Mindfulness and Life on the Road

I have lived a sticks and bricks life for most of my life.  Other than lots of camping I did when I was a kid, I’ve always had four walls and a roof over my head.  Things changed not long ago and I have had to embrace the challenges of this new life on the road.  I’m lucky enough to have a skoolie, which gives me plenty of room to work and live pretty comfortably.  That isn’t to say it’s not without it’s problems. Most of it is having to adapt.  You have to be more focused on the moment, mindful of your environment and your capabilities. Mindfulness and life on the road are two things that go together surprisingly well. Being a nomad has been like a bootcamp in mindfulness, awareness, and self-reflection.

Becoming Aware

When you live on the road you have to be aware of so many different things at once.  Whether or not you are running out of things.  Usually it’s food, fuel, electricity, dishwashing soap, water, oil, or air in your tires.  You have to keep a mental inventory of your vehicle all the time.  Lists help, but they don’t cover everything.  Today, I’m out of coffee.  

Sometimes you pick things up and forget you have them.  Right now I have half a pound of Italian sausage that needs to be used.  Would it be easier to open a can of Spaghetti-Os? Of course it would be.  It wouldn’t taste nearly as good though, but I wouldn’t have to do dishes afterwards.  Just wash a spoon, bowl, and small cookpot.  But you have to be aware of what you are putting into your body too.  Canned food might be easier, but it’s also full of salt and sugar.  Empty calories.  And besides, why did you buy that pound of ground sausage if you were only ever going to eat half of it?

Always Forgetting Something

I have a tumbler full of five day old canneloni bean soup I made.  Cooking for one means you can only eat so much.  It’s starting to stink up the fridge, which means it needs to be dumped.  Which means a trash run at some point.  I have to go into town tomorrow to pick up a package, so if I keep everything in my head straight, I’ll also clear out the fridge and dump my trash while I’m in town. There’s a 30% chance I will forget.

You see with so much mental juggling going on, you’re going to forget something.  I forgot something at the store the other day, and luckily for me I remembered it just as I was turning onto the road headed out to camp.  I went back and as I was getting ready to head over to camp again, I got a text.  My diesel heater had arrived at the Home Depot.  If I had gone all the way back to camp, it would have had to sit there overnight, which would have driven me nuts.

In this case, forgetting something actually worked in my favor.  Usually it doesn’t.  Usually it’s something like forgetting to empty the water from the cooler, or making sure the cabinets are locked before driving off.  There are ways to get around this.  

Make Checklists Before Setting Out

You can make physical checklists on your phone or a piece of paper.  Tape that list to your dash if you have to. Make up a song or mnemonic device or litany to remind yourself.

• Trash?
• Cabinets secure?
• Hanging cups?
• Disconnected the propane stove?
• Everything stowed properly?
• Walkaround the rig?
• Dog?

You might be surprised at that last one, but I have seen too many times lately that people drive off and they don’t realize they left their dog or cat behind.  I never start off without making sure Penny is in the back of the bus, ready to go. I always give her a kiss or a head pat to make sure.

Sometimes things will still fall over from where they are supposed to be.  More often than not this happens randomly.  That left turn on a smoothly paved city street is what will send everything you have stowed away in your cabinets flying, and not the steep incline or washboarded roads you drove for the last half hour.

You WILL forget something.  The key is to not beat yourself up about it for long and as long as it isn’t the life of another creature in your life, everything else can be fixed or replaced.  For example, just as I was writing this, I reached for my coffee and forgot the spoon was still in the cup.  I yeeted the spoon across the bus, flinging coffee everywhere.  It’s okay. These things happen.  Learn to forgive yourself when you make mistakes.

Don’t Put It Down, Put It Away

I’ve mentioned many times before that life on the road has been rewiring my ADHD brain has been a central part of living on the road. Anybody who struggles with this type of neurodivergence knows that sometimes it’s easier to just set something down and worry about it later.  You can’t do that living on the road.  Convenience might work great in a house, where all sorts of space exists for your empty cans and dirty dishes or plastic wrappers.  In these close quarters every square inch is important.  Eventually the clutter will overwhelm you.  

So that means when you empty the trash can, you have to put in a new liner right away, because more trash is coming. Fishing around in a trash can with no liner means washing your hands, which means more water, which means driving into town to buy more water. It can snowball. Then you can get burned out, trying to hold your life together while your work is falling apart.

You have to put up your clean clothes or else they will roll around while you are driving and they won’t be clean anymore.  You have to clean your dishes and put them away, or they will break in the sink.  The things that are convenient and kept within reach are usually safety devices, like fire extinguishers or first aid kids, sunglasses, or charging cables.  You have to go digging for things like food or a sweater in case it gets chilly.  So you’ll want to know exactly where it’s kept so you don’t have to tear everything apart looking for it.

Function Over Convenience

The placement of your stuff gets to evolve depending on necessity.  Some things I thought I would need all the time rarely get used, so they are often pushed back behind something else.  Stuff I use all the time is stowed away so it won’t break when I’m driving, but I can still get to easily. If I’m constantly screwing with garbage can liners and clutter, I won’t get anything done, and worst of all, this stuff won’t survive long on the road before it breaks.

The other day I installed my diesel heater and as I was using my tools, I was putting them away.  Unlike chucking a socket into a toolbox when you are done with it, out here you might never find that socket again. You have to be aware of where everything lives in your rig.

Trust Your Perception

Sometimes you’ll just get a sense of when something isn’t right.  A few days ago when I was underneath the bus drilling holes in the floor to run exhaust pipes for the diesel heater, I noticed an oil spot under the front of the bus.  It looked fresh.  The underside of the motor was black and I even noticed a drip of oil.  Since I had the tools out, I went to investigate.  All the bolts were tight, the drain plug was tight, but the oil filter wasn’t on tight enough.  It had been dripping oil for a while.  I got it hand tight again and haven’t seen the drips since.  Something just felt…off.  It usually does once you really get to know your vehicle.

Yesterday while I was in town for better wifi signal, I had to make a right turn.  My blinker indicator was going double-time, which in my experience means you have a bulb that has burned out.  Sure enough, the front passenger side bulb was out.  Lucky for me, the back light was still working. A quick trip to the O’Reilly Autoparts got me a pack of two replacement bulbs which I fixed in the parking lot.  When you are driving 9,000 lbs of vehicle, you want to make sure everyone knows when and where you are turning.  A perfect example of trusting your instincts playing nice with “don’t put it down, put it away.”

Trust Your Instincts

Avoiding an accident when you are literally carrying everything you own with you is crucial. If it doesn’t feel right, check it out right then and there. And any reason to avoid being pulled over is important enough for a $7 pack of light bulbs and five minutes out of your day to fix it.

This goes doubly for some of the weirdos out there on the road with you.  I’ll save that discussion for another time. Trusting your instincts works in so many ways. From the weather to people acting erratically at the campsite down the road. You have to protect yourself and your home. Sometimes that means trusting your gut and leaving when something feels off.

Living in the Moment on the Road

Since I’ve been on the road, I have had to be more aware of the moment in which I am living.  I can’t always be focused on the future or remorseful of the past.  What is happening right now is the most important.  I won’t say that it saves me any time, but it definitely has reduced my level of frustration with a lot of things.  You figure out ways that things work better. Your stuff lasts longer, it’s there when you need it, and you begin to understand priorities of what is needed right away and what isn’t as important.

I have seen so many vehicles where people are living on the road and their cars are stuffed with junk. They barely have any room to move, much less breathe. I’ve come to understand that the way you keep your house in order is a reflection of your mental health.  I’m not saying OCD people who have to have everything spotless and set up like a museum are any better, but I do know that when I would have a sink full of dishes that had been sitting like that for days, or a couch covered in laundry, I wasn’t doing that great.  I still have clutter, but it’s much more forgiving clutter, and usually pretty easy to deal with.  The weird thing is that I’m much happier living on the road.  I think the state of my vehicle is a reflection of that, rather than the other way around.  But it could be a chicken and egg sort of thing too.

Adjusting to a Life on Wheels

Lots of people might look at what I’ve said and probably consider it obvious.  But I have seen how other people live.  Everyone has some clutter in their homes.  They have the space to just deal with it later.  Our lifetimes can pile up on us, and on the road, this happens much more acutely.  Not sweeping out the bus regularly can attract mice (honestly, they are just going to come in, but at least knowing where the traps are kept helps you stay ahead of them).

Living in a house is a little more forgiving. Mostly because of space. If there is clutter, most people can just walk around it, or close a door. It’s not going to prevent you from accessing your food, or clean clothes, or even a fire extinguisher if you need it. Or being unaware that a tomato went rogue on your last trip to the store and has rolled underneath your bed.  Where it has been festering for the last week.

Practice Forgiveness, Mindfulness, and Get Your Shit Together

Sweeping out your rig can be meditative. Doing dishes is a religious experience. Making sure your stuff is clean and put away is just a way to make sure it lasts longer. The inside of my rig won’t win any beauty contests, but it is livable space. The time I spend driving can be focused on reflection, rumination, and meditation. Or just singing my head off to my playlists. Sometimes I look at my life now as a holy experience.

Like monks, I spend a lot of time alone (with my dog) and I get to reorganize my mind and soul in ways that give me peace. I’m less frustrated, not as lonely, and a lot slower to anger. I understand my sacrifices, but sometimes I do miss creature comforts, like a hot bath or a flushing toilet. On good days my life is a mix of stoicism and zen. On bad days, I always have the option of pulling up stakes and moving someplace else. Tomorrow is another day, and we can always work to be a better person then than we were today.

Next time I’m going to talk about my diesel heater installation. I’m still waiting on a part to show up before I can give it a test run. More to come!

Thanks for Reading!

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