What are we doing? We can’t possibly leave in 2 weeks.
We have yet to open up a big map. Sure sure, we have a GPS’s and a book of maps but we need a big huge map of the US to lay out on the floor and get aquainted with. Yesterday Josh asked where Cincinnati was. He thought it was in the American south. How can we possibly be ready to go if Josh doesn't know where Cincinnati is?
We need to touch the map. Walk around it. Put pins in it. Plan more than we have. Hell, we haven’t planned at all…well, maybe a little.
We have not completed the curriculum for the kids schooling. Let alone register properly with the State of Vermont so They (the government?) can register our boys on their records as home schoolers.
We have to get ourselves registered as Vermont Residents, voters, and get our driver’s licenses.
Neither the car nor the RV is registered. Where are we going to park the car for the year?
Evan and I still don’t have doctors.
The container arrives from London on Tuesday in Framingham, MA. I think I might drive the Big Pig to Framingham to get use to it. I want to drive it by myself so no one will hear me swear.
Plus there are 10 boxes of stuff for the RV we packed up in London in the container that we will need to transport. What is in those boxes? Winter clothes. Kitchen stuff. Bedding. Bicycles.
We need to completely outfit the Big Pig. Organize our stuff and make sure it all fits.
We need to make the beds.
Silverware. We don't have any silverware.
I don’t know what half the buttons are for in the Big Pig.
A name. We need a name for the Big Pig. While I kind of like Big Pig – it has a sort of negative feel. A proper name. A friend recommended Petunia. I like it. Again a pig kind of name. Then there is Wilbur of Charlotte’s Web fame. But with Swine Flu - perhaps not sensative to the times.
Is the RV a male of female? How can we live in an RV if we don’t even know if it is a boy or a girl? Simon said the RV talked to him and his name is Chuck.
Simon said only people under the age of 20 can hear the RV talk.
My son talks to RV's.
Is this RV trip supposed to be fun? Is this the scared part of the “excited and scared” combination that I use to say I was always looking for? But that was before I had kids and aging parents. I feel very irresponsible.
Am I having a conversation with myself on a blog? Am I nuts? How can an insane person be given the responsibility to drive an RV? Maybe I need to talk to Simon and see how the RV feels about having me drive it.
We can’t leave in 2 weeks. Who are we kidding?
But maybe in 3 weeks.
Whew. That makes me feel better.
Thursday 30 July 2009
Tuesday 28 July 2009
Transparencies
I see this trip in front of us as a map of the US with various transparencies laid on top.
The first overlay is Simon’s passions. Volcanoes, tropical fish, and panda bears.
The second is Josh’s passions. Polar bears for now.
The third is Evan’s passions. Music, technology. Probably others as well.
As I was sketching this out to a friend the other day she asked me where my Passion Transparency was. At the time I told her mine was more of an inward journey – to take and hour to write each day, to take and hour to exercise each day, to play my guitar and prepare a set to play out as a Busker in Harvard Square.
On second thought – this entire journey is my passion. To have my husband and kids all together for an entire year before the kids run away and start their own lives.
To connect the dots of the friends and family for my children.
My transparency is the one of where friends and family live. We are connecting the dots in the RV. This trip is about helping us to reconnect with people in our lives and seeing how they live. The passion of a frustrated anthropologist/sociologist. I am a busy body wanting to get into the heads of others and muck about. I like to look for ideas, inspiration, and new ways of seeing things from my friends and steal what I like to help me make sense of the world.
Back in 1992 I took 6 months and traveled staying with friends and family who were conveniently located everywhere from Mali to Germany, Uganda, India, Singapore and Australia. I realized midway through that trip that I was observing couples and how they interacted, as well as single people and their relationships with the communities and cultural differences. While this trip isn’t as exotic, I think it will have depth in terms of observation and thoughtfulness.
My passion is to teach my children the importance of connections.
Their connections to people – be they related or not.
Their connections to the US.
Their connections to the land.
Their connections to each other and Evan and me.
Their connections to situations and how they can help to change the situation and that they can be agents of change.
We are all stronger and wiser for having made connections with others – however they work out.
Thanks Lisa, for asking the questions and making me think.
The first overlay is Simon’s passions. Volcanoes, tropical fish, and panda bears.
The second is Josh’s passions. Polar bears for now.
The third is Evan’s passions. Music, technology. Probably others as well.
As I was sketching this out to a friend the other day she asked me where my Passion Transparency was. At the time I told her mine was more of an inward journey – to take and hour to write each day, to take and hour to exercise each day, to play my guitar and prepare a set to play out as a Busker in Harvard Square.
On second thought – this entire journey is my passion. To have my husband and kids all together for an entire year before the kids run away and start their own lives.
To connect the dots of the friends and family for my children.
My transparency is the one of where friends and family live. We are connecting the dots in the RV. This trip is about helping us to reconnect with people in our lives and seeing how they live. The passion of a frustrated anthropologist/sociologist. I am a busy body wanting to get into the heads of others and muck about. I like to look for ideas, inspiration, and new ways of seeing things from my friends and steal what I like to help me make sense of the world.
Back in 1992 I took 6 months and traveled staying with friends and family who were conveniently located everywhere from Mali to Germany, Uganda, India, Singapore and Australia. I realized midway through that trip that I was observing couples and how they interacted, as well as single people and their relationships with the communities and cultural differences. While this trip isn’t as exotic, I think it will have depth in terms of observation and thoughtfulness.
My passion is to teach my children the importance of connections.
Their connections to people – be they related or not.
Their connections to the US.
Their connections to the land.
Their connections to each other and Evan and me.
Their connections to situations and how they can help to change the situation and that they can be agents of change.
We are all stronger and wiser for having made connections with others – however they work out.
Thanks Lisa, for asking the questions and making me think.
Friday 24 July 2009
Notes Upon Re-entry
We are back in the US of A! Did anyone miss us? Did anybody notice we were gone? 6 years. To quote Simon, “Six years is forever when you are seven.”
So this is what is hitting me upon being back to the US, I don’t mean any of this in a judgmental way, truly just observational:
• File this one under Profound Observations of the Obsurdly Obvious but still...lots of American accents here in the USA. I am not unique or exotic anymore.
• Checks. Places still accept checks for payment. It seems so provincial – a harkening back to a time of trust. I am having trouble remembering how to fill in a check.
• Did I get skinny or did Americans get really fat? The ploy I introduced back in 1987 to offer cookies and candy bars to everyone to help them get fat so I would look smaller in comparison really took off. Little did I realize McDonald's had the same strategy…and Burger King, and KFC, and Chick Fillet. I feel positively svelte. Think I will have another piece of chocolate cake.
• Drivers in this country are tough. In the past 3 weeks I have driven in NY, NJ, PA, VA, CT, SC, NC, GA, VT, DE and AZ and the M.O. seems to be “Don’t use your signals (clickers? indicators?) because that is giving the enemy information”. In the UK when someone turns on their signal showing they would like to move over a lane, the person in the next lane slows down and…lets them in! Horrors! In the US once you turn on your clicker it is a challenge for your fellow racers on the interstate – drive faster and close the gap between cars.
• Miss Wendy. They call me Miss Wendy in the American South.
• God is everywhere. Complete strangers are ready, willing and able …not to mention excited...to talk about their personnel experience with the Lord Jesus Christ. I was waiting to get the car repaired in Atlanta off Peachtree Industrial. The television was turned on to the 700 Club and a man was giving testimony to how the horrible facial rash that had plagued him for years disappeared once he found prayer.
I watched this for about 30 seconds and could hardly contain my surprise on a varity of levels: 1. There was a clean waiting room; 2. There was a working television; and 3. There was a God program playing. I was giving myself a little snicker thinking of how different this experience was to CB Motors in London under the train bridge where I use to bring our car and there was no waiting room, let alone a TV, when my fellow waiting room attendee in Atlanta brought me back to the hear and now by asking, “Ma’am do you believe?”
I am thinking to myself, “No. This guy can’t really be asking me if I believe in God? In a car dealerships waiting area?” I was wrong. And it wasn’t the Lord God he was interested in – it was the Lord God Jesus Christ. Did I have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? I would have been happy to talk about God, how wonderful it was that he found something, but no, he didn’t want a discussion. He wanted an audience. It takes a lot to shut me down. I was shut down.
• Can we talk restrooms - I am talking public restrooms here? Clean! Even the one at the park, the gas station, Jones Beach on Long Island. Ahhh, I am back in the land of 2 ply toilet paper.
To paraphrase Lee Greenwood, “ I am proud to be an American where the public restrooms are clean.”
So this is what is hitting me upon being back to the US, I don’t mean any of this in a judgmental way, truly just observational:
• File this one under Profound Observations of the Obsurdly Obvious but still...lots of American accents here in the USA. I am not unique or exotic anymore.
• Checks. Places still accept checks for payment. It seems so provincial – a harkening back to a time of trust. I am having trouble remembering how to fill in a check.
• Did I get skinny or did Americans get really fat? The ploy I introduced back in 1987 to offer cookies and candy bars to everyone to help them get fat so I would look smaller in comparison really took off. Little did I realize McDonald's had the same strategy…and Burger King, and KFC, and Chick Fillet. I feel positively svelte. Think I will have another piece of chocolate cake.
• Drivers in this country are tough. In the past 3 weeks I have driven in NY, NJ, PA, VA, CT, SC, NC, GA, VT, DE and AZ and the M.O. seems to be “Don’t use your signals (clickers? indicators?) because that is giving the enemy information”. In the UK when someone turns on their signal showing they would like to move over a lane, the person in the next lane slows down and…lets them in! Horrors! In the US once you turn on your clicker it is a challenge for your fellow racers on the interstate – drive faster and close the gap between cars.
• Miss Wendy. They call me Miss Wendy in the American South.
• God is everywhere. Complete strangers are ready, willing and able …not to mention excited...to talk about their personnel experience with the Lord Jesus Christ. I was waiting to get the car repaired in Atlanta off Peachtree Industrial. The television was turned on to the 700 Club and a man was giving testimony to how the horrible facial rash that had plagued him for years disappeared once he found prayer.
I watched this for about 30 seconds and could hardly contain my surprise on a varity of levels: 1. There was a clean waiting room; 2. There was a working television; and 3. There was a God program playing. I was giving myself a little snicker thinking of how different this experience was to CB Motors in London under the train bridge where I use to bring our car and there was no waiting room, let alone a TV, when my fellow waiting room attendee in Atlanta brought me back to the hear and now by asking, “Ma’am do you believe?”
I am thinking to myself, “No. This guy can’t really be asking me if I believe in God? In a car dealerships waiting area?” I was wrong. And it wasn’t the Lord God he was interested in – it was the Lord God Jesus Christ. Did I have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? I would have been happy to talk about God, how wonderful it was that he found something, but no, he didn’t want a discussion. He wanted an audience. It takes a lot to shut me down. I was shut down.
• Can we talk restrooms - I am talking public restrooms here? Clean! Even the one at the park, the gas station, Jones Beach on Long Island. Ahhh, I am back in the land of 2 ply toilet paper.
To paraphrase Lee Greenwood, “ I am proud to be an American where the public restrooms are clean.”
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