The closer I look, less I see things clearly. What was once easily put into the categories of right or wrong, quickly becomes both/and. The 36th President, Lyndon B Johnson, is such a great example of this.
Apparently, LBJ had a very close range for personal space
LBJ was a tremendous leader — gave us incredible bills that helped change everything from civil rights to environmental protection to early childhood education. The story he wanted told of his legacy was that he loved all people of this country, and wanted to make a great society. And in many ways, he was wildly successful at meeting that goal. So many of the things that make the US a wonderful place to live, are here because of legislation that LBJ made happen.
A replica of his Oval Office, with the original furniture
The legacy that is not included in his museums and national parks, are the stories about his sexual harassment, his extramarital affairs, his vulgarities and regular use of the “n” word. He was lewd, crude, a racist, and often slimy. While he won the presidency with the widest popular vote in modern history, he boosted the number of Americans who fought and died in Vietnam and was highly unpopular as a result and didn’t seek a second term.
On the porch swing of LBJ’s boyhood home
He was great except for all the places where he wasn’t. It’s so easy to tell just one side of the story — the good or the bad depending on what side agrees with you more. Learning about LBJ is such a great reminder that everything and everyone has multiple sides to the story, that everything and everyone are a both/and.
With Air Force One-Half
Seeing this both/and about LBJ and his politics has lessons for me that are applicable to my thoughts about current events as well.
The “Texas White House”
T picked up a card in town after our tour of the ranch that had a quote from MLK Jr. On it:
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Maybe when we stop hating our enemies, the mental energy that frees up will help us to imagine new ways of all being together on this planet.
We saw so much in January. According to the map, we drove for 30 hours and covered 1,800 miles. We focused mostly on two states (Arizona and New Mexico), although technically we started the month in Las Vegas, NV.
New Year’s fireworks over the strip in Las Vegas
This felt like a good pace. Not too fast. Still room to go slower. There are a few places I would have stayed longer, but overall we were ready to go when we did. And when we wanted to stay longer, we would.
We spent the first half of the month in Arizona and mostly in Tucson. We stayed in that city for almost a week as Mark flew out to join a work event in Florida. The girls and I enjoyed warm sunny days, visiting lots of museums, and swimming in the resort pool.
We visited the museum of miniatures, the Arizona-Sonora museum, and the Biosphere 2. When Mark got back, we explored the Saguaro desert, and spent a day at the Old Tucson attraction.
After we left Tucson, we had a lovely visit at a Harvest Host location that was also an Alpaca farm. The girls loved learning about alpacas, llamas, sheep, and how to care for and make a business out of raising alpacas.
We spent a few days in the super cute town of Bisbee, AZ. We toured the copper mine, and loved walking around the crazy town full of artists, hippies, great restaurants, and funky spaces.
We got a great recommendation to go to the Chiricahua’s which were epically beautiful!
The second half of the month was spent in New Mexico. We took the long, windy road up to the Gila Hot Springs and Gila Cliff Dwellings. We found an amazing campground that was on a river with hot spring pools right next to the banks. Sleeping there put us in the perfect spot for a morning visit to the Gila Cliff Dwellings nearby.
Other adventures in the month included camping at a dark sky campground, seeing a friend in the tiny town of Datil, and visiting the VLA (very large array of satellite dishes).
At the VLA. See the girls?
After a lot of go-go-going, we were very ready for a slowdown. We stopped in Truth or Consequences, NM which is known for it’s abundant hot spring water that is piped all over town into hot springs. We spent several days there soaking, getting massages, doing yoga, exploring the town, doing the local scavenger hunt, and visiting the local history museum. After several days of rest, we were ready to continue on.
Aiming ultimately for White Sands national monument, we made several fun stops on the way — in Las Cruces, camping at the base of the Organ Mountains, and visiting Leasburg Dam State Park.
We had a lovely day at White Sands National Park, sledding down the super soft white sand dunes and meeting two camels.
We also spent a day in Alamogordo where we visited the New Mexico Air and Space Museum. This area has quite the history of NASA involvement as well as missile and bomb testing…
RV repairs took us back north into Albuquerque. We hadn’t planned to go that far north because of the colder weather, but we’re glad we did. We had a lovely visit with an old friend of Mark’s, and Parker got her haircut!
We wanted to spend a day in Roswell, NM, and we picked Bottomless Lakes State Park. We ended up spending the afternoon at the park rather than going into Roswell right away. And we’re so glad we did. It was a gorgeous place and a relaxing day.
Roswell was full of alien kitsch and entertainment. We’d watched a video about Area 51 and the government alien coverup conspiracy which made walking around the town that much more fun.
Our last stop of the month was at the incredible Carlsbad Caverns. These caves are huge, well preserved, and were an amazing place to visit.
Looking back on the month, I’m amazed by how much we’ve seen and done. I joke that each day is a field trip for school, but I think that’s really true. Not a day goes by where we don’t have some amazing experience or learning opportunity or adventure. How blessed I feel that we are able to do this trip and we did all the hard work to make it happen!
After we returned from the quick trip to Portland for Thanksgiving, I feel like we really hit our stride. It felt good to be back in Spurge (the RV), it was nice to be leaving Vegas and getting out in open space again. We got to spend time in some places we were really excited about (Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, Sedona) but didn’t feel too rushed or frantic. We stuck around Phoenix for a while to see several friends in the area.
Hoover Dam
Grand Canyon
Sunshine in Sedona
What didn’t feel right was returning to Vegas. And even leaving the RV to fly somewhere felt strange. We were just settling back in, we were seeing new places, and then we had to backtrack into a big city.
The shops at the Venetian
But it wasn’t for too long. We left Spurge behind in the economy parking lot and flew from Vegas halfway across the Pacific to the beautiful Hawaiian islands.
We spent almost a week on Maui and were blessed with warm, sunny weather. Everyday we swam in the ocean, played in the sand, and saw lots of wildlife and a few friends. The girls became mermaids in the ocean, learned to boogie board, and flourished in the sunshine and fresh air.
We hopped over to Oahu, where we were joined by Kendall’s parents (Dude and Babe) for the week.
The holiday portrait
We stayed in a sweet home in Kailua that had a pool, hot tub, outdoor shower, and was on a canal a few blocks from the beach. The girls loved the pool and spent lots of time swimming, and even learned to dive in from the sides.
The living room
The backyard
The rain came on and off which was delightful to hear on the roof at night. Christmas Day we had a big storm that knocked out power for most of the day and reportedly dumped 1-2” of rain per hour, at it’s peak! It was wild to watch from safe and warm inside the house. And by the evening, the storm lifted, and we ate Christmas dinner on the patio outside.
We traversed the island, stopping for shave ice, beaches, turtles in the sand, big waves, rum distilling tours, meals, and vistas. We tried surfing, went snorkeling, visited the Iolani Palace and Pearl Harbor, and explored an island where we hadn’t spent much time before. We so miss having regular time with Dude and Babe in Portland, that it was nice to have a long chunk of time to catch-up, play, and visit.
After Dude and Babe returned to the mainland, we had two more days in Waikiki and spent time exploring the west coast of the island, eating at some fun spots in the city, and meeting up with friends.
As is often the way at the end of year, we also spent some time talking as a family about what we want more of and less of in our lives in 2020. A big theme that emerged was continuing to slow down. While our pace of life has decreased dramatically from where it was this time last year, we all still feel there is a ways to go.
We’re going to spend more days in one place before moving on. We’re going to slow down how fast we eat, and how much we try to do in a day. We’re going to keep focusing on slowing down our food (eating local and cooking more) and how much “work” we commit (or plan) to do.
And in slowing down, I hope it allows us to be more present with what is, to reduce how much we use busy-ness to distract us from the emotions, the wonder, the unfolding, that is the present moment.
As we celebrate the return of the light this solstice, our thoughts always turn to friends and family who bring so much light to our world, especially during these turbulent times on this planet. This year was filled with so much change we figured our annual “card” should reflect it. While the format of our reflection has evolved, our desire to be in touch with you remains the same.
The beginning of 2019 looks almost unrecognizable from the the end of it. All these changes were made possible by the confluence of several major events:
In February, we said goodbye to Kihei. Our “first daughter” gave us 12 years full of fun and fur.
In June, Taylor finished 5th grade and graduated out of her beloved Opal School.
In July, Mark transitioned out of his role with KCB after 7 years of learning, growth and change.
As many of you know, we have long dreamed of traveling the world as a family, following our interests and curiosities about this incredible planet we call home. The confluence of the life changes and dreams inspired us to make some radical choices. This summer we purchased an RV, let go of our Portland home and most of our possessions, became Washington State residents, registered as homeschoolers, and have been living nomadically since the fall.
The girls are loving this new lifestyle where everyday is a field trip, and each week brings lessons ranging from geology to American history to animal husbandry. They really miss seeing Dude and Babe (Kendall’s parents) at least once a week, but they’re thrilled with the new adventure each day brings.
Kendall is putting her research and curation skills to work on a daily basis — discovering the best places to stay, things to do, and even basic details like where to do the laundry and what soaps are best to travel with. She is grateful for more time in nature and more time as a family. We are creating priceless memories and she is thankful everyday we have the opportunity to have this adventure together.
Mark feels so much more connected to the family than he has been over the last few years with his constant work travel. He is appreciating the chance to slow down and focus on depth of connections instead of breadth, and is incorporating this into “Cross Pollinate” the non-profit business association he started. He continues to be a connector of people and is grateful he gets to introduce his family to his business friends and colleagues as we travel.
As with any major life change, this one has allowed us to have a lot of deep reflection about what we have to learn, what we do and don’t want in our lives, and what is important to us to have in our life and to teach our children. We are seeing the importance of slowing down, being connected to the Earth and all its inhabitants, and feeling the power of prioritizing connection.
Highlights of our travels are too numerous to list, but it is safe to say our favorite times have been with friends, family, colleagues, and new acquaintances. Connection with people and places was the priority from the inception and it continues to be something we cherish.
The movie made by the girls gives you an overview of our adventures this past year. If you want to follow along more closely, you can subscribe to our blog (www.schoolforyoungblood.com) or follow us on instagram (@schoolforyoungblood).
And should you be sending paper cards to us this year, please use our new mailing address:
1037 NE 65th St. #81429
Seattle, WA 98115
(And if you sent a card to the old address, hopefully it was forwarded!)
We hope this note finds you happy, healthy, and thriving.
Someone told us that without routines, time moves at a different pace.
I don’t know that we realized how different our gauge of time would be until we hopped off the hamster wheel that was our life. Writing a summary of where we’ve been and what we’ve done seems near impossible even when we can look back and see the almost daily pictures we have posted on Instagram (@schoolforyoungblood).
With our new lifestyle, each day (even when we don’t go anywhere) feels like a week. Each week feels like a month… I can only assume that we will look back at our months in different locals as different lives.
While we intend to use this blog mostly for sharing our story and thoughts beyond our pictures and locations, we thought it is helpful to summarize where we have been and what we have done.
November was our first full month on the road and during it we’ve visited: Crater Lake, Klamath Falls, Lava Beds National Monument, Lake Tahoe, Reno, Incline Village, Santa Rosa, Tiburon, Larkspur, Petaluma, San Mateo, Half Moon Bay, Yosemite, Bodie Ghost Town, Mammoth Lakes, Bishop, Mono Lake, Death Valley, Las Vegas, Joshua Tree, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Portland, and Boulder City.
We’ve been to amazing museums covering natural history, cultural history and science: Stewart Indian School, Donner Party Museum, The Discovery Museum in Reno, Manzanar War Relocation Center, and had amazing nature experiences at Crater Lake, Lava Beds, Yosemite, Bodie State Historic Park, Mono Lake, and Death Valley.
We’ve seen so many animals. From the domestic (cats, kittens, dogs, puppies, horses, pigs, goats, bunnies and more) to the wild including road runner, javelina, coyote and bear.
We harvested olives, rode bikes, soaked in hot springs, watched sun sets, saw the Milky Way, explored caves, hiked around lakes, played in the snow, played in the sun, played in pools, and watched a parade of couches at night.
Despite all the fun and games, we’ve also managed to figure out the puzzles involved with life in an RV including: cooking lots of meals, doing heaps of laundry, cleaning inside and out, restocking with water, gas and propane, emptying our tanks, finding campgrounds (and a few times, not finding campgrounds), following directions, all while putting close to 5,000 miles on the van.
The cooler weather kept us in the van more than we would like. We relish warmer days and nights when we can cook and eat outside. The early sunsets are also difficult. We often have to wrap up our day by 3 or 4 pm, so we can camp for the night before it gets dark. Fortunately, the van is warm and cozy and it’s easy to be comfortable even when it’s pouring rain or there is over a foot of snow outside.
We’re not fitting in yoga as much as we’d like. Most days we’re getting good walking mileage in, but we could use some more workouts too. We’re eating well and taking care of ourselves with mostly the same standards we did in a static home, although we’re really missing our daily hot tub sessions.
The schooling part of this journey is well underway too. We’re enjoying reading the book “Marten Martin” out loud as a family at bedtime (thank you for the gift Joy and Thunder). The girls have their own books they’re reading during the day, and they are working on their math app, typing practice (now that we have their iPad keyboards), and they’ve made a few movies about some of the places we’ve visited. They send postcards back to friends and their class at school with highlights from some of our adventures. The experiential part of their education is pretty incredible — in a single day we can learn about geology at hot springs, American History in a gold mining town, and biology, geology and Native American history at Mono Lake.
Through it all we’ve had the chance to visit with friends, family, and colleagues. Each of them on their own could have been the highlight of the month, but collectively it has been extraordinary!
The girls spent a week in Portland before Thanksgiving with Kendall’s parents. Everyone loved the arrangement. They spent the week baking, playing, seeing movies, reading, and playing “school” with Dude and Babe. Mark and I enjoyed some quiet in the van that feels so much more spacious with two, rather than four, people. We enjoyed some self-care in Vegas and long hikes in Joshua Tree.
Most days there is at least one moment, where we stop and look around and have to remind ourselves that “this is our life!” A long-time dream being realized. We’re watching the girls grow and mature and evolve right before our eyes, and we see so many changes, despite the front row seat. They will often spontaneously report, “I love my life!” And I couldn’t agree more.
We’ve been revisiting our post on schooling as we try to synthesize and integrate the many life lessons that are offered to us daily. Here are some of our current ponderings based on the quotes that have inspired our thinking… hardly complete and concise, but imperfectly curious:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
– Mary Oliver
In looking back over the last month, we’ve realized that we kept our prior pace, which is no longer compatible with our new life. Our “go-go-go” has been interspersed with the rare day of staying put and integrating. We realized “recharge” days are more important than anything we have “done”. In long distance swimming you realize the importance of gliding, the efficient and most elegant part of the stroke, is what takes you efficiently to your destination. How we do we glide more through this precious life?
“The word school is derived from the Greek word schole, meaning “leisure.””
– Greg Mckeown
Checking off National Parks and Wonders of World now seems more like checking items of a shopping list and feels like the antithesis of unschooling our kids and unconditioning selves. Is it really a “wonder” if we don’t have time to be ponder it?
We’re feeling the conflict of our culture’s fascinations with the “7 Wonders of the World,” while it also trivializes the small, everyday wonders that are all around us but are increasingly difficult to experience. As we leave a rainy northwest city, we find magic in the heavenly canopy that both lights our way home in the desert, and soothes us to sleep as it carries water to earth to support all life. We have increasingly separated ourselves from these small wonders in the name of comfort and convenience only to add them back synthetically. Our hearts and heads hurt as we think about how much damage has been done to this beautiful planet in the name of comfort and convenience, by us individually as well as by the collective. How do we relax into wonder in the everyday, giving ourselves the time to have leisure and play, and release the drive to see all the “best” places or do all the “coolest” then?
“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day.” – Lao-tzu
We spent a lot of time and energy building wealth and passive income so we would have total freedom, but we didn’t leave time to figure out what we want to do with that freedom or how to best utilize it.
It was easy to see in our own, and our children’s schooling that you don’t “learn” anything when you just study for a test. But even “experiential” learning doesn’t work if we are trying to cram in lots of experiences and only have surface-level, cocktail-party talk with people we meet. There is no depth in seeing the grand canyon by helicopter on a layover between flights. We notice a different relationship with the earth when we see a jackrabbit’s prints in the snow and sit and watch birds fly across the canyon rim while worrying our kids’ snowball fight might end with one of them falling past millions of years of geologic history and ancient sea beds.
These are all questions we are contemplating as we explore this new pace and way of life.
We have officially been nomadic for a full month. At times, it has not at all been what I expected. And at times, it has been exactly what I had expected and hoped for, or exceeded it.
I had hoped for time outside — cooking, hanging out, walking and exploring. I had hoped to visit with friends, make fun discoveries, and see cool places. We have done all these things and more!
We launched ourselves, not by going south but by heading north to Bainbridge to wait for our license plates to be delivered. The dealer sent them late, so we had extra time to hang out and play with Uncle Charlie and the Martina family. We made one more stop in Portland to sort out the final items that we needed to put in storage and run the last errands that we could only do there. And as much as I LOVE Bainbridge Island and Portland, I found myself frustrated with the waiting before we could really get going on our adventure.
Seeing friends along the way is super important to us, so we made our first stop Eugene where we could see Cynthia. She gave an epic tour of her business and we had some delightful catch up time with her and some of her pets and one of her sons (see our earlier blog post to learn all about it). The weather looked like we would have rare sunshine on the coast, so we decided to visit Coos Bay after leaving Eugene.
I texted my friend Amber who moved to Coos Bay last year as we drove into town. Serendipitously, she responded that the big festival she was working on was happening right then, and that she was on the way to introduce an incredible documentary movie playing that night (The Biggest Little Farm). We changed our plans for the evening to go see the film and got to have dinner with her. The movie was powerful and continues to show up in our conversations and we are finding many connections to it as we travel. And we loved our time visiting withAmber.
Our time in Coos Bay also allowed us to eat and play outside, go swimming in a heated saltwater pool at the RV resort where we were staying, to see some wildlife (seals and whales), and to spread Kihei’s ashes on a beautiful beach where she played as a pup.
On our way to spend time with friends in Ashland, we made a stop in Bandon for the night. We made another unexpected discovery of an artist and her museum that makes giant sea animals out of collected trash from Oregon beaches. We literally stumbled upon it when we made a trip to the farmer’s market to pick up some fresh food.
We stayed longer in Ashland than we expected to, as it seemed to be the ideal place for the girls to celebrate Halloween. We spent lovely time with our friends Sarah and Travis and their kiddos Nuna and Piper and had a fun afternoon making apple crisp with our friends Joy and Thunder. The nice weather, plus the opportunity to get tire pressure monitors installed and an error message in the van addressed, encouraged us to stay on in Ashland. In addition to the errands and tasks, we also managed to get a massage, play in Lithia park,sample the delicious restaurants, visit the Science Center and celebrate Halloween with Nuna and her family.
What I didn’t expect from our first month on the road was how much time we would still have to spend “getting ready” — there were still a lot of supplies and resources we needed to find. From having extra keys made, to getting a tea kettle, to fixing the connector on the stowaway box so the turn signal worked. Also, on the drive to Ashland, we started getting an error message about the seatbelt, and the cruise control would stop working. The van spent the entire day at the Mercedes Dealer and they returned it to us saying they had no idea what was wrong, and more things were broken then when we brought it in! I didn’t expect to have this many problems with the van this early on and I didn’t expect the quantity of getting ready tasks and how much time we spent doing them rather than doing fun things like hiking and exploring.
I also didn’t expect that we would have to delay our plans to head south to wait out the planned power outages and wildfires in California this late in the season. The widespread outages and the wind threatening to start up new fires has made us leery of heading south through the state.
While we have been blessed with mostly amazing weather, we’ve also had our fair share of intensity. We had a downpour outside of Eugene that I was sure was going cause the van to spring a leak (it didn’t). We’ve had wind rock the van in Ashland making us realize that we don’t want to camp in the Santa Anna winds that blastedCA. The cold nights are keeping us in the van in the evenings and early mornings. While we’re comfortable while we’re sleeping, we’re missing being, living, and playing outside as much as we would like.
On our final day in Ashland, we sat in a Les Schwab tire center, waiting while they figure out why one tire is losing half of it’s pressure each day. We’re not suffering — the girls are doing their math work, I can write, Mark can get work done, and there is unlimited popcorn. But I’d much rather be out exploring new places and seeing more friends.
For me, this month has been a lesson in going with the flow. No two days are ever the same. Very rarely do the plans we dream up happen exactly as we want them. I’m learning to surrender to the flow of what needs to happen, what the weather dictates, and the new opportunities arise that we didn’t even know existed. I’m learning to let go of my story that it will be better if we do “X” or we’re going to miss out on “Y.” There is still so much of this country to explore, part of me feels antsy that we haven’t made it out of Oregon. But when I look back on all we’ve seen and done in the last month, I am thrilled about the quality of connections, the new discoveries, and the amount of play we’ve experienced. We didn’t go far, but we’re having a great time.
The Dyrt asked us to write about how we plan where we’re going to go. It was an interesting assignment because it feels like we’re doing very little advanced work, especially compared to how we have traditionally planned a trip or vacation. It was fun to work with Mark to articulate how we want to mix being open to new possibilities with the structure and research needed to figure out where we want to go, and the things we need to do. Check out the latest article here:https://thedyrt.com/magazine/lifestyle/how-to-plan-road-trip-family/
We made a special point to visit our friend Cynthia in Eugene. She is someone Mark first met through work, but now has become a friend to all of us.
As part of our stop in Eugene, Cynthia offered to take us on a tour of her warehouse and shipping facility. She owns a huge distribution company that ships crafting, sewing, paper and other art supplies to retailers and individuals. Her passion is not necessarily arts and crafts, but the entrepreneurship, logistics and management. And she gave us an amazing behind the scenes look and educated us on how warehouses work.
The girls asked lots of questions and wanted to touch and try everything. Parker’s favorite job was the pallet jack and moving pallets of boxes.
We learned about the system of organization used so “pickers” don’t have to walk all over the warehouse, but stay in different sections and use a track to move the boxes around to different sections. This is all part of the new “six sigma” implementation she has been doing since buying one of her competitors earlier this year.
Even though the warehouse was closed (it operates 20 hours a day, 6 days a week) Cynthia found an order in progress and worked with the girls to pull items in that section for the order. She showed us where they cut and bundle reams of paper (important when the minimum order of paper is 10,000 lbs), and the merchandising section where they build out the arts and crafts aisles for various retailers like Fred Meyer or local craft stores (which was Taylor’s favorite job).
Their absolute favorite thing however was the scavenger hunt! Cynthia told them about a new craft called “diamond art” (like color by number, but instead you put colored gems in the spots). She logged onto the database, pulled up all the diamond art products, and let each girl pick one they liked. Then she gave them the section-aisle-shelf number for each product and had them go try to find it! They were thrilled to go hunting for their new craft project and even more thrilled they got to bring it home with them.
The next morning, we woke up to find the girls already at the kitchen table working away on their new projects, sipping hot chocolate that Cynthia had lovingly made for them. And after breakfast, she worked with them to make a fig jam/compote.
Cynthia was such a gracious host! The girls immediately fell in love with her, as we knew they would. Thanks again Cynthia!
It’s official! We are writers for online campground finder: The Dryt. When we first heard about The Dyrt and what they were building, we got very excited. Finding good places to camp and being able to book them directly, was not an easy task. What is a good campground to one person (who loves ATVs and loud music), might not be considered good by another (who loves hiking and silent stargazing). Having user reviews as well as photos and video tell the real story is invaluable.
We loved that you can search for campsites through their website or app, and they have fun contests to win for gear and other camping goodies based on how many reviews you write.They are building out the ability to book campgrounds directly through the site which will save us a lot of time and energy as we’re traveling about.
While living in Portland got to know the founders, Sarah and Kevin, and think they are super cool people. When we had the opportunity, we also made a financial investment in the company. So when it came time for us to go nomadic in our RV, we approached them about helping promote the company while we’re on the road.
Kevin invited all four of us into the office to meet with him and a some of his team to talk about our plans. They helped us understand their goals for the coming year, how to write for search engine optimization, and we talked through ways we could help promote The Dryt while we’re out and about. I was so impressed with how Kevin lead the meeting and how well the team included the girls in the conversation and planning.
One of the big ways we will be helping with promotion is writing for The Dyrt Magazine. Our first article, an interview with us and our coming adventures, is now live.
I see these writing projects as both helpful to a company we really believe in, but also great educational opportunities for the girls. They learned a lot about the internet start-up world in our meeting in the Dyrt’s office and they enjoyed the process of writing their own bios for the interview. We’ve also been engaging the girls in the process for writing campground reviews as well.
We will post an update here whenever a new Dyrt article goes live!
Five years ago we undertook our first major uncoupling with stuff. We sold our 3,000 square foot house and parted ways with about half of our belongings. We moved into an urban duplex that was just under 1,500 square feet. Having less space to clean, less stuff to manage, and no yard to maintain felt like huge weights off our back. And yet to make this RV adventure possible, we had to redefine our relationship with stuff again. Last time, we dropped 50% in size, this time we dropped 90%.
While moving into a 160 square foot space is definitely radical, let us be clear that we are not (yet) radical minimalists. We are maintaining a 10 x 10 storage unit that will be full of items that we’re not yet ready to part with (like a fancy dress I still hope to get to wear someday), that would be stupid to part with (our gorgeous dishes and flatware), or that are irreplaceable (looking at you high school yearbooks!).
(All of our stored possessions… and still room to spare.)
But we undertook the enormous task to look at every item in every drawer and cupboard and decide whether it comes with us, goes into storage, or finds a new home. And even with the smaller duplex, there were still so many drawers and cabinets, full of things to consider.
(What was hiding in our linen closet and in the cupboards under the sinks.)
Uncoupling from our stuff would have been a lot easier if I’d been willing to pull out a large box and dump most things in it and cart it off to the dumpster, or even to Goodwill. This is where the “conscious” part of conscious uncoupling comes in — it takes a tremendous amount of presence, intention, focus, and cognitive labor to let things go in a sustainable way.
But in keeping with my efforts to reduce our household waste, and since I know that a large percent of donated items to thrift store organizations (like Goodwill) actually end up in the landfill (or worse, things like clothes being sent to African countries putting local textile makers out of business), I wanted to find other solutions.
(The art cabinet required significant uncoupling!)
The kids had accumulated many boxes of things we can’t take with us, and that they didn’t want to come back to: art supplies, games, books, toys, stuffies, dolls, and more. I found a local family shelter that welcomes donations for most of these things and we delivered a car load of kids supplies as well as jackets, hats and scarves for adults. Plush stuffies are a much harder thing to find a home for. After extensive research, I discovered the police department of a nearby city collects clean plush dolls and does a “fill a patrol car” program every holiday season to give away these toys to kids in need in their city. They were grateful for the three huge bags of plush toys we dropped off.
(The “before” picture of the garage storage.)
And then there’s Craigslist. Managing Craigslist postings is nearly a full time job. The first step of getting items posted (taking photos, measurements, details, links, pricing) seems like it would be the hardest part. But I find it harder to deal with the incoming inquiries and sales. So many people express interest and disappear. Or exchange 3 or 4 emails and then stop responding. I’ve gotten good about telling from someone’s first email about the likelihood of whether the sale will go through, and thus how much time and energy to put into it. I’ve also decided to be radically trusting of people. Often, someone wants to stop by to buy something when we’re not going to be home. Rather than haggling to find a mutually agreeable time, I’ve been leaving the item on the front porch, and asking them to leave the money under the mat. Amazingly, I’m batting 100% on this strategy. Trust people and they are trustworthy.
I’ve had a lot of fun with the distribution method we call the “free box” — which means leaving stuff in a box out at the corner. I’m not sure if this phenomenon is unique to urban Portland, but it is certainly popular in this city. People will take almost anything left in a free box. Sometimes the weirder the better. I love the thought of someone walking by and finding something that delights them and that is FREE!
(The product of our in-house graphic artists.)
We held a garage sale which helped moved some things into new homes, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped it would. I priced things high hoping people would bargain, but very few people asked for reduced prices. Maybe Portlanders aren’t comfortable with haggling? Maybe I should have put more bargain prices on things to begin with?
The method that brought me the most pleasure was giving stuff away (or selling it super cheaply) to friends. Knowing that someone who has blessed my life is receiving benefit from my stuff makes me happy. We have one friend who bought a whole truckload of furniture. Other friends have come to take a piece or two off our hands. I overheard two friends talking about wanting to make kombucha and was thrilled that I had two sets of kombucha-making kits, and was able to give each of them one.
Pairing down clothes without simply donating them to Goodwill may be the hardest. I’ve taken some to clothing swaps with friends. I’ve tried consigning with mixed success. I’ve gifted some pieces to similarly sized friends. But unless you buy expensive clothes, and take good care of them and sell them while they’re still trending, the resale market is tough. Mostly, they ended up going to Goodwill.
(The garage became the clearing center for all the miscellaneous pieces still looking for homes.)
I’ve learned some interesting lessons through this process:
– Everyone has different relationships to stuff, and different experiences with letting stuff go. For me, I’m not attached to things, and I feel little remorse when things walk out the door. Actually, I feel elated when things walk out the door, because it’s one more thing off my to do list. And even as much as I love the process, it was also extremely taxing and difficult, and I don’t think a day passed during the last week that I didn’t shed tears over how overwhelmed I felt by the quantity of stuff and work to do. Mark processed it differently. Things for him contain memory, and potential, and emotion. Letting things go also means letting go of all those things contained therein, and that can feel really sad for him. For the girls, they’ve had a lot of sadness around their dolls and stuffies. They describe many of them as “friends” or their “children” and they’ve had a hard time saying goodbye to many of them. The most precious ones we’ve kept and boxed up, and even saying “so long for now” was difficult for them.
(The last load in an otherwise empty garage.)
– This has already changed how the girls spend their allowance money. We’ve never put restrictions on what they buy as we feel like there are important lessons to be learned with that autonomy. But since committing to the RV, their spending has dropped significantly, their savings are way up, and they can walk into a store and look around and leave without even seeming like they wanted to buy anything. This is allowing us to have conversations about the downsides of plastic toys (“What do you mean no one wants this used? It can’t be recycled??”). And it’s helped them see how much they had and to be able to talk about the kids who have so little. They felt better giving away so much stuff knowing that it would go to kids who were in difficult life circumstances and situations. My hope is that it makes a long term shift in their relationship to consumption and allows them to have a bigger perspective ecologically and socially.
– Even before deciding to make this giant leap into tiny space, we were not big shoppers. And yet I’m seeing how much more intention and consideration we could have placed on the things we bought. Now as we’re figuring out few remaining things we need that are specific to the RV, we’ll be thinking a lot more about qualities like:durability, recyclability/ resale-ability, size & weight, multifunction, and whether something is just right or only good enough. We’re making what we already had work for our new needs in the RV.
(As glad as we were to say goodbye to stuff, it was hard to say goodbye to this sweet home that sheltered us so perfectly for so many years!)
I often joked that I should update my resume to reflect one of my primary jobs: “Stuff Management.” So much of my time before was spent shopping for, cleaning up, putting away, fixing, organizing, and moving stuff. While we’re on the tail end of stuff management overload, I’m hopeful that after this is all done, and we have significantly less stuff to manage, so more of my time and energy can be spent in more meaningful ways. And I hope that whenever we do return to a less nomadic way of living, that the lessons of this uncoupling process will stay with us, and we’ll make different decisions about what we buy, how we fill our house, and how we spend our time and money.
We have officially been nomadic for a full month. At times, it has not at all been what I expected. And at times, it has been exactly what I had expected and hoped for, or exceeded it.
