Valentine’s Day Visions

Happy Valentine’s Day weekend from Maine! It’s snowing (actually blizzarding is the correct term) yet again, surprise, surprise so we’ve been stuck inside for the majority of the weekend. Which leaves lots of time for entertaining a toddler and pondering the near future. Fun!

But first, in toddler news, Friday was Josie’s last day of daycare. Bittersweet of course, but she ended on a high note: she had a face full of boogers and had been up since 5 am (cold season is just lovely) but the school was having a Valentine’s party so she wore hearts and a tutu and looked super cute. Plus she came home with a bunch of sweet cards and snacks (to share with Mommy I assumed.)

To celebrate my last day of me-time, I took the dog for an absolutely frigid walk on the beach and moped around for the rest of day. I was feeling sad for Josie, not for myself, to be done with daycare. I know she benefitted from it, but at least now I know that she can handle school and days without Mom just fine. She is such an independent little… person. It blows my mind sometimes. Anyway, I’m looking forward to round 2 of Mommy & Child time and have lots of plans for us. It would just be helpful if the snow melted before, oh… July.

So we’ve made some changes to our Wonder Drive vision. Instead of spending the summer (and our savings) tooling around the country, we’re taking a more sustainable approach and working to get a web series Tyler and a mutual friend started a few years back off the ground and running. If it’s successful (which I have no doubt it will be), traveling will be part of the job, plus we’ll be making an income while we do it, which is key. It’s very exciting, but of course, this could take some time and a lot, lot, lot of hard work. I’m not intimidated by that, as it coincides with my vision of working from home, being self-employed (eventually) and homeschooling my little babies (when the time comes!)

What does intimidate me, or rather what I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around, is whats happening with our Wonder Drive idea. I don’t want to say we’re doing the web series instead of our trip, because we’ve been discussing how to do both possibly, from maybe just doing little micro-adventures throughout the summer or waiting until later in the year. The details and logistics trying to achieve both are messy and convoluted and makes my head hurt.

All I do know is that Wonder Drive is a dream of ours I’m not willing to let go. It may be rash and irresponsible and silly to drive and camp across the country with a little kid and live off savings. But it’s not silly at all to make a dream a reality; if we wait for the perfect time, or even a better time, we may not end up doing it at all. I’ve pushed many a dream of mine to the back-burner because I thought I didn’t have enough money, or I worried about the details, or didn’t have the confidence, or worried about what other people thought, or just life got in the way. There’s a million excuses out there why NOT to live a dream; but all it takes is one reason WHY you should or just one person believing in you to make it happen.

I believe if you have that nagging feeling, that gut instinct, the little voice saying go for it, you have to listen and just give in to it. I’ve learned that by not following your intuition, bad feelings are created and they’re hard to get rid of. Makes sense on paper right? But following your instincts can be a hard practice when there’s a million external voices and reasons telling you otherwise, plus the ol’ voice of reason in our own heads. I go back and forth with my decisions all the time, but I can’t shake the feeling that I really just want to live the life I envision and stop waiting for it. I want to play a larger role in my own life, live deliberately and have fun doing it!

Maybe creating the web series is the vehicle for traveling across the country; maybe we should just go for it and forget the rest for a little while. Maybe we should just go live in a yurt in the woods and become hermits and kill our own food and raise our child among the wild. (Actually, now that I’m thinking about it…) What I’m getting at is that choosing a fork in the road is scary and hard, but its better than not doing anything at all, or doing something that doesn’t feel right.

To quote Emilio Estevez’s character in the film The Way:

You don’t choose a life. You live a life.

A Little Bit of Inspiration

Inspiration goes a long way for me. My mind travels to all sorts of new exciting locations and new ideas begin sprouting like crazy, even though my body stays put. Especially in times like these, when I start feeling antsy (which typically happens after staying in one place for more than, oh, a few months) I find inspiration EVERYWHERE. I feel like every single thing I read or watch has some subliminal message telling me to go, go, go!

Needless to say, after living in our current location for over 2 years now, I started feeling the bug long ago. But I have to pinch myself and say HEY! You were raising a baby in that time who has now blossomed into a smart, sassy toddler. Let’s not forget you were busy, doing the hardest job in the world! But as any stay-at-home-mama knows, you can get so stir crazy hanging out with a tiny human who doesn’t speak your language yet. I did try to get outside as much as possible with her, but now in the throes of wintery, icy January our options are somewhat limited. And to that I say, YAY for daycare!

But I digress. Inspiration. It truly is all around us, so I thought I’d take some time today to give a shout-out and appreciate all that has personally inspired me.

I read a lot of books, mainly adventurous, outdoorsy biographies and memoirs. I love anything that involves travel, a road trip, self-discovery, or anti-norm in our society.

This may be predictable, but the movie (and then the book) that truly inspired me to change my lifestyle was Into the Wild. It’s a moment that I’ll never forget: sitting in the theater while the credits rolled, tears rolling down my face and having a total epiphany. I thought, I can do that too. Not poison myself while living in a bus in Alaska, but travel. Up to that point, I had never been anywhere I couldn’t drive to in a day. Never even been on a plane! So in that moment, I decided I wouldn’t be going back to college, I’d be getting on a plane to Florida to work on a farm for the rest of winter. Which, after a couple of tries, I did and it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

After that, I read and re-read Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums and took an Amtrak train across the country to California (a poorly thought-out idea but an adventure nonetheless.) Later the next year, my then-boyfriend and I took 5 weeks driving from Maine to California and then back again the following spring. Then, much later (with no boyfriend) I enrolled into the Adventure Recreation program at WCCC. And now three years later, I’m on the greatest adventure of all, raising a child with a wonderful man.

But the time has come to travel again! I’ve been in Maine for 5 years, meanwhile still reading  inspirational books, blogs, Outside and Backpacker articles. The itch hasn’t been terrible (that sounds weird doesn’t it?) in the past couple years because we have to travel all over New England to see family, but it’s definitely there. Maybe I seek inspiration out because I’m feeling stuck or maybe it is the gods sending me signs. Whatever it is, I’m listening.

Here’s a short, incomplete, no real order list of Inspiration for you to enjoy (or maybe even get inspired yourself!):

• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (movie also)
• Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
• Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck
• On the Road and The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
• The Last American Man and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Letters to A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Wilke
• A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins
• The Bodacious Book of Succulence by Sark
• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed (movie also)
• Following Atticus by Tom Ryan
• The Peanuts Guide to Life by Charles Schulz
• National Geographic’s Guide to the National Parks
• Wandr’ly Magazine
• Van Go-Go family
• Michael Franti, Tom Petty, Grateful Dead, Keller Williams Kids album, 311 – all music that makes me want to drop everything and get up and shake my groove thing.

Lastly, I think what inspires me the most, more than anything I’ve read or watched, is the people I’ve come across in my life so far. I met so many incredible people while working in the Bar Harbor hostel, strangers that gave me couches to sleep on or rides across the state while in California, fellow farmers in Florida, and truly amazing co-workers and friends. I’ve stayed in touch with some of them, but not all, and to those who I may not see or talk to again, thank you.

My number one man, TW, inspires me every day for persevering and keeping a cool head on his shoulders. My sister, for being an awesome mommy to a beautiful baby. My best friend, Pookie, for believing in whats important to you and for getting a full scholarship, holla!! My dad, for being his own boss in the most beautiful place in the world and letting me tag along once in awhile. My mom, for being there for me and for the super awesome encouragement when I needed it. And lastly, but certainly not least, my little baby booshka, for simply being awesome and smiling and giggling and being curious and loving doggies. I love you all, thank you for the inspiration!