Wandering Artist's Journal

Coming to you from my internet cafe. Only open from 4am-7am. I’ve been in Redwood City, CA for the last few weeks. My brother is a full-time RVer and he’s agreed to help me finish the van buildout. Since I got here the van buildout has gotten more expansive, involving a lot of electrical substructure, maximum insulation, a big air conditioner, solar panels, a rooftop passive solar water heater, a shower, and so forth. I’m realizing this phase of the van buildout is going to take longer than I had anticipated, and the plans going forward are in flux. I have a feeling I won’t make it to the East Coast this Fall. I’d like to spend the Winter in LA, but I’m not making any plans until I get a better handle on this current process. This process is challenging. But then, Life has been challenging for the last several years. Living in a van under construction is different in the specifics but not in the physical, mental, emotional requirements. The good news is that I’m still up...

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi ( So Passes the Glory of the World) A couple of weeks ago I visited the site of Hobart Mills, north of Truckee, CA. I enjoyed the natural beauty of the area but didn’t see a ghost town, or much of anything else to indicate a thriving town of 1,500 people with schools, a hospital, and a lumber mill once existed at this spot. There were two competing memorial stones at the trailhead, one erected by the Clampers , who keep reminding us of who/what has passed: Coincidentally, early that morning, I’d just finished reading Yongey Mingyur Rimpoche’s book about his decision to sneak out of his monastery (he was the abbot) to spend the next four years wandering, penniless and anonymous, in what he considered a “retreat,” to deepen his meditation practice. He was unprepared and almost died in the first month but he considered it a premium learning experience that permanently altered his views of life and eternity. And he kept going. Like most people, ...

Most of the rest of the continent has been dealing with unprecedented killer heat for the last week or so. Here in the high desert, it’s the usual summertime killer heat. I don’t do too well in heat - have been having increasingly frequent heat-exhaustion episodes and occasional heat-collapse. In the past, I attributed my ability to survive here to the invention of, and access to, air conditioning.  Now, I’m developing other strategies. The whole  world looks different when you no longer live in an air conditioned building. Some part of my brain is on constant alert for shade. Especially shady parking places. I’m starting to accumulate a mental file of reliable spots. I have thermometers in the van and the difference is:  Outside, ambient temp- 97 degrees F Inside with no shade- 120+ degrees F Inside with shade- 85 degrees F This morning, I left my nighttime parking spot and moved to a Starbucks parking lot with a shady area  big enough for ...

Almost two years since my last posting here. What a journey - but it’s mostly been interior progress. Nothing to report. (Unless you’re a recent widow. In which case, let’s talk.) Let me just cut to the chase - I bought a van, moved into it (yes, I’m living full-time in the van) and I’m moving in increasingly larger concentric circles as I spiral out from Reno. This blog is written for family and friends and I’m blessed to have many of them, scattered all over the world, mostly on this continent, and mostly on the coasts. I plan to visit all of them in the next year or two, or however long it takes. This is NOT going to be one of those “how to live in a van” blogs. I think that territory has been covered. This blog is a means of updating people who care about me. A cargo van, built to suit me, is just a tiny house on wheels. I know some of you are worried - how can an old lady do this all alone? Relax. My basic needs are met - a safe, comfortable place to live, dream, re...