Van-demic in a pandemic…

… And other musings. Ruby had been sputtering along in a stoic way on seven cylinders  but she finally complained loudly enough, and refused to signal when turning, so I bit the bullet (wallet?) and took her in to a mechanic referred by another nomad friend. Whatever gremlins have been rambling around in my other…

Sleeping Under the Stars

I finally fulfilled one of my dreams out here, to sleep in the open, under the stars. It’s something I’d only do in a safe place. Last night I visited my original camp for a potluck, but I was packed to the gills for a camp move. Seemed like the perfect place to try it…

Impressions of Life

I came out to the PAR TR for a weekend of fun, to shuck off a couple of difficult weeks and to just relax. What I’ve experienced turned out to be much more. In a world that grows more expansive each day via the Internet, people seem to be growing more isolated and lost feeling;…

Life is hard

The wonderful thing about Google photos is that it sends you reminders of where you were x years ago and what you were doing. Well, sometimes it’s wonderful; other times, painful. Today it reminded me of where I was five years ago. I was camping, alone, down in Florida, under another full moon. I hiked…

Morning Pleasures

I’m nearing the end of twelve work free days, a luxury I’ve not had in over five years. But today I had to start easing back into my normal sleep/wake patterns for work on my East coast timeline. So I was up at 0300 Pacific time. Music kept me company for a while, checking email…

For the joy of dance

In my everyday life I can be scattered, clumsy and downright hazardous to myself. Not so with dance. It is like someone else lives in my body, perhaps that wild, free part of me that wants to take over now and again to just be. I’ve seen more of her out here on the road,…

Parker, Prickles and Putzing Around

As the sun falls behind the hills, woodsmoke drifts my way bearing the scent of juniper or pinon, which I’m not sure. The sky is a soft baby blue layered with pale pink and translucent yellow, with violet indigo coming in fast. By the sun’s falling place, brilliant orange with a red tint flares up…

“I’m all alone, with no one beside me..”(Donkey in Shrek)

And so it goes! After traversing Arizona moving south and westward, I finally arrived at the RVing Nirvana known as Quartzsite, or “Q”, as one mountainside proclaims visually. I had seen a video or three on this place. Seemed cool enough. However, after having the freedom of truly boondocking, this is just a leetle different…

Wish upon a star

It’s funny sometimes, how things happen. I stood in the chilly darkness before work this morning straining to see a falling star. It was breezy, quiet and dark. Only the sound of the wind in the junipers, the rustle of grasses, and the trill of unseen insects kept me company. But no such luck. Tonight,…

Looking back over my shoulder with one eye ahead 2016 – 2017

“They” say this is the time of the year to reflect on your yearly posts.  Ach. Hit and/or miss. So many left in drafts because they were written late at night after work ended and there didn’t seem to be much ‘me’ in them; or maybe, too much of me in them. I look at…

Looking Back Over My Shoulder -Humanities at (roughly) 450 mph

(Oooh, a fragmented lost in draft post, just found, from earlier this year) Now that was a catchier title than “Getting to know  my fellow air travelers”, was it not? Feet firmly back on the ground from vacation, I’ve been in hibernation from over-socialization. It isn’t that anyone was rude or intentionally draining either. I…

Looking back over my shoulder (aka 2016 in Review)

My goal is to make a post a day to wrap up 2016 and teeter into the unformed abyss of 2017 🙂 Carapasces of Dreams The dry wind chattered Winding through the carapaces of dreams Discarded in corners Shrugged off during a mental molt   Raw skin couldn’t decide Whether to embrace the nakedness For…

I.C.U.

I need to see her face. She is pale and breathing fast. Darkness colors the hollows under her eyes; not purple, not brown, but some muddy, delicate mix of the two, not unlike some smudged color you would see touted in a new fall palette on sale at Ulta. On the forty minute drive north…

Last Grasping of Solitude

For almost seven years of widowhood, I have lived in solitude, with the exception of a one year stint with a co-worker roommate. She opened her home to me for a pittance while I was struggling to get back on my feet upon returning to work and I will always be grateful. I am comfortable…

Fifteen minutes ago

Fifteen minutes ago It was that day. The day I flew. The day I decided not to counteroffer on a house I really liked. The day I last heard “I love you so much.” The day I last shared a newspaper with anyone. I wonder when this day’s awareness will fade from my brain. When…

Is there life offline?

So what, you may ask, can one DO when there is no internet to absorb, delight, educate, aggravate and titillate? If you are a geeky person like me, you read. Yes, those book things that we house in places called libraries and line up in bookstores filled with the intoxicating aroma of, well, probably glue,…

Notes from an RV Park

It has been a stretch of interesting days.  I’m not certain how my life always seems to amble along like a comedy, but it does most of the time. It could be that I am just silly 🙂 I ran up against a wall this week that I’ve not encountered ever I don’t think, since…

Gurl on wheels – spastically settling in and what it is teaching me

  Quote of the week: “…People should be able to walk into their back yards and say, ‘that’s a cicada, that’s a tree frog, and that’s a bird.’ Then, when they hear a bird scream, ‘get out of my territory, get out of my territory,’ I want them to recognize the cadence and remember that…

The Intimacy of Moving

Just like going to the Doctor for a check up is not intimate when compared with the touch of one who knows you, neither is having professional movers wrangle your stuff from one place to another.  But to have people who know me trail their fingers through my things is something quite different for me.  It is…

Memorabilicus – or The Umbilicus of Memory Found in Objects

Catchy and academic-sounding title eh? My brain works weirdly in sleep deprivation mode. I also love to make up words that have meaning probably only to me. Last night was a late night (morning) working as the next in line is out for medical assistance for his partner. That left me in charge of herding…

Riding the Four C’s

Reading novels makes me feel like I am stuck in a really bad one sometimes, one that I might produce on my first stab at such. Since I’m winnowing my books, my reward for working towards packing is reading books I’m getting rid of before spiraling into sleep, instead of my normal perusal of the…

And so it begins…

I did it!  I am now the owner of a rolling version of a tiny house.  Well, me and the credit union 🙂 And yes, I drove it, adrenaline inducing event that was. I’m scheduled for a full driving course prior to taking actual delivery, after it goes through its bells and whistles review and…

The gory…err glory road to downsizing ‘stuff’.

Yes, it is gory.  Gut-wrenching. Painful. Overwhelming.  That’s why I am taking a break to write about it instead of doing it. Heh.   We squirrel away for all kinds of maybes. Maybe they won’t make (insert item of choice) any more. We stock and store because we’ve a prepper mentality so maybe there will…

Blither and blather about little things that matter

Did you know that online RV shopping is a LOT like online dating? No? I did it for you, so you don’t have to. In all seriousness, it is somewhat similar. Nice photos. Catchy list of amenities. Make appointment. Show up. Think you must be at wrong place as nothing looks like the photos. Then…

Rose Seep Visionary – a poem

**************************** Did I feel a tug at the corner of the dream Which I must have ignored, glossed over Darted at through rose-colored glasses Via an edgewise glance And kept on dreaming, looking forward Did I hear ambivalence whisper, or Was it dissonance maybe? They can be so hard to differentiate, tease apart No matter…

Monday musings of a mentalist (the British sort, not the magical sort)

I’ve been on sensory overload lately – not sure why. In this post are tidbits of thought, internal and external conversations, sights and smells, a photo or two and the requisite songs that have been running through my mind lately. Best read while drinking hot tea and listening to Jackie Greene’s “Travelin’ Song” Don’t have…

Grandsons, tumbles and trail names

Yesterday was a rare treat, a double-header with two of my daughters and my four grandsons, plus helping the third daughter watch shop by text 🙂  It was also a two restaurant meal day for me, which is exceedingly unusual. In the midst of my ‘fake hiking & camping’ fun I had a birthday luncheon…

Vulnerability has a scent, and I wasn’t wearing it

…and other unusual things said to me lately. Scent has always played a huge role in my life. As such, I own probably an inordinate amount of scented things, personal and home. I picked up a new perfume on a trip.  It is very green, woodsy with a mossy undertone at dry down.  It reminds…

36 hours upright, 3 hours of sleep, rough weather = goofy chick

Ensconced back in the micro-haus in balmy weather, last week feels like it passed in some kind of dream form. I’m pretty bone-weary in all honesty.  It was a very emotional trip, in both good and bad ways, thanks to incredible friends. The roughshod road trip was to pick up venison on another person’s timeline.…

At 13 degrees, don’t touch the iced tent sides!

This experience, while considered by many to be slightly insane, is very educational for me. It is an opportunity to learn while learning is optional and not mandatory, or driven by necessity. I’ve known too many people relegated to a lifestyle they didn’t anticipate with no foreknowledge, myself included. The saving grace in my sleeping…

Brrrrrrrrrraving the elements (or how to have everyone call you crazy)

So I am on site in the midst of the great Polar Vortex caper (hmmm, didn’t I mention flailing in the vortex a few posts ago…prescient of me eh?) I like to camp.  A lot. So in order to give the new widow some personal space I brought my camping gear since there is acreage…

Hitchhiking ghosts on road trips

I have made this run up 75 North so many times I should be able to do it in my sleep, but this is the first time in ten years I finally did it without taking a printed map. I’m directionally challenged in many ways and so I often don’t trust myself.  But in the…

Pampering, planning and the musical backdrop

Going to a salon is not really about vanity so much.  It is about going some place where someone takes care of you. I was reminded of this yesterday, as someone brought me coffee, I read magazines I normally do not see and enjoy human touch while having my hair washed. I don’t go any…

Picking straws

Delicious Fall has fallen upon us for a brief spell and I am relishing it! Doors and sliders thrown open, fans positioned to bring all of that fresh, low humidity air in has really boosted my spirits. It makes working out an invigorating thing rather than a flirtation with heat stroke and misery.  I wrote…

Leave-taking and beauty in the wilds

Leave-taking is always bittersweet when it is a long-time friend who is often more family than actual family. I’ve spent a lovely nine days in the Midwest in marvelous company, been fed delicious food, gone out and about, and now am sitting in the airport waiting to return home via Chicago. The trip in was…

Zany for Zinnias!

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The Third Garment – Scent

I don’t write often on the more feminine aspects of life that tend to lift and enrobe us in comfort and pleasure, like the tactile feel of certain fabrics,the weather; things combined with scent.  Scent is one of my all time favorite mood drivers. In this arena I am always torn between the natural and…

Music, Moving and Mayhem

Briefly dipping my pinkie toe in the blogging world for a moment as the mayhem in my life mounts! First, on moving: I was |this| close to securing a tiny rental house; well, tiny for most standards.  It is more than 4x the size of where I live now.  But, you have to be poised…

Work-Life Balance or How Not to Collapse in a Heap

As you may (or, may not) have noticed, I’ve pretty much been MIA except for a couple of automatic posts I set up last weekend in a five minute period of calm.  That title up there…do you recall when it even entered our lingo? Work-Life Balance. Work used to be something you did between 8-5…

Dream a Little Dream With Me

Yes, it is a little play on words from the duet by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong because today I am writing about my homesteading dreams.  Maybe re-re-dreams is more accurate, since I’ve already started twice and had to stop due to the death of my spouse and another time due to the pesky necessity…

“Dreams for Sale”

Ivory towers are difficult to maintain Too much melancholy seeps into the cracks Jostling the dust for position of primacy Longing for an out; escape is a feather duster ride She hovers among the secreted garden of words Slender stalks of them over here, ground-hugging clumps over there Flinging some violently against the canvas of…

Floundering for Words

I always have words.  Words to write, words to say when given a chance.  And I am full of them now too – well, thoughts actually would be more accurate. What does one write on a death anniversary, when writing is simply what one does? Does it make others uncomfortable? I don’t know too many…

8.25.14 Monday Music Mention – Jack Savoretti

So much emotion roiling in me this week made it a challenge to choose a musical talent to highlight. Jack won out because of the rawness of his emotion in the music coupled with a connection that I feel  internally. My connections are always mental.  I love a good and active mind 🙂 This song…

Free Flow

It is no mystery to those close to me that this is a difficult time.  What follows is simply another free flow writing I did, similar to “Skin Tight” a few months ago. ****************************** It is trying to try, try and try again. It wearies and robs the soul of happiness that it is its…

Collage of the Mind

Quoting Berry from Word and Flesh: “The religion and the environmentalism of the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something that they do not really want to destroy. We all live by robbing nature, but our standard of living demands that the robbery shall…

A Birth in Gaza

Originally posted on countingducks:
To those unknowing of my childhood my enigmatic and disconnected behaviour must have seemed odd and possibly uncivilised. In youth I could not see beyond getting by and surviving day by day; ‘learning’ was another country where less damaged people lived. I was busy trying to fly that alien craft I…

Thankful Thoughts

 Photo Credit: BoredPanda.org    “The Book of Life” – Artist David Kracov If I had a lot of money, I would so purchase this piece of sculpture. It is metal, and each butterfly is hand-painted. The book contains diary pages, poetry and notes written by the children of Auschwitz. I find it haunting and incredibly…

Victims – Born, Groomed or Happenstance – Final

 A bit of beauty from my garden for my readers ******************************** I sometimes write about topics that are difficult to face, things one wishes to turn away from, bury, ignore.  Some read, some don’t.  Either is okay with me.  What does matter is if something I have written helps another person.  In truth, reality is…

Gift From a Dog

There are days when being a responsible adult just drains you. Yesterday was one of those for me. A storm had taken out my primary internet on Sunday. This means all day in the office, rather than a half day in and then finishing up my work at home.  This means no tadpole kissy faces…

Decisions, always decisions about writing

I’ve spent the last two days thinking over this experiment that I practiced in July, of posting almost every day.  I wanted to see if I could keep that pace, while working and trying to have a semblance of life with my family and friends as well.  I enjoyed it immensely, but I have found…