sounds familiar

I sometimes feel like I’m not doing enough formal imparting of wisdom to our kids. You know, like the things people say when asked what life lessons they learned from their father. Oh, I give them plenty of information, there’s no lack of interesting (to me) anecdotal facts thrown around, but what about lasting nuggets, words to live by?

So, for a while now I’ve wanted to create a “creed” our family. The motivation for the idea came from a sad place, after hearing about the family creed of a co-worker who died when it was shared at his memorial service. But I think it was precisely that somber context – a final posthumous delivery of life-guidance from the grave – that made it seem so powerful to me. Not that one has to pass to impart that kind of power, but that those words and concepts had such an important part in the definition of the family.

I would never have considered the idea had I not heard the story above, but ever since then I’ve been very sporadically working on ideas for what I might include in a credit creed of our own.

Brevity is key. This isn’t a paragraph and there should be a relatively low word-to-message ratio, I want powerful statements expressed in few words, and I want only a handful of them. Specificity of guidance shouldn’t be too narrow, but also not to broad. Otherwise there’s really no improvement which can be made over the Golden Rule, and we may as well just adopt that (a fine idea, truly, for those not wanting to write their own).

On this trip I’ve gone back to the idea a few times, touching-up the draft list I’ve been kicking around for all these years. Right now I have too many words and ideas, and I’ll admit some statements are more like personalized self-improvement mantras than guidance to the family, but it’s a start.

• Be & do good
• Act instead of worry
• Make time for family
• Surround yourself with who you want to be
• Be resilient in failure & disappointment
• Value nature & its resources
• Learn to defer gratification
• Never stop learning & teaching
• Seek experience over material
• Take worthwhile risks

I’ll keep working on it.

I have this dream that I can get Sharaun on board and maybe one day have it drawn-up nicely enough that we could display it somewhere at the house (afraid to float this to her until she’s had an editorial crack at it herself, though, as she’s so particular about what goes on the walls).

Peace.

This morning, in conversation with one of my most trusted advisers, discussing the coming post-nomadic period of my life, aka the “return to work,” we, together, hit upon an idea that truly resonated with me.

I’ve perhaps not written plainly about it much, but the matter of “going back to work” has been on my mind steadily during the trip. For several reasons, I’ve had mixed feelings about it. I summed up the primary reason fairly well already near the end of a different writing, so I’ll link it here rather than rehash. Go ahead and read it, I’ll be here when you’re back.

Much of our conversation was working to distill the things I’ve learned, so far, from our metaphorical pilgrimage to the mountaintop, with a goal of turning them into an action-plan for the comeback. In the end, I feel like we hit on a very succinct framing and approach, and I’ll try to summarize it here:

• I am very much a product of my environment
• I am able to perform above expectations in many different roles
• Therefore, what I do is less important than the environment in which I do it

It may seem simple or even obvious, but was a big step for me to understand that the highest-value next-step for me will not be figuring out what work or job I want to do, but rather I should focus on exquisitely defining the environment in which I want to do that work or job. I’ve started doing that, and might even be finished, but I’ll save that “environmental criteria” for another time.

Lastly, while writing down the above realization, I sensed privilege that I didn’t hear this morning in our conversation. I mean, here I am talking about finding the “right environment in which to work” while there are folks out there just wanting any reliable employment and a steady paycheck. I’ll have to think about that as well.

Until later, felt good to write this down. Peace.

One interesting thing I’ve noticed living on the road is how we shop for groceries and what we buy.

Our RV has precious little storage, at least compared to our bricks & sticks home. I would estimate total pantry space at about 8.5ft³ (we happen doing to be doing coming in school, I actually did the math) and the fridge is a small dorm room size. Although there are a few other places we can stash dry goods, that’s constraints we’re under.

I’ve actually found these constraints kind of nice. See, I get a great satisfaction from using what we have vs. having tons of things we rarely use. When we were preparing for this trip we purposely tried to “drain” our food stores by rooting through the pantry at home and seeing what we could make to use what we had.

Funny how you end up with four cans of tomato paste yet still buy more when you’re at the store, because why not? You know you need it, aren’t sure you have it, it’ll keep, and you’ll eventually use it. So you have two half-used things of panko, five boxes of onion soup mix, and three tied-off bags of bulk oatmeal, etc.

Living in the RV, the limited space forces this sort of satisfying real-time utilization to happen as the normal. You don’t have room to store things for the sake of having them so you buy what you need, use what you bought, and then do it again.

This space-constrained utilization leads to a couple changes in shopping habits. (1) Since we can’t just have tons of stuff, we shop more frequently, particularly for perishables. (2) You realize that “base ingredients” are the most effective used of space as they can be combined and transformed into higher-order foods.

For instance, making your own pizza crust, bread, cookies, etc. So, instead of buying a jar of marinara, instead buy tomatoes and herbs and make your sauce that way. A jar of marinara will only over be a jar of marinara, taking up space waiting to be used as marinara, but tomatoes and herbs can be all kinds of things.

This means our shopping becomes dominated by the staples. Every week we need milk, eggs, fresh fruit and veggies. Every several weeks we need coffee, butter, flour, sugar, cheese, and meat to be frozen. What strikes me about that shopping list is how much it resembles humans’ shopping lists for forever.

Let’s take the wagon into town, we need flour and sugar and coffee and… Go fetch the eggs, pick some apples, and bring in a pail of milk…

OK so I’m wanting to come clean and be sure to clarify that we’ve not completely broken the modern American shopping model and gone full pioneer, as we do still buy prepared and preserved items on the regular (pretzels, yogurt, cereal). But, it’s definitely a change from the buy-and-horde model we were on at home.

Peace.

I’ve always liked the smell of patchouli. I know, how very stereotypical of me, the guy who counts the Beatles and Grateful Dead as a couple of his desert-island bands.

I don’t know if my affection for the scent came before, or because of, my early teenage revelation that I was a 60s hippie born into the wrong era in some cosmic accident. I’d wager I maybe grew fond of it after smelling it, along with Nag Champa, which I’m also a big fan of, in the various headshops we used to frequent in those same years.

Regardless, I really like the scent, and the way it smells on me, even though I’ve never been a big fan of wearing smells as they tend to bother me. I guess patchouli is an exception.

Problem is, no one else likes it. Like, no one – including Sharaun. I mean, I know somebody likes it, or else it wouldn’t sell, but I guess it’s a small bunch of like-nosed folk. This is why I’ve never personally used it, even though anytime I smell it on someone I remember how much I like it.

But look y’all, this trip is about doing more of what I want to do, being me without caring. So then, despite Sharaun’s rolling eyes, I grabbed a little bottle at Whole Foods when we were last picking up a Prime order from an Amazon locker.

And, friends, I love it. I smell like patchouli and woodsmoke all the time these days. I know, disgusting, but, for me, lovely. If I’m not the picture of a dude who lives on the road, I don’t know who is. Reintegrating may be a challenge.

Peace.

This trip is comprised of epochs.

First, there was the California section. Then the cross-country section. That was followed by the Florida section, which is itself a subset of the American South section, the section we’re still in.

I did not plan the trip this way. Instead the segments define themselves as it becomes obvious that we’re transitioning out of something into something else. Not only are the transitions very apparent once they begin showing themselves, but they’re typically accompanied, at least for me, with a growing anticipation, and thus desire, to move on to “the next thing.”

You’ll remember, perhaps, how I yearned to finally breach the borders of California and move into the Southwest. Or how I looked forward to getting to Florida for Christmas as we headed east.

Now, I’m ready to be out of “The South™.” It’s not that I’ve disliked our time here, or anything, after all it was the best place to be this time of year, it’s just that I can feel our time here growing to a close and I’m looking forward to new places and things.

As we move out of Tennessee, into Kentucky, and later onto the Mid-Atlantic and New England, I can feel the transition. I mean, Kentucky was ultimately a Union state, right?

Anyway, ready to be past the y’alls and cellphone holsters and sweet tea and Confederate flags and gas station five-for-one sales on cans of dip. Ready to go some places we’ve not been and see some stuff we’ve not seen.

Peace.

Opted to make the last two days “tweeners,” purposely not moving to the next state park or waterfall or whatever and instead putting down stakes in a couple Walmart parking lots for a two nights.

Did this mostly to be able to burn rainy days in a populated area where we had non-RV indoor options during the day, but also so we could hit a church on the way out of town Sunday.

Walmart camping is never the best camping, but it’s free and I have to admit that convenient access to any food or ware under the sun is nice, not to mention they usually have cheap gas attached. It’s not quiet or picturesque but it feels safe enough. Plus, you don’t feel the generator shame you do in the quieter picturesque places.

Everytime we go in, though, I can’t help but imagine us as a livestock… crowding up to the trough where our feed has been heaped for us. Conditioned to come here and restore our energy so we can go do another day’s work and earn another day’s food. Trapped.

Hugs.

Happy Friday from a Chattanooga Walmart parking lot. We crossed over the border and out of Georgia again, this time for the final time.

I’ve wanted to do a follow-up post to talk about what I’ve learned on the trip, a closer study on what exactly I like about the things I like about the trip, and how what I’ve learned is changing, or will change, me. But it’s hard. Below is a beginning, maybe. Let’s just start all sudden and jarring-like:

When talking about the “how will this year change you?” question with a good friend, she keeps asking me what qualities of family life on the road I want to ensure we continue to have upon our return-to-normal. The other morning I finally decided to spend some real time in consideration on this, and captured the following top three. Maybe they’re worded here more as desired changes that’ll bring about qualities, but like I said it’s a beginning:

• More unscheduled time & a less hectic calendar
• A better balance of “just us” family time & “with others” social time
• Financial independence & early retirement

Underneatho those top-three I then thought about what I know about me and what that knowing means in terms of things I should be doing. I don’t know how this really fits with the above, but feel like they are some kind of qualifiers:

• I emulate those whom I spend the most time with, so I should surround myself with those who act the way I want to act.
• I give the majority of my attention to those whom I spend the most time with, so I should spend the most time with those who most need/deserve my attention.
• I realize that the underlying “woes” driving the three desired-changes/qualities above are not solely environment-driven, but are driven by behaviors innate in me. I.e. I’ll tend to over-schedule and short the family on time because that’s how I do or how I’m conditioned. To fix this, I know I can’t simply change things (jobs, scenery, etc.), I also have to change me. That’s harder.

So, there’s that. The first three are maybe goals I think, the second three are things to be aware of in pursuit of the goals.

Until I have more time, goodnight.