Trevor Noah was saying you don’t often get to choose when you want to end something or start something new. He explains the restaurant tells you they are closing,and you can’t choose when you die. Do we really learn how to deal with endings and transitions? I often think I have a transition plan for the next stage of my life, but do I? Most times when I follow a new path I’m thinking this is what I’ll do for the rest of my life, and then the universe laughs at me.
So I sit here reflecting on my life change choices. How much was choice? Or was each change just inevitable. Since I really see myself in transition, what choice do I have now going forward? I think when it comes to choice there is not really a right or wrong choice, just a choice. And one can always make a different choice in the next moment. I noticed we all go really hard on ourselves when we have choices to make. And with what is going on in our country and the world we definitely have a lot of choices to make each day.
In my journey, hitting the road saved me from toxic stress that was wearing on my health. I have found joy everywhere I have lived, yet California I found to be the most wearing place I have experienced. I could have still been there. A highly intense job, the fires, the distance from loved ones, all would have shaped my choices there if I had stayed.
Jumping ahead, my choice to leave trailer life on the road and eventually all together by selling the trailer was a choice I made over a couple of years, as information kept revealing itself to me. Trailer life is way more than instagram photos or you tube videos. I entered it having no idea what it was, and zero expectations. I only hoped to simplify life and gain focus on where I was going next, which I accomplished. I thought I would do it longer than I did, but having accomplished what I wanted it was time for change again. The reality that trailers are not made of very durable materials, not really made to live in full time (even though lots of people do) and are made for the true DIY soul, all made it easier for me to let go of the life. DIY was not really my thing. Plus I missed the city. I am a true city/country girl. I have to have both in my life and trailer life that was affordable typically meant being far away from grocery stores and hospitals.
One thing I did know was I loved having a smaller environmental impact on the planet and I loved pulling my focus from material things making me happy, to enjoying quality time, quality moments and having experiences with other humans. I have also have been thrilled to have the priviledge to make and actually sell my art!
Trailer life can also be very physical and some folks stay very fit late into life, but I was already feeling the strains of the physical part of trailer life. Aging and my plans for life as an older soul definitely are on my mind as more and more people I love pass out of this world and into the next.
Lastly I loved having community, which trailer life is all about. I’d give that life high scores on community. Its one place where people with very differing backgrounds are thrown together and you have to figure out how to make it work, how to help each other, how to be there for your neighbor, in spite of differences.
Eventually, as you know, the choice to transition into an apartment was the next logical step. I spent a lot of time looking at places only to have them snatched out from under me because someone was in line in front of me, or have them not meet their online photo images to say it politely, or to find they were way over priced for anything I could afford. Sharing a single home was one way to have a smaller footprint until I could transition in an apartment. My friend who shared her house had the means to share and likes helping with the housing issues in the city, or should I say lack of enough housing.
Moving into an apartment I noticed a mindset that is embedded in our culture that I felt I needed to change in myself. I thought I had started that change when I said yes to living with a friend but in reality, I started it when I sold my California house and jumped in a trailer fulltime. The idea that owning a big house by myself is the goal, or shows that I have made it at last, is kind of foolish, and not very good for our planet. In some ways apartment living seemed like going backwards. Wouldn’t folks want to own their own place? I did and still might. However, when crunching the numbers and figuring out the all of the variables, each way of living costs money and has its pros and cons. Some ways have living have a harsher effect on our home, planet earth.
Thinking of apartment living as a choice, as a way to help the environment, and not buying into the “made it” mentality, was a mindset adjustment. It made me wonder about other parts of the world. Do other parts of the world have whole neighborhoods made up of single family homes where one or two people live in isolation in their home and try to maintain it financially and physically? Or are there more societies that are about communal living and working together, sharing resources, bartering our gifts and living smaller so that everyone has a place and we hopefully take better care of our planet? For now my apartment feels like home. Plus I found even now I’m still learning what I like and don’t like in a physical space, if I were to buy a place. I do love that I can hop on a bus at my front door and go to the front door of just about all of the places I frequent. Shout out to Portland for the best transit system I have seen anywhere! And I still am able to find community here.
Currently I find myself struggling like Frida and Diego. Do I make art for arts sake, or buy into the capitalist journey of an artist? Galleries take half of your money if you are lucky to be connected and to actually get representation in one. The tax system is stacked against an artist, as it is with anyone who is not incredibly rich, and who does not have ways to avoid taxes. And art from the soul and the heart isn’t always what folks want to purchase for their living room walls, yet there are huge costs to making art people will buy and showing your art. I’ll be venturing deeper into the world of collectives and pop ups this summer.
This year I am focused on a series that speaks to where we are with environmental issues in hopes to have a show early next year where all of the profits skip me completely and go directly to some of my favorite environmental organizations. I will definitely invite other artists to join me. Stay tuned if you live in Portland or nearby.
In the meantime I keep looking at real estate options from my agent here and my agent in Minneapolis, leaving both options open for my next landing space. I will need a little more space to have my in home studio, and how I hustle with my art would be very different in the two cities. Both cities are very artist centered. There’s more of a pop up and collective focus here in Portland unless you are connected to the old school curators who will represent you in a gallery. Minneapolis has a lot of grant work, and mural work, as well as live work artist community spaces. Either way, I will find a way to keep creating as it feeds my soul as one way to resist all of the roadblocks that our current Oligarchs are putting up in front of us.
Trevor is right in that when you do get to choose an ending, it is that much sweeter because you get to let those around you know how much your time together meant to you, and share where you are going next. Some of them may stay with you on your ride. Feeling in transition right now both personally and in our country, I am staying open to opertunities where I am a part of choosing endings and new beginnings. I’m staying as honest with myself as I can be as to where we are, how I can make the most of my life each day, and how I can use my voice and art for change. I want you all to know I’ve appreciated you as witnesses to my journey.
I dedicate this post to my dad. I guess there isn’t an option for our parents to be with us forever. Love you dad! This is the three year anniversary of saying goodbye to my dad. I miss him everyday. I think I’ll take a boat ride on the Columbia to celebrate memories of boating with him as a kid. And I’ll continue my journey courageously, not fearing changes, choices and goodbeyes.
Thank you, any of you out there, still following my ramblings. ; )
Tiny Adventures of Elisa MG 