• Meet Maureen & Jeremy

    You know those stories you hear of couples that go on a vacation and end up loving the place so much that they move there, set down roots and live a stable and happily ever after life? Yeah, well…that’s not us. Wanderlust is in our blood–at least for now. We’ve finally listened to our inner whisper (the one that keeps repeating “no fixed address” over and over) and decided to embrace this part of us as opposed to fighting it. So, we’ve embarked on a travel adventure. Yep–we’re choosing to be happily homeless.

    Pretty much minimalists to the core, we can't see the purpose of keeping and paying for a full time house simply to use it as a stopover place to flop between adventures. It seems wasteful. Plus, it ties us down. This blog will journal our story as we progress through our transition and live the life of the happily homeless. Stay tuned. As Jeremy would say, “This is about to get really interesting!”

2012–a year of goodbyes

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Maureen

The quote goes that “people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you know what to do.”

Sounds good on paper, anyway. I get the first part, but the second part sometimes eludes me. But I’m a work in progress.

2012 has been a heavy goodbye year for me and mine (or, in some cases– those that used to be “mine”). On a more global scale, too, we’ve said far too many goodbyes and far sooner than we anticipated we’d be saying those words to those people.

When you’re traveling full time, as Jeremy and I did up until this year, you get a lot of practice saying goodbye. You say goodbye to your kids and grandkids when you hit the road for the first time. As the song goes (slightly reworded to suit my situation), you “pray the dark and deep won’t hurt them, while you sail with open arms.”

You say goodbye to people you meet on the road, to family and friends with whom you get to reconnect in person when your travels take you to their part of the world. You say goodbye to “the way things have always been done,”  because when you’re in another land, you quickly find that “always” doesn’t apply.

You say goodbye. And you acknowledge that this is the life you have chosen–at least for now–and that into every life filled with adventures and hellos, a few goodbyes must fall. As long as I get to say hello to the man I married on a daily basis (so far he’s shown up at the breakfast table every day), then the other goodbyes are manageable.

But this year, we plopped ourselves in one spot–a spot where we intend to stay for the foreseeable future.

And we began to say hello to whole lot of things–stability, new friends, continuity, daily explorations that actually go beyond the surface, a new language, and the best damn mango smoothies I’ve ever had the pleasure of slurping.

You’d think I’d get rusty at saying good-bye. But noooooooooo. You gotta love that damn Universe’s sense of humor. What a hoot. Never let it be said that the Universe allows one to rest on their laurels in the goodbye department.

This year, I can think of three people to whom I’ve said goodbye that I hadn’t anticipated saying goodbye to. These people did not die; they did not move out of my geographic area (How nice! I actually have one of those now.); they did not simply fade away without me noticing that they were gone. Nope. These were definite “we’ve come to the end of our season (or maybe it was a reason) and it’s time to move on” goodbyes. And in a show of equitableness, one of the goodbyes was initiated by me, one was thrust upon me and one was mutually agreed upon. Don’t you just love it when the Universe wraps things up so neatly? Cosmic feng shui.

The goodbyes were not all acrimonious–although each of them had the potential to be. There may have been hurt feelings involved. Those were not the reason for the goodbyes, but rather the wolf in sheep’s clothing that brought the necessity of saying goodbye to the surface.

And with every goodbye, you take away from both it and the relationship that preceded it what you can, appreciate the joy and/or life lesson that the person brought into your life, hope you contributed something positive to the other’s life for the little or long while that you were a part of it. Maybe you grieve a little. Maybe you’re relieved. For me, it was both.

And on a larger scale? I don’t know why 2012 was the year that we had to say good-bye to 20 little souls and the six educators who watched over them to the death. Why goodbye had to be sobbed out by the families of 12 theater-goers in Aurora, Colorado. I don’t understand. Nor by the family of a woman gang-raped in India. I don’t think I’ve yet evolved enough to understand the reasons for those goodbyes.

I know it’s important to realize that things never stay the same. (Nothing like a couple of years of traveling to reinforce that lesson!) It’s equally important to get a grip on whether the people in (or tangential to) your life are there for a reason, a season or a lifetime. (Because it can be pure hell when you think it’s one and the other person believes its the other.)

Taken as individual occurrences, I am totally comfortable with the goodbyes that I said in 2012.  There’s not one that I wish I had a “goodbye mulligan” for. No do-overs needed. And my life would have been lacking had the relationships with these folks not occurred, so there’s not one ounce of regret there.

Yet, it still feels that–in the aggregate–2012 was too heavy with goodbyes for me. It may have something to do with where I am in my life growth (duh—ya think? It actually had something to do with me???). I am less likely to tolerate myself or others (to use one of my daughter’s favorite expressions) getting shat upon, more drama-averse than I’ve ever been, and more willing to take an all or nothing stand on values that are important to me. I’ve also come to learn that goodbyes don’t kill us. Really truly! Even the ones you thought you’d never say voluntarily. They don’t necessarily make us stronger either (contrary to the popular expression). Sometimes they just are.

And that’s okay.

Nonetheless, I eagerly await 2013. I can’t wait for more hellos! I anticipate even more deepening of love for my husband, my family (which joyfully is allowing me the opportunity for yet more hellos with a new son-in-law and a new grandchild on the horizon) and my newly-adopted city and country. New acquaintances are becoming friends and there is much to be both thankful for and excited about in the upcoming year.

But Hey Universe! Let’s lighten up on the goodbyes for another twelve months or so. I’ve had my share.

Filed under: lessons from the road | 2 Comments »

“What if the culmination of your heart’s desire lay just slightly beyond your comfort zone?”

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Maureen

“What if the culmination of your heart’s desire lay just slightly beyond your comfort zone?”

I don’t know where I read the above, so I offer my apologies for the lack of credit to the person who originally penned them. When I first read it, I liked it enough to save it in my Little List of Quotes I Like. And now I have the perfect situation in which to use it.

It’s never been tough for me to act outside of my comfort zone. Check that–let me rephrase. It’s never been that tough for me as an adult. Growing up in a strict Catholic Rhode Island family, one was never encouraged to act outside of one comfort zone, but rather to follow the rules.

I did that for a while, then found it wasn’t for me.

So, I know the benefit of stretching outside of one’s comfort zone. But when it came time to move, once again, I was done, done, done with the stretching. Gimme a little peace and quiet and some stupid TV, whydontcha?

Each time Jeremy and I have uprooted ourselves (or been involuntarily uprooted) of late, we truly believed that the next adventure (a.k.a. housing situation) would be the one where we’d settle in for a bit. Each time, we’d pack up our stuff (and while we have less stuff than most, the amount is growing, and it’s nonetheless a pain both physically and emotionally to box everything up and transport it) drag it to the new place, then try to settle in as quickly as possible. Each time, we sighed with relief once we got into our new digs.

Each time we ended up saying, “Phew! Glad we’ve done that for the last time!”

And each time, something went wrong. Maybe a lovely permanent home situation just isn’t in the cards for us. Maybe we should just settle for good enough.

But then I began to think about the above quote. What if the culmination of our (residential) heart’s desire was just one more stretch away? The again, what if one more move would just put us back at Square One, only with less energy, patience and money than we started?

We ultimately decided to make the stretch. Whether that means we’ve perfected the art of self-growth or simply that the situation in our house got so intolerable that we felt forced out is a matter or perspective.

So we sighed, grumbled shook our heads over the incredulity of the whole mess and began the process again. We hired a realtor, scoured the web boards, read every ad in the newspaper. And we looked at every house in San Miguel, or so it seemed.

We didn’t think that we were that picky. A place to sleep, a kitchen big enough for two to cook in, a couple of offices. No dogs barking. Outdoor living space. Reasonable rent. Clean.

Simple, no?

One would think.

With each house, though, there would have been a tradeoff of some kind. Too much street noise for Jeremy at this one, more rent than we wanted to pay at that one. A poorly designed kitchen in another, antiquated bathroom fixtures in that one.

As the barking dogs continued to frazzle our nerves in our current living situation, we started to get a little desperate. Jeremy tried to convince himself that he could learn to live with buses running up and down the street in front of our house for 18 hours a day. I pondered how to make the inefficient kitchen work for us. Each time one of us contemplated making the move to a less-than-perfect home, the other one talked us out of it. (Thank heavens there are two of us and we don’t usually go out of our minds at the same time!)

We finally gave ourselves a deadline. By September 30th, we agreed to pick one of the houses we’d seen and make it work. On the 27th, we sat down with a list of all the homes we’d seen and listed the pros and cons of each. We settled on one in particular that met most of our needs. The fact that it was on the market for sale was a big con for us, but otherwise, we thought we could make it work.

I pretty much resigned myself to the fact that that was going to be the one.

And then we found the country house.

The house was a bit outside of town, so I didn’t have a lot of hope for it when we first put it on our list. We’ll have to drive everywhere. Even though it’s only a 10 minute drive to town, we’d lose the opportunity to amble into San Miguel Centro for a meal, to shop, etc. And I didn’t even know what the rent was. But we went out to see it anyway.

And the minute we walked in the door, I fell in love. san miguel house

“It’s a Vermont house,” I whispered.

“A what?” Jeremy asked. “Ummmm, Honey, I know we’ve been looking for a while, but we’re still in Mexico, I believe.”

I lived in Vermont for many years and in spite of the freezing-ass cold winters, it is one of the most beautiful places on the face of the earth. I raised my children there. It holds a most special place in my heart.

And this house could have been plunked down smack dab in the middle of Williston Vermont and not been out of place. Wide-board mesquite wooden floors, a massive stone fireplace, an open great room/kitchen. A loft sleeping area. Lots of light. And 360 views of the hills. Gardens, an outdoor bar and dining area. Not too big. Not too small. I could practically smell the porridge cooking on the stove.

I stood in the middle of the living room and breathed in the faint smell of residual wood-fire. I was home. I looked at Jeremy and didn’t even have to ask what he thought.

“This reminds me of the house I grew up in,” he said.

Jeremy grew up in California and I’m not sure how this house reminds him of his childhood home and me of my Vermont home when they seem like they’d be pretty different. But I’m gonna go with it regardless. The Universe wants us here, for sure!

And when you’re in the place where you’re supposed to be, doors fly open. The rent was within our budget; the landlord is a fabulous man with whom we connected immediately. He graciously (okay–with a bit of subtle pressure on our parts) offered to speed up the get-the-house-ready projects he wanted to do so that we could move in quickly.

The contract-negotiation process was smooth, we easily found movers to help us with the big stuff. Everything went better than we expected. Less than a week after seeing the house for the first time, we were in. Five days after that, we’re unpacked, our favorite pieces adorn the walls and we’re having friends over for dinner this evening. I know where the light switches are and already I can walk around in the dark without bumping into furniture. My soul knew this house before my body moved into it.

Four generations: Mom, me, daughter Beth and granddaughter Kaydi

 

So, this is what it feels like when you’re in the right place at the right time. Everything clicks into place and you know–deep inside–with absolute certainty, that you’ve found your heart’s desire.

I’d forgotten that feeling. But it’s come back to me quickly.

Proving once again, it seldom hurts to stretch beyond one’s comfort zone.

Filed under: lessons from the road, Mexico, personal fulfillment | 2 Comments »

Us Against the Universe

Posted on September 29, 2012 by Maureen

I  never bonded with the house.

We took possession in June, after months of upheaval and general (mostly) self-induced homelessness. I say “took possession” rather than “moved in” because…well…this house never felt like a place where we lived. More like a place where we set up temporary residence. Not unlike a house-sit, come to think of it.

Except it wasn’t.

We rented the house in quasi-desperation and still in a funk over having to leave our previous thought-it-was-going-to-be-our-longterm-home house. But even so, we did our due diligence. While I didn’t immediately get the warm fuzzies when I walked in the door for the first time (in hindsight, that should have told me something), the house appeared functional and had adequate space for our work-at-home lives. The kitchen was satisfactory for our joint culinary adventures and the backyard yurt was the perfect girl-cave. Mostly we liked the abundance of outdoor living space. Patios, terraces and gardens galore.

We came over at all hours of the day and night to test the noise level of the neighborhood. Not bad. Pretty quiet, except for the occasional barking dog. The landlady assured us that the neighborhood was tranquil.

The negotiations over the lease terms were contentious. Okay, Red Flag #2. We dug our heels in on a couple of things, capitulated on some others and ultimately signed the one year lease. We took possession.

I noticed that I wasn’t my usual gung-ho self in hanging my mementos and art work. I attributed it to stress and fatigue from life’s upheaval. A confirmed homebody, I wasn’t nesting. Or settling in.

Or bonding.

First off came the smell. In Jeremy’s first floor office (which we’d planned to use as a hanging-out room due to its large size and the presence of a gas fireplace) there emanated a smell that seemingly only I could detect.

I couldn’t stay in the room for more than 15 minutes at a time. My eyes watered. My throat burned.

“What does it smell like?” Jeremy asked. He’s learned to never doubt my supersonic sniffer.

“Like a nursing home,” I replied. “No…that’s not quite it. It smells like disinfectant cleaner over raw sewage.”

We had the seals replaced (at our expense–as landlady could not detect smell and therefore deemed that there was “nothing wrong”) on the toilet and bidet in the room. We thought that fixed the problem. But the next day, the smell returned.

For weeks, we sniffed. We scrubbed every surface in the room. We took all the furniture outside to see if something there was the source. We opened the windows; we closed the windows. The ultimate culmination was the two of us on the floor looking like we were facing Mecca as we sniffed the floor in a futile attempt to see if something was funky under the house.

Meanwhile, Jeremy–unfazed by the smell–kept working in the room. I worried about his health. There’s a reason the miners send the canary down into the mine first.

In the midst of our olfactory investigation, the neighborhood dogs began to bark. And bark. And bark. It went on forever. The ringleader was (is) the dog who “lives” (and I use that term loosely) directly across the street from us. We tried talking to the neighbor. We discovered that the dog was chained by an 18″ tether under a stairwell. No light, no exercise, sitting close to his own excrement. The dog was a filthy, lonely mess who howled all day for lack of anything else to do.

The neighbor turned deaf ears to our plea. “The dog does not bark,” we were told.

Not only does the dog bark, but he sets off the other dogs on the street –morning, noon and night.

We offered to walk the filthy beast to give it some exercise. No dice.

We tried to convince ourselves that we could learn to live with it. We stopped using our sought-after outdoor living space because we couldn’t stand the constant barking. We shut our windows. We told ourselves that sleep was overrated.

The assault on our noses and ears continued. Until…

One day in Jeremy’s office/bathroom,. I opened the medicine chest to look for some sunscreen. I was nearly bowled over by the smell. “Oh my God, this reeks!”

We’d found the disinfectant smell in the room. Three days of scouring later, the smell remained, so Jeremy took down the medicine chest, placed it outside and coated it with enamel.

Problem solved.

Yet the sewage-stink remained. Okay, we’ve nailed half of what I was smelling. Now, where’s the rest coming from?

We gave up and tried to live with it.

One afternoon, about two months after we moved in, I was working in my yurt and got an unmistakeable whiff of sewage. “Okay, this is getting ridiculous,” thought I. I am not imagining the fact that I smell shit every day in this house (any more than I am imagining the barking hound)!

I exited the yurt determined to move heaven and earth to find the source of the problem. But I didn’t have to, for the earth was already moving. Under my feet, the ground oozed. Mud sprung in patches from the otherwise dry ground.

And it stunk. It really, really stunk.

“Honey!!!” I bellowed.

“I know,” came the response. Okay–good. Even Jeremy could smell it now. They could probably smell it in Mexico City!

Short story is that tree roots had grown into the pipes below the yard. A plumbing investigation also indicated that the sewage pipes hadn’t been put together properly. Three days of digging later, the problem was solved.

At least, that problem was.

But the dogs continued to bark. Relations with the landlady continued to be unpleasant. And other weird stuff started happening.

Jeremy’s back began to hurt for no apparent reason. We tried a different mattress. He popped Motrin. He pepped up his yoga routine to no avail.

And my thriving business began to take a nose dive. Bookings dropped in half. Many of the clients that we did book were whiny and demanding.

What happened to my fun and joyful couples, I wondered?

Weird smells continued in the house at odd intervals. Perfume in one place on a given day (I don’t wear perfume) and sewage in another. Then they’d be gone. The downstairs toilet filled with black goo and then it disappeared of its own accord (the goo–not the toilet). This happened twice.

We looked at each other, sighed and determined to make the best of it. We were NOT going to move again.

I tried to bond. I finally hung my art work. I cooked. I baked. I gave myself pep talks on feeling settled in. I knew it wasn’t working. But I was determined.

“The energy in this house is clogged,” I mused to Jeremy. “I can’t explain it. But it’s clogged. Maybe it’s haunted. Maybe it’s got icky feng shui. But I get the sense that something really, really bad happened in this house.”

I do know that in six years, we were the third people to live in the house. The first owners had to go back to the States when the husband took ill. The second couple to live here got a divorce.

Hmmmm…coincidence?

While Jeremy’s and my relationship remained solid, the business continued to tank. Bookings dropped to three-years-ago levels. I despaired. I researched. I wracked my brain for what I was doing differently.

And I came up empty.

Okay, this was getting personal. I only have a few things in life that I will fight to the death for. Like mothers, wives and grandmothers everywhere, my family comes under that umbrella.

And so does my business. Okay, Universe. I would have thought you already knew that. Apparently, I have to spell it out for ya. Under no circumstances should you fuck with my family or my business. None, nunca, nada, no way. Don’t go there.

The Universe remained undeterred. Even my use of the F-word did not scare it off.

I kept plugging away, determine to wrestle the negative energy of this house under submission.

And then the dog across the street got loose and ran away. For two whole days. Two days of bliss. Of silence.

It was heaven.

But then he came back. And the barking started up again. It was a Tuesday evening. The dog barked. And I cried. And Jeremy gritted his teeth.

We looked at each other and in the unspoken words of a couple who knows the inner dialogue of the other faced the inevitable conclusion.

We were going to have to move. Again.

Filed under: housesitting, lessons from the road, Mexico | 6 Comments »

Wondering if it’s safe anywhere…

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Maureen

Thirteen years ago, I sat transfixed in front of my TV screen while live video showed the Columbine High School massacre–just a few miles up the road. My children were in another school that day–in the same school district as Columbine, but a town or two over.

My children came home that day–shaken, but intact.

Today, I once again sit in front of a screen–this time I’m several thousand miles away and it’s my computer screen–as I watch more streaming video of the Century 16 movie theater carnage. This time in Aurora, CO. Again, a few miles down the highway from where my children and their families are beginning their day. Once again, my children and grandchildren are safe. For now.

Peripheral violence has danced around me all too much. Followers of this blog know that Jeremy and I left the Lakeside community of Ajijic when the Mexican drug cartels infiltrated, bringing their signature blood baths along. We wanted to be in a place that–although couldn’t offer any guarantees of safety–at least had a higher probability that we’d live to see our great-granchildren.

Now I fear more for the future that they will have more so than the one that Jeremy and I face.

Isn’t it ironic that our friends and family are concerned so much about our safety because we “live in Mexico?” Yet, in my former home state, people (and so many of them young people) are periodically massacred. In school…at a pizza parlor…in a movie theater. It makes me want to call my kids and say “Get on a plane. Right now. I don’t care how much it costs. Come here where I can closet you in my home and know that you are safe. We’ll order take-out and watch Netflix. Every day…for the rest of our lives”

Clearly, going out for pizza and a movie is much too dangerous.

But I can’t do that. Because–motherly instincts aside–it’s nuts. If fear controls our lives, then what have we?

So I think positive thoughts and tell myself that “what will be, will be” and there’s not a whole lot I can do to change the course of the future. And my heart bleeds yet again for my neighbors who have lost loved ones and for those who are clinging to life after the shooting.

And I am grateful that my children are once again safe from harm. I know this because they’ve all posted on Facebook in the last 24 hours–sparing me the effort of having to make what has been come to be known in our family as ” the not-dead check-in call.”

But I can’t help but wonder. What lesson is it that we’re supposed to be learning that we’re just not getting?

Filed under: Mexico | 2 Comments »

More on Books

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Maureen

When Jeremy and I undertook our location independent lifestyle, one of the questions I received  most often was “But what are you going to do about books?” As an avid reader since childhood, I guess I should have foreseen that a lack of English-language reading opportunities may have been one downside to traveling the globe.

Fortunately, it hasn’t been. So, I guess it’s a good thing that I never lost any sleep pondering that problem that I never had! In fact, it’s been remarkably easy to get my hands on plenty of reading material. Of course, it helps that I’m kind of a reading ‘ho. Yep–while I prefer to do it in my own bed or couch with a treasured companion, I’m pretty much content to do it anywhere and with any resources available. (Yes, you can rest assured that when my kids read this line, they’ll cover their eyes and hum loudly to block out the visual. In fact, torturing one’s children is one of the pure pleasures of having one’s own blog, as any parenting blogger will attest. And, for gosh sake–I’m talking about reading a book. Get yer mind outta the gutter!)

Oh yes…back to the topic of books…not that we ever left….

In spite of my minimalist philosophy that caused me to rid myself of all but three or four of my most treasured books, I’ve never been short of things to read. My plentiful resources include:

  • Kindle software on my PC. I owned an actual Kindle for all of two days before I decided it didn’t suit me and returned it. However, Amazon has free Kindle software for the computer. Once I downloaded that, I never looked back.
  • Complimentary to the above, I discovered several sites that offer FREE Kindle books daily. Thanks to Pixel of Ink, Power Reads and Dining Downloads, I have enough books in my Kindle library (including cookbooks!) to last me a lifetime.
  • Libraries worldwide, it turns out, will issue a temporary library card–even if you are a non-permanent resident. Often, they will require a small fee or a deposit left with the library. My favorite one was the branch library in Armidale, NSW, Australia where the librarian stuck my money in an envelope and tossed it in the drawer. I figured I could kiss that money good-bye. But sure enough, four weeks later, it was retrieved and handed back to me.
  • When one is housesitting, the bookshelves of the homeowners can be a treasure trove of previously unexplored delights.
  • Although I’ve never used the service, there are several sites that allow one to rent books Netflix-style. Check our Bookswim that markets itself as a “library at your door with unlimited book rental.” So far, this one is only good in the US.

In our new home in San Miguel de Allende, we discovered La Biblioteca Publica three days after landing here. (We do have our priorities!) The minute we established permanent residency, we were in line for our library cards. My first read? A biography of Wallis Simpson–not someone whose life I’d want to emulate, but she was quite a character!

La Biblioteca offers great reads in both English and Spanish (for now, we’re sticking to the English versions). And, like most US libraries, they also offer a plethora of additional services–everything from movies, to kid’s programs to the well-known Sunday home tours.

Oh yeah–sign me up!

And now that we’re in a quasi-permanent location (I know, I know…who knows?) I’m not so shy about actually purchasing a book or two. (Shocking, ain’t it?). So, this past weekend, I bought my first book in two years! And to boot, it’s in Spanish! Okay–it has a lot of pictures–but the language is definitely Spanish.

I’d never considered the idea that learning a second language would open new literary doors for me; that was an unanticipated bonus! But on Satruday, while Jeremy and I were strolling among the stalls of the fabulous Fabrica La Aurora, I wandered into a tiny bookstore–the name of which escapes me, if indeed I ever knew it–or it even has a name.

How can you not love a country where there is an actual job title for a person who makes meringues?

My eye was taken by a tome that would clearly be labeled a “coffee table book.” First of all, the cover was a juicy pink and red combo that I found irresistible. Plus, it was a heavy and large hardcover edition. And when one hasn’t bought a book in two years, one should jump in wholeheartedly, don’t you agree?

Pregonero? Literally–the town crier. (I’m not kidding!)

But it was the title of the book that caught my entrepreneurial eye. It was called simply “oficios.” At first, I thought it was going to be about home offices, so of course it piqued my interest right away. But then I remembered that the Spanish word for office was “oficina,” so I knew I was close, but that I wasn’t ready to light the metaphorical cigar just yet.

The book is dedicated to what we in the states would call “people in the trades” or perhaps “blue collar workers.” It’s full of fabulous photos and one- and two-page descriptions of these workers and the intricacies, pleasures and challenges of how they earn their daily bread. I was smitten.

Behold the look of concentration on the face of the clock-maker.

Sure, it’s going to take me months to get through this book. I sit with it in my lap, my computer opened to my Google Translator program at the ready. I look up every other word–even if I think I know them. But that’s okay.

It’s all for the love of books.

Filed under: books, housesitting, Mexico | 1 Comment »

Full Circle–and then some

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Maureen

Okay, we’re in! Our new home, finally. Peace, quiet, a space to recharge, renew, and just be. Just us two cocooning for now. We’ll come out and play…tomorrow…maybe not. For now, we’re reveling in the joy of both solitude and coupletude (Try that one on for size, Mr. Webster!) and immersing ourselves in the place that we’ll call home for more than the blink of an eye as we reestablish routines and a semblance of order into our travel-weary lives.

Okay, that was a run-on sentence if ever there was one, but it’s so evocative, I’m going to let it stand.

In hindsight, it really hasn’t been all that long of a haul. But during the process, it sure seemed like it–especially to a person who is admittedly patience-challenged in the let’s-get-on-with-life department. It was last October–at the end of a year of house-sitting capped off by two months in Australia–when Jeremy turned to me one evening whilst (the Aussies say “whilst” a lot) sitting on the balcony of our cozy Gold Coast apartment and said “I need a home base.”

I got it. Whilst I don’t think–at that time–that I was Jonesing for a home base as much as he was, I nonetheless could understand his craving for furniture that fit our tall frames, a sharp kitchen knife, a sense of order in our living arrangement and a healthy environment that didn’t exacerbate my allergies to dust and mold.

In short, while (dropping the whilst as we are no longer Down Under) we still love to travel, we also love to have control over our home environment. And that. my dear Reader, is hard to get when you are living in other people’s homes.

We had no idea that fateful October evening, that undoing our Location Independent Lifestyle would be so difficult. We had, after all, leapt into the nomadic lifestyle almost instantaneously and with nary a glitch. One month we were watching a Netflix movie in our living room and the next, we’d sold most of our stuff and were on the road.

Easy Peasy in/Easy Peasy out-no?

Besides, we weren’t planning to opt out in full. We just wanted a place to hang our hats–a stopping place in between adventures where we could shut out the rest of the world and just be before standing in another airport security line, cramming our frames into seats designed with Pygmies in mind and flummoxing our way around yet another new city.

We figured we’d have that wrapped up by…oh…mid-November at the latest.

If you’ve followed this blog, then you know that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, it’s been a eight month process of one step forward, three steps back, much frustration, a lot of introspection, many discussions, too many dead ends to count and even the occasional marital argument.

It also turned into a very expensive proposition. Stops and starts are not cheap. In general, it’s always less expensive to stay put than to hop about.

But that wasn’t in the cards for us in the past eight months. It did a number on my prosperity consciousness.

I’m one of those hippy dippy New Age fools who reads Wayne Dyer and the like and I firmly believe that whatever I set my intention toward, I inevitably get. It’s just played out in my life too many times to convince me otherwise. And it happened this time, too.

But unfortunately, the Universe and I were not on the same timeline. There were times when I had some serious doubts.

In the midst of it all, I admit that my faith in “everything always turns out for the best” was pretty shaken. Everything was just plain hard. For the first time in my life, I was fearful of making the wrong decision (and that comes from one who has had her share of Momentous Life Decisions to make). And then, we’d make what we thought was our “final answer” decision, only to have circumstances change and the need for a new decision to arise.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. It was getting really old.

It all came to a head on the day that the B broke.

I was in the midst of clearing out our old digs (Decision Number 119) in order to move to our temporary apartment in San Miguel de Allende (Decision Number 125) and was packing up one of my most cherished possessions (and stuff not being of high priority on my list, when I value a thing, it’s got to be really, really special!).  Five years ago, when Jeremy and I were in Spain, I bought a lovely sign with individual tiles that spell out “Lyssabeths.” I love that sign. It represents three things that I cherish above all else. My Jeremy–who was with me in Spain on the trip of a lifetime and our first big vacation as a couple. My business (Lyssabeth’s Wedding Officiants) and the two daughters after whom the business is named.

That sign went where I went. All over the world, I placed it near to where I worked each day. When everything else seem foreign, that was my anchor.

So, when one letter fell out as I was carrying it across the room to wrap in reams of bubble wrap. it was the metaphor for the rocking of my world that had been hammering at me incessantly for months. In slow motion, I saw it fall from my grasp–headed for the white blanket of the ceramic tile floor.

Tile on tile from a four foot height. That B didn’t stand a chance.

For fear of dropping the rest of the letters, I didn’t lunge for the one that had fallen. I stood there–helpless and horrified–and watched it fall. And hit. And shatter.

Then all hell broke lose. Jeremy came running when he heard my screams of anguish and came upon me dropped to my knees on the floor sobbing. “It was the B…it was the B…” over and over again. The sign was lying on the bed–although I have no recollection of placing it there–and now it sported a gaping 2-inch hole where the B had once been.

Everything was going to turn out for the best, my ass. Everything that had gone wrong in the past months was summed up in the shattering of the B. Bad. Botched. Butchered. Bottomed out. Bummer.

But of course, that was not the case at all. It turns out that the B only broke in four pieces–excluding a couple of minor pieces hardly bigger than tile dust. I haven’t glued it back together yet, but I will. It will show a crack or two, but that’s okay. The sign will now be even more cherished, for it has been through the trenches with us, and survived.

As have we.

And sure enough, everything has turned out better than it was before–although I’ve yet to figure out what the lesson was that we were supposed to learn from our many months of angst. Surely it has strengthened our faith, our marriage and our conviction that we can weather any storm that comes our way. But it also put a boatload of pressure on all of those things to start with, so I don’t think that’s it.

It has given us a good war story, suitable for bonding when meeting new friends, cocktail-party banter and it will make a great memory for when we’re in the nursing home. It also makes a helluva blog piece, don’tchathink? But all that seems a small reward for the effort.

I may never know. All I know is that we’re settling contently into our new place. There’s a rack of razor-sharp knives in the kitchen, a king-sized bed in the bedroom, and the Tupperware doesn’t come cascading down on my head when I open a kitchen cupboard. And there’s white wine chillin’ in the fridge for the next time Jeremy and I decide we want to sit on our outside deck and watch the sun set over San Miguel. Probably tonight. Yep, we’re already establishing our rituals.

Home.

Filed under: housesitting, Insights On the Location Independent Life, lessons from the road, location independence, Mexico, personal fulfillment | 4 Comments »

Paying the toll for being on auto pilot

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Maureen

I think we’re starting to come out of the emotional haze. Not that we even knew we were in a haze until the end was near, (if a tree falls in the forest…?) but in hindsight, since early May when the drug gangs infiltrated the Lakeside area (a.k.a. our former home) the main accomplishments of each day for Jeremy and me can be attributed to auto-pilot.

And considering what we’ve accomplished in the past month, our auto-piloting mechanisms are doing a splendid job! From the shocker of hearing that the dismembered bodies of our Mexican neighbors had been left on the roadside a few miles away from our peaceful pueblo, to the this-isn’t-isn’t-happening inevitable decision that we would not be returning to our home, to the mind-numbing search for a new part of the world to set up shop, we did what we had to do without taking the time to stop and admire our inner resiliency.

Once the wheels were in motion, life became little more than a series of do, do, and more do (Do-do? Kinda.) Once we decided that San Miguel de Allende was the next “it,” the endless days of “making it happen” kicked in. The act of getting our car ready to legally enter Mexico took over five days of wrangling (thank you, Ford Motor Credit–and yes, that is sarcasm that you hear). The plotting of the route to drive here so that we had the least exposure to dangerous areas and the best access to acceptable lodgings took another few days. And then there was the not-small matter of finding temporary housing for when we arrived. Even though all the advice said to simply grab a hotel for the first night or two and then search out longer-term housing after we arrived, we couldn’t bear the thought of settling in, only to uproot ourselves after a day or two (if we were lucky). So we ignored the advice (we’re fond of doing that anyway; it seems to work for us) and found a conveniently-located 2-bedroom apartment online. Score!

Crammed!

But the do, do, do’s continued. Buy this, pack that, plan a farewell dinner with the kids. Fill out this form. Print out this label. Squeeze in a doctor’s visit. Pick up prescriptions. Do we have a way of attaching Jeremy’s bike to the car? (We didn’t.) For the most part, Mexican clothing and shoes don’t fit our tall, big-footed bodies, so we who usually eschew the rapid accumulation of possessions, found ourselves shopping til dropping in an effort to anticipate our clothing needs for the next year.

But the day did come when we shoehorned ourselves into our bulging Ford Escape and began the drive south. And for parts of those four days, the do, do, do’s seemed to lessen a bit. Not in reality, as we added mile after mile to our journey through Colorado, New Mexico, Texas (many, many hours of Texas!) and then in Mexico itself. But the do, do, do’s were masked by hours of conversations, music and audio books. And since our hotel routine has been finely tuned after so many years of travel, even that is automatic. So we had a semblance of rest, even though our bodies continued to press on toward our goal.

And the hours in the car allowed us to process what had happened–allowing the haze to clear a bit. The events of the previous weeks were rehashed, analyzed and put to bed. We ranted, we grieved, we speculated. Then we put that course of events in the box marked “closure” and–leaving the lid slightly ajar (just in case)–we focused on the present.

Prior to being on the road again (and again!)

However, the past would not leave us alone. After being in San Miguel scarcely long enough to sample the tacos, we were told we had to return to our old home (5 1/2 hours away) to clear out the rest of our things. Our rent was paid for another month and we thought we could catch our breath for a week or two before dealing with that onerous task. But paid or not, the landlord was upset with us for leaving and was threatening to charge us an additional daily rate for each day our few possessions were left in the house.

Sighing, we determined it was best to suck it up and eliminate the negative energy by dealing with the situation head-on. So, just a few days after our 4-day road trip from the US to Mexico, we were back in the car for another 11 hour road trip, one overnight at the old place and yet another mega-packing session into the car.

We got it done. It wasn’t fun, and that lid left ajar? It blew itself wide open again for a time. But by the end of the trip, the box was more firmly sealed (we hope!).

So, the result to date is that while the hazy fog has lifted somewhat, we’re still in do, do, do mode. It’s very un-Mexican of us. We need to find housing by the first of July and a couple of prospects that we initially thought would work, have turned out otherwise for one reason or another. And the two bedroom condo that we’re in temporarily? It’s in what appears to be the noisiest part of the city, being on the second floor,  it’s hotter than hell (and the cool-inducing rains have yet to fall) and it’s filled with tchotchkes and dust-collectors of every size and shape imaginable, (Seriously–who decorates by strewing rose petals over the furniture? How the heck do you dust them?) So, while our current housing adequately puts a safe and adequate roof over our heads,  our senses are being bombarded at every turn, which makes it hard to focus on business, the quest for housing, and each other.

So, our auto piloting mechanisms are still getting a run fun their money. But they’re getting tired.

Filed under: lessons from the road, Mexico | 5 Comments »

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