"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Monday, July 21, 2008

Mobility and Community

I've been following the adventures of Sean and Louise, fulltiming in Odyssey, a 40' Neoplan bus, for quite a long time now.

I remember reading their blog for the first time and thinking "Wow, I'd love to do that... but there's absolutely no way I could." I credit Louise for indirectly getting me out of that mentality. I had so many excuses for not getting on the road, one of which was that my cats would simply tear up the motorhome with their claws. She presented a solution, Softpaws, and helped me realise that there was a solution to all my excuses. Flash forward many months, and here I am, a month and a half before my own fulltiming dream begins!

Sean and Louise are presently volunteering for the Red Cross. Their current blog entries have chronicled their mad dash from Wyoming to Texas, and they're about to be on the move again.

I cannot wait to have this sort of mobility.

When my father was ill, I wanted to move to be closer to him. That wasn't feasible in the amount of time he had left. How nice it would have been to have the freedom to drop my job for a few months, something I could have done had I necessary mobility, to be with him full time!

Or how about those interesting temporary job postings for which I can't apply because moving house wouldn't make financial sense and staff housing wouldn't work because of the catkids?

How about volunteer opportunities during times of disaster?

Or even cases like this week where I realised just how unsafe is the area in which I'm living?

Most of the people I know in the 'real' world are extremely sedentary. They would look at this post and say "Yeah, mobility has its advantages, but you have to give up having a community."

I couldn't disagree more. In just a few short months, I've learned that RVers form a community unto themselves, partly 'real' and partly virtual. I can't wait to compare that sense of community to that which I've experienced in the various places I've lived.

4 comments:

1001 Petals said...

If you haven't seen the show, The Riches, I highly, highly recommend it :)

Rae said...

*heads over to tv.com*

Ooh, that does sound interesting.

I've found a torrent for season 1, so I'll download it and check it out.

Louise said...

You're right about the community of RVers. Sometimes it takes a while to get into the thick of it, because folks meet on the road, go their separate ways, then find each other again months or years later.

But when we do get together, it's great! Here are people that really GET IT, that totally understand your needs to get up and go someplace new. No guilt, no excuses, they live the same life you do.

I'm looking forward to meeting you face to face somewhere down the road!

Rae said...

Louise, you just pointed out another reason I can't wait to hit the road: being surrounded by people who just don't GET IT is absolutely draining.

You and Sean really need to get up to Canada one day!