Home in the heart
Somewhere in these last weeks, home has started feeling like it’s in the heart. Friends and classmates on weekly Zoom calls were regularly asking, ‘Where are you this week?’ Week by week I’ve been describing my location, but not long ago I found myself saying, ‘I’m here’, pointing to my heart. Yes, I answered their questions, but the town, the neighborhood, the house — it all seemed irrelevant.
This is something I was not expecting from homeless life. There was an instinct, a knowing, that it would be good for practice. But I wasn’t expecting that the centre of gravity would move from the address on my driving license to my heart.
A home on wheels
Then quite unexpectedly, a home on wheel appeared. A friend from years ago offered her old campervan for 3 months. Having learned of my homeless journey, she offered her camper while she was abroad. It seemed unbelievable, but she was serious. Generosity in action — she saw need and offered something to meet that need. Wonderful. So it was settled that mid-August to mid-November, my home would be on wheels.
It was a little intimidating at first, having never driven anything larger than a fifteen-passenger van. But I _have_ driven those larger vehicles back in my forestry days. And so the trick was to channel the inner forester. Cool, calm, one mile at a time, both hands on the wheel and eyes glued to the road and mirrors.
Exploring the world of camping sites and campervan pitches, it’s utterly astonished to see that campsites these days provide electricity. With a kettle to provide hot water for not only coffee and tea but also a hot water bottle, it’s a comfortable enough way to spend a night.
But there are the constant reminders of being in someone else’s space. There are postcards and pictures up on the walls that I cannot take down (it would tear them), closets full to the brim, and the lingering smell of cigarette smoke. It’s someone else’s home, and I’m noticing the urge — and difficulty in letting go of that urge — to tidy up the external environment to make the space calmer. To make the space more how I want it to be.
And I’m still doing a lot of Zoom calls for teaching, meetings, Pāli and Sanskrit study. It’s a job to figure out where to park where there’s a good-enough internet connection in a reliably quiet place. Sometimes I just can’t find it. It becomes an exercise in patience and acceptance.
So while the campervan is okay for now, it’s clearly not a long-term solution. And with the weather getting colder, life in the campervan is increasingly about staying warm. I’ve found a 6-week dogsit and will take that, as staying warm and cooking will be much easier.
With the strong sense of home being in the heart, it’s quite a simple thing to leave one roof for another. Friends say they would have a hard time shifting so much. But there’s an ease to it, a simplicity that is quite freeing.
Looking ahead
Looking forward, I’ve decided to attend a retreat with my Hindu teacher in Switzerland in November. It’s expensive, but selling the house has freed up not only time and energy, but also money. Money saved by the 6-week dogsit covers the cost of the retreat, so it all works out. Attending the retreat, attending to the spirit. feels very on-track in terms of why I left the traditional householder life.
4 September 2024 — Queensferry, Scotland
Stops since the last entry: Hawarden → Cheshire East → London → Bracknell → Ashover → Cwmbran → Long Eaton → Dunfermline → Balbirnie Park, Fife → Cupar → Queensferry, Scotland