The Queen of the Ravine!

Yes! Me! The Queen of the Ravine!  What is a Ravine? I am glad you asked!  :) 

Ravine: a deep, narrow gorge with steep sides, a canyon, a gully,  couloir.

However, this is not just any old ravine, no, this one is just a few steps away from my van.

The scene: Outside doing my laundry, minding my own business.... and whoosh... the wind blows my laundry pod basket into the Ravine! "No...NO!" I cry and without a second thought I head down after it.

Slipping and sliding in a few places, hands in contact with the ground too on occasion... and Ta Da! Reclaimed my basket! 

When I looked up I realized I could not see the van or even the big motor home that was on the other side of the Ravine.  I started muttering to myself 'if any of my neighbors or friends or, heaven forbid, my son were to see me down here I might get a bit of a tongue lashing.  As one friend seems to be inordinately fond of saying "and you're doing this because???"  Granted it is usually said when I am attempting to do something which actually is beyond my current abilities...but Arrrgh! 

It is not a very big Ravine nor is it very steep and I did not even go down very far. I used to go rock climbing with my son in a very amateur way. Just clambering around on boulders and ledges when he was a boy. But we called it rock climbing and loved it. So it is not like this was something new.

So what's the big deal you ask?

Well lets back up for a moment. Four years ago life got really interesting!  All kinds of ailments. (Kanker, {I use K's, not C's} Which was at the bottom of my list of things to try) Some ailments were quite bizarre. (Lichen Planus)  Some were down right rude! (Gillian Barre) Some made no sense. (Diabetes)  Hopefully, most just came for a once in a life time visit. (Please note, "visit" implies they are not here to stay!)

The latest on my crazy list is that I appear to be allergic to the 21st century. That's right. Detergent, perfume, cologne, vehicle fuel, vehicle exhaust, carpet, plastic, elastic, pesticides, cigarette smoke, the list goes on and on and really, who knew a fabric softner dryer sheet could be dangerous? Did you know they actually put anesthesia in them? Seriously, the same chemicals, no joke.

Turns out I am one of many people, with a specific genome, who cannot release chemicals (like the ones found in those items listed above) from the old bod like most folks can. 

(By the way? Please don't tell my son I used the word "old" when referring to myself!! Boy, then I would really be in trouble!)

Anyway, the chemicals from the fumes of those items are toxic for me.  Contact with them for any length of time will make me ill.  Now let me explain what "contact" means to me.  I don't have to be the one using those products for them to have a serious impact on my health. 

I can no longer go to church.  Going to the grocery store can be an interesting experience! Too many folks wearing too many of the aforementioned items.  The building itself is often intolerable these days. New carpet, cleaning products, and so forth... nasty stuff. At least it is to me!

In fact, while here at the LTVA, I had an opportunity to play and sing with a group of people who get together on Tuesdays to practice a little and then play together for the other campers on Sundays.   I thought, hey outside! So I tried going to a practice... Yes! It was outside!  Unfortunately, I was unable to stay with the group for the whole rehearsal.  Evidently, 20 people all wearing clothes washed in detergent or, Great Scott, rinsed in fabric softner, sitting that close together was too much for this old girl. 

However.  The good news is that I was able to go!  I have not even been able to play my guitar much at all these last few years, and working up the requisite energy to go somewhere to play took extreme planning. It took me awhile to realize that.  Just like the Ravine!  As another camper told me when I related my story...

   But! You did it! You made it! 

Since I moved out of my apartment (yes, my apartment was also toxic) into my car in June of this year, then my van in October, my health has improved by leaps and bounds! 

There have been several of these .... epiphanys? Perhaps that is too grand a word for what may seem like mere trifles to most people.  But to me?  These were huge steps not only in physical improvement, but also in how I had come to view myself.

Startling discoveries in how much I could do.  Every month seems to bring new levels of achievement!

June - 3 days after I left the apartment I did not have to take insulin any more!  I had gone to stay with some folks from church for a few weeks so I was not even living in my car yet. Plus, the diabetes that showed up after the second Kanker surgery is continuing to get better.

July - Walking thru the store by myself on my own two feet.   (no more power chair for me!)

August - 1/4 mile walk uphill and then back again.  Did not even think about it...just took off!  :)

September - dragging large sections of fencing across the ground to help the friend who was letting me park and live on her back 40.

October - being able to live in my van, hundreds of miles from friends or family, with just my Bible and Macha for help and company.

November - A one mile walk to the dumpster and back. Yes, I like to take my trash for a walk too!

Then
December - The Great Ravine! 

There has been something more though.  There is a sense of freedom in this lifestyle.  Now please understand, I lived 'On the Road' for years as an entertainer.  So I knew some of the tricks of the trade as it were.

But this...

My beautiful van as my only home...
Living where I please...
Moving if I need to...
Meeting incredibly caring and amazing people...
Moving if I want to ..
Astonishing, beautiful sunrise's and sunsets ...
Vista's and landscaping provided and designed by the good Lord...

Seeing the beauty around me. Being outside, all day, most days. Seeing the stars out my window each night. Being able to take a deep breath of clean air.  Just being able to breathe!  These are all reminders, for me, of the gift of life.

I have gained a sense of self that I never had before... self discovery has been something I have strived, worked, slaved, and begged for over the years.

But out here... I just am. There is no need for artifice. No mask to wear.  No reason to hide.... It is extraordinarily satisfying to simply be Me.

:)

Now then all seriousness aside.  You need to understand that I had "finished" this post.  To end on a serious, yet positive note seemed okay.  However...

There are several reasons why I have a hard time maintaining body temperature. Chemically challenged, no thyroid and no heater.  They all affect it.  My temps are almost always low. I just forget that most people don't know that!  So taking my temperature to try and figure out what is wrong is sometimes an exercise in futility. Except of course to have the proof that, yes, I am cold.  

I was not feeling well and I could not find my thermometer, so I emailed another camper asking if they had one...before I heard back I found mine and let them know.  The following emails got me laughing.   Hope you enjoy this kind of silliness too! :)

Me:  Never mind, found it.

AC:  Good. The only one I have has been in a box on top of the trucks's dashboard for three years or more, as I'd been trying to find a safe way to dispose of it. Original mercury style. Since I now have no other thermometer, maybe I should see if it's been ruined by being badly overheated.

Me:   Ah I see you use yours often too!! Lol... been wondering if this one is okay...have not used it in a long time ... 97.7 last night then 96.4 in the wee hours so it probably is okay.. :-) and so am I ... well .. at least temp wise!!

AC:  Well, if it is correct, your body temp is dropping, indicating that you may have died overnight and are simply not a very self-aware person. If it goes below 95, email me and we can check your pulse and blood pressure on a gizmo I have to see if you're still alive. It could affect your stay here at the LTVA. I need to check the Supplemental Rules.

Just made me laugh and chuckle all day.  :)  Especially since I had just been talking about self awareness in such a serious way.  To get this email just tickled my funny bone!  It could be that this is one of those, "You had to be there moments..." but, I doubt I will ever use the words "Self Aware" again without at least a  chuckle!

Macha, My Brave Companion!

This story was written on November 2, 2013, however, it has taken me this long to figure out how to copy the story out of my own Facebook! Lol Enjoy!

Hi everyone!  :-)

Already closed up and secure in the van tonight! The sun has just gone down... Last night just as dusk was setting in ...I had everything locked up except the side door... I was sitting on my cot watching the shadows fade. Macha, my brave companion,( please see her picture below!) Was on the cot asleep next to me. The night was coming on quietly...peaceful and tranquil.

Suddenly, Macha jumps up growling and tried to jump out of the van!  I grab her and look where she is focused  and sure enough, a coyote, behind a bush, not 20 feet away. (not that I was counting feet at that moment, you understand, it is just that I am quite familiar with that bush as I am often picking up Macha leavings there. It is just at the end of her 20' leash) Now Macha has a big bark for such a little dog and the coyote started to move away.

.....meanwhile, back in the van, I am desperately trying to hold onto Macha, who  is under the impression that she is a doberman pincher, (as I understand it many little dogs suffer from this delusion, especially when under ten pounds. It is commonly referred to as small dog syndrome) and is trying with all her might to go chase the bad coyote away.  I am also trying to get the safety off on my pistol, in case of need, at just that moment the big bad coyote, which incidentally was looking larger with each passing heartbeat, turned around and looked back at us. 

The brazen thing must have decided we were easy pickings and started to come back towards us and lingered behind that all too convenient bush just long enough for me to fire, non too steadily into the bush.

Wonder of wonders I did hit the bush!  The noise and passage of my small bullet being enough to frighten away the big bad coyote I heaved a sigh of relief, then, after successfully containing Macha and getting the door closed, I assured myself that all the other doors were locked (I am uncertain of the reasoning behind that particular action) I then proceeded to tell Macha what a good girl she was and that she better not have to go out side for any reason until daylight, because if she did, she was plumb out of luck. I do feel we had used up our quotient for some time to come!

Lol don't you agree

The Epitome

The moon was rising. It was a clear night. The air so clean and crisp it felt good to breathe it in. I had been playing and singing as we sat outside enjoying the night air. Just three of us. People who had only known each other a few days, but already had such camaraderie. There is something about moonlight and music that can bring people together in special ways.

I had just finished a song when Doug said, "Excuse me for a minute Rachel, but I just wanted you to see something. If you look behind you, the moon has risen right above your van and is reflecting off the roof like silver and with the doors open like that, with the hint of blue light inside the van, it seems to me to epitomize what this life of ours is all about or at least one great aspect of it."

I turned around and wished once more that I had the talent to paint, or that my big camera was up and ready to go at that moment.  Swankie Wheels too, wished she could capture that vision. The picture was incredible. My white van against the dark sky. The moon shining down on my van made it look like it was outlined in silver white.

There is a tiny blue light on my cell phone charger and it was on the floor of the van where you could not see the light itself, just the soft blue gleam it was casting up inside the van.

My beautiful Jehosheba, her whites all lit up with silver and blue. Her doors open, patiently waiting for me to come home, against one of Natures most incredible backdrops...the night sky.

The big dipper low on the horizon, the little dipper yet make an entrance. Venus, with her stately waltz around the moon. A plethora of stars glowing in the sky, incredible meteorite streaks of fire shooting through that velvet black canopy, trying so desperately to reach the earth, a soft gentle breeze to caress your face.... It simply does not get any better than this...or at least, as Swankie says, until tomorrow!  :-)

Thank you Doug for seeing that beauty and drawing our attention to it.

To live this life on the road has its trials and difficulties, just as any other lifestyle does. But this life in my van has incredible beauty. Beauty I too often missed when living in a house or an apartment..

An unfortunate aspect of this life is that many of my house bound friends have stopped talking to me. I think because they do not know what to say to someone who is so far outside "The Box". If they do still speak to me it is only to warn me of the dangers in this life I am leading or to ask me what I have done that has caused God to punish me, (in their eyes) so severely.

I say there is danger everywhere and that this life has opened new doors for me and I absolutely refuse to believe that my Lord and their God are the same being.  We live in a fallen world which means tough things happen.  However, as always, the Lord has been using this new life to bless me in extraordinary ways. I am getting a life back. Not perhaps the one I had, but a life.

Indeed, I have come to realize over these past months in my car and now especially in my van, that I do not want to go back to that old way of living. Constantly busy. Driven to succeed at whatever I was doing. Being successful at "it" was not enough. Never quite satisfied. Absolutely determined to be striving ...well I think you get the picture.

I have a new life, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, I am getting life. Quite possibly for the first time in my life I am truly living my life.

I have my tough days, my tears, my lonely times. Those times when you are in the desert, by yourself. No one but your dog for company, wondering what on earth the good Lord has in mind for you. I call it the aloneness, which can be hard to bear, recognizing that you are living in your van, in the middle of the desert, literally hundreds of miles from any one you know. 

But I have also met and parked next to some amazing and truly wonderful people in this new life. Swankie has inspired me with her travels and her consistent can do attitude.  Doug is such a gentle, soft spoken man, with so much intelligence, yet well tempered with humor, it is a pleasure to talk with him. Scot and Liz who are also dealing with some of the same health issues I have which are, in some ways, much more extreme and challenging. Yet they too, still manage to find joy in their lives! All of them truly wonderful people who the Lord has brought into my path on this great journey we call life. My new life!

For those of you who are sceptical or simple cannot understand how I can live this way, I challenge you. Step outside your comfort zone. Talk to people who do not fit in your box.  You just need to open your eyes and step outside your door to truly see the magnificent world we live in. Perhaps then you can understand why, despite the difficulties, I am loving this life.

Remember, the next time you meet someone who is living in their car, van, motor home, travel trailer, or even just a tent, you might actually be speaking with someone who is truly Living! 

Lord bless you!  :-)  Rachel