USA: Three Novembers

Just add water and watch the dreams grow

For the past several weeks, a pile of travel-sized toothpastes has littered my bathroom counter. After I squeezed the last bit from the full-sized tube, I dug around under the sink and found half a dozen little ones—some brand new, others nearly flat. I pulled them all out, tucked one into my backpack, and began to use the others, emptying and discarding one at a time. My messy pile is diminishing, but I’m not in any rush to purchase more.

Likewise, about a month ago, we finished the bottle of liquid hand soap on the bathroom counter. Now I either wash up at the kitchen sink or just reach into the shower for a squirt of soap. I don’t plan to replace the empty bottle any time soon.

A few days ago, I rounded up all the half-used complimentary hotel shampoos and conditioners I’ve collected over the last few years and squirted them all into my little travel bottles. I do this whenever the freebies start to pile up. Yes, it creates quite the mixture of products of all different colors and textures. And yes, it’s like beauty product roulette—I never know quite how my hair is going to turn out. But I like doing it. My high school biology teacher told us we ought to change up our shampoo and conditioner occasionally, anyway, as too much of the exact same pH level is not good for hair. So, mixing it all together like this feels smart, as well as responsible, and mildly reckless at the same time.

Smart, responsible, and mildly reckless. Hmm . . . that could be my new motto, haha.

We need to either consume or discard all this extra junk around our house. After all, we’re moving out in less than three weeks and I’m not packing anything but the essentials. Our new life will have no space for excess.

It’s like a puzzle to me, this challenge to use everything up before we set out as nomads with no fixed address. Far from feeling deprived, I gain enormous satisfaction when the timing and quantities work out just right. In fact, when I emptied the big bag of popcorn kernels AND the bag of brown paper lunch sacks (which I use to microwave the popcorn) on the exact same night, I felt like I deserved a gold star for reaching that level of estimation skills.

But the emptying of the little shampoo bottles caught me by surprise this time. The last set I found was from Fairmont Hot Springs, a resort a few hours away where Andy and I spent our 29th wedding anniversary weekend, two years ago. Holding the bottles in my hand, I remembered the scene.

November 2021

It was a bitterly cold night, unseasonably so for mid-November. We had left straight from my shift at the appliance store, so it was already mid-evening when we arrived. We checked into our room, confirmed the hours for both the pool area and the restaurant, and immediately changed into our swimsuits to enjoy a soak before a late dinner. Stepping outside into single digits Fahrenheit wearing only summer beach attire is never pleasant, but we know from experience the momentary discomfort is always worth it.

Unfortunately, the hottest of the soaking tubs at Fairmont is on the far side of the complex. We had two choices—either walk all the way around the enormous swimming pool, scantily clad, in the biting wind, or just leave our towels there by the door and cross through the pool (warm, but not hot) to get to the other side. It was so cold we couldn’t think straight, and the walk around just looked so far. We hurried to lay our towels on chairs, hooking them through the slats so they wouldn’t blow away, then waded across to the gloriously hot cauldron on the other side. Gusts of icy steam blew wildly all around us, shrouding us in a cloud of privacy from the few others who had braved the weather.

Yes, this was the very scene on that fateful night.

It was perfect . . . that is, until Andy brought up a very uncomfortable topic for conversation. He had tried to broach the topic several times before, and every time, I had shut him down. Why he thought it would be a good idea to discuss this when we had just arrived for our anniversary getaway and were soaking contentedly in that ethereal wonderland, I’ll never know. But he brought it up just the same. He wanted to talk about the possibility of selling our house.

Ugh.

We knew by then we wanted to eventually pursue a life of travel and adventure. We had just purchased Walter, our trusty travel-rig-to-be, two months prior. We were already in conversation about all the various ways we could monetize our property to best support us. We could rent it out. We could turn it into some kind of business. We could even subdivide and sell off a couple of acres. But the topic of selling the whole thing was one I always pushed to the back burner.

But my Montana . . .

My connection to our home in Montana goes way back. When I was a small child, my grandparents purchased the property, six and a half acres with a flat former potato field backed up against a steep wooded hillside. They were in their early to mid-fifties then, recent empty nesters pursuing a new dream. Hmm . . . this sounds vaguely familiar. First, they built the barn as their initial living quarters. Then, as the legend goes, Grandma sketched the design for the house on a napkin and Grandpa built it to her specifications—a compact two-bedroom, one-bath with a cinderblock basement and a tiny but efficient cockpit for a kitchen.

My earliest memories involve road trips from Michigan and, later, from California to visit my grandparents in Montana. Climbing out of the car after a long, hot two-to-three-day drive, we would stretch our stiff bodies and drink in the familiar scenery—cloudless blue sky, dark green ponderosa pines with their deep red-orange bark, and a rugged skyline of purple mountains majesty, just like the song. I remember always savoring that first deep breath of pine, dust, and horses, plus a hint of the river, just across the road. After a round of hugs in the driveway, we would enter the familiar house. An enormous taxidermy bull moose jutted out from the darkly paneled living room wall, mounted between Grandma’s piano and Grandpa’s black and white houndstooth check chair—the one with the matching ottoman where he brushed his dog every night after supper.

It was such a distinctive chair.

The house always smelled a little stuffy, sealed up tightly against the summer heat and winter cold, a tinge of woodsmoke from the potbellied stove downstairs baked into the orange shag carpeting. But the unmistakable aroma of oatmeal raisin cookies and stale coffee wafting from the little kitchen quickly made up for it. We kids slept in the barn, or in the camper in the yard, or, in the winter, on mattresses in the living room. It didn’t much matter. Nights were short and days were long, digging for treasures in the gravel pit up on the hill, running around with the boisterous springer spaniel in the yard, playing Scrabble at the dining room table, sitting outside around a campfire. Montana vacations were simple . . . and perfect.

My family moved quite a few times when I was young. I have memories from seven homes and six schools in four different cities between two states before I graduated high school. But visiting my grandparents’ little home in Montana was my one constant.

When I was sixteen, I recall my grandmother pulling me aside during one such summer visit. She could see that my mom (her daughter) and I were clashing quite a bit. She handed me a slip of paper with their phone number and address on it and asked me to tuck it into my wallet. If things ever got bad, to the point that I might consider running away, she told me I could always come live with them. I carried that little slip of paper for the rest of my teen years. Even though things never really got bad, and I never even came close to wanting to take her up on her offer, just knowing that I was welcome at that little house at the foot of the Bitterroot Mountains was a comfort to me.

When the opportunity arose in 2004 for Andy and me to purchase that very house and raise our own children there, we jumped at the chance. For me, it was a dream come true. We added on over the years and made it truly our own, a place even more endearing to me in my adulthood than it had been when I was young. When I look around the property in any direction now, my brain flashes with five decades of memories packed into every square foot of it.

I had no interest in even discussing selling it. Although our lives have been a little crazy at times over the years, that house in Montana represents the most stability I have ever known. How could Andy even think I might ever be ok with selling? And why did he want to talk about it again, and during our special anniversary getaway? By the time we waded back across the pool, toweled off, and walked back to our room, our bodies steaming, I had already shed a few hot tears.

More than a few.

By the time we finished dinner, though, and after several more rounds of tears—each one temporarily robbing me of functioning taste buds—my heart was beginning to change. As much as it would hurt, I was willing to at least consider selling the place. Perhaps, just like my grandparents had done, we could start a brand-new chapter of our life together, filled with new memories to add to the old ones.

By the time we left the hot springs resort, a day and a half later, I was shocked to find myself somehow excited at the prospect of not only selling the house but leaving behind everything we’d ever known and hitting the road for good. Aside from good old-fashioned divine intervention, I’m still not exactly sure how that transformation happened. Perhaps there was something in that water.

November 2022

One November later, for our 30th anniversary, we went to Puerto Rico. We had never taken a big vacation for our anniversary. In fact, we had never taken a vacation at all without kids—nothing beyond a weekend away, at least. For our whole married lives, we had wanted to visit that lovely island, and when Andy’s father passed away in July, we decided to treat ourselves to an extended getaway. Eyes wide with disbelief that we were actually doing it, we clicked CONFIRM and purchased our airfare to Puerto Rico. When yet another hurricane hit the island before our scheduled trip, though, we felt the need to pivot. Instead of canceling, we modified our trip to spend half or more of our time assisting a local non-profit organization with hurricane relief and caring for the elderly poor. Even with all the hard work of our time spent volunteering, we still had two weeks in a beautiful, tropical place we’d never seen before. It was absolutely luxurious to us. Two whole weeks!

But our time in Puerto Rico last November was only an appetizer for the feast that is to come. It was a training camp, really, for the skills we will need as we set out into the next great unknown. There, we practiced living simply (shared housing with no hot showers), laughing often, working together to problem-solve and try new things, and taking complications in stride when our circumstances took unexpected turns. You can check it out for yourself in the video below. (I think you have to double-click to engage the video, and then click play. Sorry. I don’t make the rules.)

As you can see in the video, when we were not working, we spent as much of our Puerto Rico trip as possible in the water. We swam in the warm ocean at numerous beaches—even in the rain—and snorkeled from a catamaran. We hiked beneath a waterfall, jumped off a rope swing into a lagoon, slid down natural rockslides, and soaked in a river. By the time we left the island, we were ready for our next step, full-time nomadic travel. Again, there must have been something in that water that makes dreams grow. It definitely whetted our appetite for extended adventure travel.

This last year since we returned from Puerto Rico has flown by so quickly. We built the habitation box (aka The Snuggery) attached it to our beloved Walter Mitsubishi, fiberglassed the whole thing, and painted it a sunny yellow. We sold the house and most of its contents, moved into a little apartment, and then proceeded to sell most of its contents, too.

November 2023

This November, as we prepare to celebrate our 31st anniversary, we are not retreating to a hot springs resort or flitting about a tropical island. This November, aside from a brief break for Thanksgiving, we are finalizing all the details to move out of our apartment and into our new life as nomads.

While Andy continues to work on Walter—installing lights and solar panels, building a retractable porch and steps, adding the water tanks and electronics—I am busy emptying our closets and the cupboards under the sinks, every place where I can find anything we won’t be taking on the road with us. It all has to go one way or another, whether it is sold or given away or just discarded. Now that I am finished with my monthly visits from Aunt Flo (read my none-too-kind farewell letter to her here, haha), I can even get rid of the stash of “supplies” I found tucked back behind the hair clippers.

It’s the strangest thing, though, to be moving without the need for any boxes. This is an entirely different type of move. We are not packing it all up with the intention of unpacking it again in a different location. We are simply getting rid of everything that won’t travel with us around the world, either in our backpacks or our truck. The big electric griddle, my one remaining fancy dress, the leftover crafting supplies, the vast majority of Andy’s tools (the source of our livelihood and his identity for decades) even the food, it all has to go.

On December 1, we will turn off the lights, close the door behind us, and officially be without a residence. We will drive to Southern California for a week with family, then fly to Southeast Asia to backpack around as snowbirds until mid-March. When we return, we will figure out a place to live for a month or two while we finish Walter’s final details. Once the travel rig is ready, we will hit the road. Other than flying back to visit family occasionally, we don’t plan to return. It’s crazy that we are this close.

We’ve come so far in the past two years. November 2021 found me crying in the fog of a winter hot tub. November 2022, we had a buyer for the house and traveled as a couple for two whole weeks for the first time ever. And now, November 2023, we are busy selling off the last of our belongings, using the last of the bathroom hand soap, the toothpaste, the salad dressing, and helping load Andy’s beloved tools into someone else’s truck. It’s been a wild ride.

But the trees . . .

But sometimes I stop and gaze at the trees. They are all fifty years older now than when I first met them. The smaller ones didn’t even exist yet when I was a child. Some of the larger old-timers have fallen victim to invasive beetles, high winds, or lightning strike. A few we cut down in their infancy and brought in the house for Christmas.

The back hill behind our house.

When I consider these trees, the gentle giants who have been my companions for so many years, I remember that I will miss this place, this quiet lifestyle. I will miss sipping tea and going for walks with the friends I’ve made here. I will miss the familiar dirt roads that lead to their houses, our favorite hiking trails in the mountains and our favorite inner tubing stretches of the river. I will miss the deer and the turkeys wandering through the yard and the chorus of coyotes at night. I will miss the breeze in the tops of the trees—my trees—and the familiar shapes of the mountains—my mountains—as well as the gradual blooming of the flower garden—my flower garden. I will miss the sound of ringing the triangle to call everyone to dinner, the pounding of feet bounding up the front steps, the way the barn door sticks, the crunch of the gravel, and the creak and clank and soothing heat of the woodstove. I will miss the memory, already faint like a scene from a movie I once saw, of standing on the porch and calling my dog home from the neighbor lady’s house. “DRAKE! Come on, booooooooy! DRAKE!” I will miss the springtime lupine and balsamroot on the back hill and the ice-cold water, straight from the hand pump outside. I will miss picking and eating sweet, ripe cherries from the graceful little tree every July; and the thunk of wet snow sliding off the green metal roof. I will miss the rat-a-tat-tat of the colorful woodpeckers, the antics of the acrobatic nuthatches, and the soulful call of a mourning dove on a still summer afternoon.

Two of my trees

I won’t miss the mean-spirited magpies; I still haven’t forgiven them for how they mocked and tormented our dogs, now buried up on the back hill next to Grandpa’s dogs. I won’t miss loading and stacking firewood into the basement stove room, nor will I miss the way our road always turned into a nearly impassable sheet of ice for the duration of every winter. I won’t miss the stubborn and destructive narrow-mindedness—far beyond what could be considered Biblical—of some sectors of our community. I won’t miss the times the chimney backed up and filled the house with smoke and soot, or the summertime drips of tree sap on my car’s windshield. I won’t miss the heart-stopping screams of a cougar in the middle of the night or finding his huge tracks by the birdbath the next morning.

But overall, we have made a good life here. It was a good run. For this final year, we have lived in the little apartment above the shop while the new homeowners occupy the house. I have had a year to gaze out the window at our home—the simple little original house with the big brick chimney my grandparents built, plus the modern new parts we added on later. I have looked down and considered it, studying it from a distance, as if it’s already just a memory. That has helped me say goodbye slowly.

Goodbye, house and trees.

I will miss this place, but I am ready to go. We’ve made quite a dramatic transition over these last three Novembers. I honestly have no idea what our lives will be, come next November. Follow along if you’d like.

I know my posts are incredibly long, but please allow me to take another moment of your time to thank three readers before you go.

Susan Maas is a writer friend from Cascade Christian Writers (formerly Oregon Christian Writers). I have always enjoyed every conversation I’ve had with her at the various conferences and seminars we’ve attended together over the years. She has wisdom to share, and I am always happy when I can be the recipient. Thanks, Susan.

Susy Flory is a New York Times bestselling author, another writer friend who I met online when I was seeking insight regarding writing a memoir (which eventually morphed into the time-split novel I’m currently working on). I always enjoy Susy’s fresh perspective on life and all matters relating to the Christian faith and the women who practice it. I’m sure we would hit it off if we ever had the chance to meet in person. You should definitely check out her theology-based Substack, “Question Girl.” I appreciate her insight. Thanks, Susy.

Ruzian Markom is a friend—a sister, really—I’ve not yet met. A respected university professor in Malaysia, she has multiple publishing credits, particularly in the complicated fields of Islamic banking and insurance law. She is also the mother of a young woman we hosted in our home as an exchange student for one semester in 2018. I am so excited that Andy and I will be flying to Kuala Lumpur for our Malaysian daughter’s wedding in December, as part of our three-month backpacking trip. We are so happy for the chance to meet Ruzian and her husband, another part of our world-wide extended family. For your gift of friendship and hospitality, we are grateful. Thanks, Ruzian.

And to the rest of you, thanks for reading. Sorry I still don’t have the good news in hand I’ve been promising. Trust me, I am getting impatient, too.

Until next week,

Sherry

P.S. If you are listening to the audio, please forgive that last little bit. I tried to replicate the call I always used for my dog, but at full volume. I turned away, but it was still too loud for my computer’s little microphone, apparently, haha.