Tik Tok? Tick Tock! Is It All A Dream?

I noticed I haven’t written since October. The whole thing of being a nomad, the romantic notion of wandering from place to place pretty much crashed into real life. It’s fun watchig folks on Instagram or Tik Tok post tiny snippets of their seemingly perfect lives floating about, boondocking in the middle of nowhere, from place to place. It allows us to dream. It takes us across time and space and out of the reality of our office cubicles. I also noticed the tick tock of time as my hair is getting more grey by the day marking how quickly time is flying by. Time does not wait for us to claim our lives.

In reality, at least when it comes to my truth, I have simply trusted my gut and followed it to where I am today. I’ve had a few good loops around the United States and Canada. I enjoyed California camping throughout the state, and learning how to navigate the beautiful desert. I’ve braved wind storms, snow storms, ice storms and enormous hail while dodging back and forth across country on crazy mountain grades with switchbacks and drop offs. I’ve enjoyed the Canadian Rockies as well as the Plains. I’ve gotten to visit with so many relatives, who little did I know, I would never see again. What have I not done? So far I have missed the East Coast, which seems to be a different kind of towing involving more expense and the need for better plans. It doesn’t seem to offer the as many boondocking opportunities and for me the reallity of cruising all the way across country and back, missing the extreme weather that shows up at the weather changing months of May and August September, well… just wasn’t realiistic. I also had dreams of cruising in Mexico but found that would take more research in terms of finding insurance companies to cover me, being more fluent with my Spanish or ideally having a copilot who knew the landscape better than me to recommend where to even steer towards. Maybe someday I’ll still make it to those locations but I seem to be leaning more towards flyng in for my visits there. And in all honesty, if sitting stil slows time down a bit, I’m ok with that too. The older I get the faster it seems like time is flying by. I feel fortunate to have seen as much of the world as I have.

The Pacific Northwest simply felt like home when I landed here, minus the existance of my family and those special 30 plus year friends we all treasure. But the PNW has had an abundance of new friends. In losing my dad it struck me how time was really flying by. It had me focused on how many good friends I had lost and how fragile life is. It hit home how important it is to continue making new friends in order to keep having those long time friends because time keeps ticking. I have lost seven close friends and family members since the dreaded 2020. The effect is what I would call exponential grief, a more keen focus on my end of life plans, and exit plans for trailer life and a lot of time thinking about how to make the best of the time I have left, as well as where I wil want to be when towing becomes more physical than I want to deal with. I already don’t want to climb up on my roof. Maybe I should make myself! Maybe it all goes downhill from there! Ha!Ha!

No, I’m not really ready to leave trailer life yet, although watching a handful of towing friends leave the life makes me a little sad each time. Some leave because they miss a home made with house parts (like me). Some have to take care of aging spouses who can no longer travel safely. Some leave for health reasons. And some just want new adventures. Watching the trend of trailer life folks who flew into the the trend in 2020 only to turn around and sell their rigs before they had even put 1,000 miles on them, causing the industry to spike and now return values on trailers to slowly take a dive… well… I just shake my head. But still, I have no regrets. I didn’t buy the trailer to make a bunch of money on it.

I got into this in the first place because I wanted to move toward living in a tiny house. I still do. I have gotten as far as making friends who actually made that dream work and will help me and connect me to good builders. I toured a frien’s tiny home that was a little small for me, but absolutely beautiful in design. It helps to see things up close in real life. I think if I had a relative with land, like my friend, that would be my current first choice for where to park. Parking on a friends land seems too big a risk if things go south and too much to put on a friendship. That said, the industry is a long way off from normalizing Tiny House living. Sure, they are making tiny houses for homeless people, making tiny house communities for addicts as a way of living that is not so stressful, and allowing grandmother tiny houses on other people’s properties as well as creating highly sought after, highly over priced tiny house communities. Sigh. I drooled over Acony Bell and a coastal tiny house community out here, but the reality of getting in, in a house I designed was jut not going to happen. Plus they are so far from the city. And although I realized I have lost some of my “city girl”. I still am a city/country girl at heart. Also, the new thing to look at when scouting a location to live is the thirty year climate projections. Being under water, taken by a tsunami or burned to a crisp just isn’t attractive. So until the industry allows you to put your tiny house on your own land, in any county you want, it remains more of a dream than a reality.

I do know one thing for sure. I like house parts vs trailer parts. And trailers are made of trailer parts. They are cheap, unique to your. trailer, typically made in China and therefore not quickly replaced I’m told due to the supply chain. They are also expensive and break often, no matter how much you spend on your trailer. Plus they take specialized folks and tools to work on them, unless you dive in and DIY! yah…. diy is like die for me. Not my cup of tea! Although I’ve done a lot of it because I had to. House parts can be fixed by a regular handyman or woman. They are also easier to figure out when doing things oneself. Plus, I know they said this to me in the beginning but I wasn’t listening… trailers are not made to live in fulltime, and they are not made to live in in extreme weather, both of which I do. And both of which I would totally do again!

So, I will sit still here and soak up as much summer as I can in hopes to get sick of it, and crave winter again. After last years ice storms and hundred mile per hour winds, below zero temperatures and frozen water hoses I’m not super excited about winter. But I’ll be working on my attitude adjustment all summer and replacing my broken winter gear. Plus I joined a gym where I can swim and get my hot tub on in the really miserable months. Quite possibly I willl fly and visit all of you when I really need to get out of here.

The best part about my going on this going on six year journey thus far is it has helped me prioritize experiences over things living more minimally and it has allowed me to truly dive in and explore my world as an artist! That, is as the commercial says, priceless! My. goal in this next year is to make more connections with curators and galleries in downtown Portland and cities across The States, allowing me to make more art, make bigger pieces and get my work in front of the audience that loves it and buys it, so that I can keep making art. Delving into my creative world is what gave me peace, helped me grieve and healed my heart from all of the loss since 2020. It continues to do so.

So, where is my art currently? I have small works showing at Piccolo Coffee House on the mainstreet in downtown Camas, Washington until the end. of this month. I am part of an exhibit, that the ROHO Arts Collective out of Minneapolis Minnesota is putting on for the summer, in the Cargill Gallery on the second floor of the Central Library downtown Minneapolis. I will have two pieces showing at the Newmark theater in downtown Portland, Oregon. I have some work up in Poor Michaels Emporium in Manitoba, Canada. In July my small works show will be dowtown in Gresham at Shop Girl Consignment. Of course I’m still working out of and showing work at the Troutdale Art Center. And I have my eye on a couple more Portland galleries and downtown fashion shops. So come for a visit, or have fun tooling through my online portfolio here.

I apologize for slowing down to two posts a year and will try to check in a little more often. Thanks for sticking with me.