Saying yes

More than anything, I have always craved community. Amidst a community,  I feel most myself. It’s where I find rhythms to sink into. Our kids flourish in community’s light.  We do better as a family. I never thought we’d find a deep or lasting community on the road, but by fate or accident or luck we have. In mid-January we met a group of traveling families in San Felipe, Mexico who have become our tribe.  We move together from one breathtakingly beautiful place to the next.   The kids are magic together.  There are ‘the littles’ ages 5-9 and ‘the teens.’ They call each other ‘siblings’ and ‘cousins’.  Jesse, who once was an introverted loner, now pops out of bed, does his chores and refuses breakfast to find his friends as quickly as possible.  The other day, we took him into town to get ice cream but for the first time in his life he wasn’t interested, he just wanted to get back to playing.   The littles have a robust exchange going: S...

Climbing in Tabor Canyon (near Loreto) Vultures on a fence (in Loreto) As the New Year has unfolded, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve been posting a lot more on the blog than we did in October, November, and December. The simple explanation is that we aren’t struggling like we were in the final months of 2021 and have more time and emotional space to write. We were struggling so much at the end of 2021 that we almost pulled the plug on our “Living on the Road'' experiment. Though I journaled, it felt too vulnerable to blog about what we were experiencing.  During those months, it felt like everything was unraveling. Looking back, I can see that perhaps we had unrealistic expectations of ourselves, our children, and what living on the road truly entailed. There was a mismatch between our expectations and the reality we were experiencing. Yes, there were moments of joy and delight, but we were suffering. Many of the days felt long, arduous, and unending. Though the Olympic Peni...

A view of Conception Bay For the past week, we’ve been travelling down the Baja Peninsula with a few other families that we met in San Felipe. Two days ago, we arrived at Bahia Concepion (Conception Bay) about halfway down the peninsula, and collectively all let out a big exhalation. The highways in Baja are narrow, with nearly non-existent shoulders, and at times it seems as if there is less than a handspan between you and the oncoming eighteen wheeler that is passing. Coming into Mulege and Conception Bay required driving down the “Infernal Grade” or the “Grade from Hell.” It was a harrowing drive - steep, tight curves, sweaty palms kind of stuff. We made it and we plan to stay here for five or six days (or weeks, or months, as we’ve been joking!) I’m relieved. We’ve been moving at a pretty fast pace and my body is ready to settle for a bit.  As I’ve gotten to know our fellow families better, as we’ve taken walks, sat around campfires, and eaten meals together, they’ve been shari...

Growing up, there was a book I read over and over again called “Just Like Everyone Else” . It was a small square book with a red cover and pen drawings of a little boy named Jonathan James.  On each page of the book the author writes a sentence about a morning task Jonathan James completes, like getting out of bed, and on the adjacent page it read “just like everyone else.”  You follow the overall-wearing 5 year old brushing his teeth ("just like everyone else"), eating breakfast ("just like everyone else"), getting his backpack on (“just like everyone else”) and so on.  On the last page of the book, when you expect our Jonathan James to walk to or ride the bus to school (just like everyone else) you see Jonathan James put out his arms and gracefully fly through the air off to school.  My mom read this book to me hundreds of times, but the thrill of Jonathan James flying off the school, not just like everyone else, never got old.   In the suburb I grew up i...