to occupy the kids.

10. Another big issue for me was the “feeling like an imposition vs. celebrating spontaneous connections” with people. More than once we ended up staying in front of someone’s house and my upbringing gave me such a guilt complex about it that it truly made it less enjoyable (and sometimes downright stressful when I was worried the kids would be too noisy for the neighbors!). My brain is CONSTANTLY worried about offending/pissing people off (believe it or not) and it was a great practice for me to try and let that go, rely on them to be upfront with me about their needs, and enjoy the situation for its positives. It truly is a fine line to walk…but one I found was worth it. (I hope you all thought so too :)

11. SLEEP! The kids slept GREAT in the bus. Truly. Or, at least, that’s how I remember it. (Husband?) They had their own bunks and were close enough to know where we were, but far enough to get space from each other. Occasionally they ended up in our bed by the end of the night for one reason or another, but not as much as at home, I think. And there was definitely still sleepwalking, which we have at home also, but probably there was more of it on the road because we did so much they were totally exhausted (they sleepwalk more when tired). For me, once over the security issue I loved sleeping in the bus. Certainly I had already done it a ton before going on the road. I have my own Queen sized bed in there, a different view out the windows every few days, a metal roof to hear all the rain drops, plenty of screens to have air blow in AND a roof hatch for pre-sleep star gazing!!!! What is not to love?!?!?

12. Lastly, a concept that came back to me was the one of CONCENTRIC CIRCLES. I think it was back in my exchange student days (or maybe just my high school here) where we discussed this idea - where you live in a series of outward rippling concentric circles. The very center circle is you and it radiates out to your family, your community, your state, country, etc until you reach the whole world (or even the whole universe!). If you remain in your tiny little circle, then that is all you know of the world and your view is entirely self-absorbed and motivated. However, as you move into greater and greater circles, your experiences inform a wider perspective of what life is about and what your priorities are. This concept certainly did not get disproven on this trip :)

I suppose that is enough of my blather for now. I’ll see if my husband has anything to add. Feel free to ask questions should anything puzzle you about our crazy adventure. Til then, keep calm and Von Rowdy on!