An honest life update (plus a collection of wildflower film photos)
It has been three months since I sat down to write anything.
I don't know what I am going to write about today, but I figured if I don't just start I am never going to keep writing. And I want to write. Maybe one day I could be a writer as a capitalism survival tactic. That is my dream.
My reality is very different. The last three months have kicked my butt so hard. My partner, Patrick, and I were living out of our camper van in the desert of Southern California. Everything was going okay... he liked his job, we had a stable enough place to live, we had even saved a small amount of money. Don't get me wrong- we were still homeless. But it felt like we were stable, like we were going to make it out of this life okay.
But then it got too hot in the desert and we had to go north. Patrick had a job waiting for him at a coffee shop in a small mountain town in the Eastern Sierras in California. Unfortunately, we didn't realize how much the heavy snow in the Sierras would impact our options for where we could live out of our van near his job.
We managed to piece it together, but not without long commutes and a lot of stress not knowing where we would go next.
I have been living in survival mode, always too stressed and exhausted to think about anything other than the next few hours.
On top of that, he hated the job he went back to. So on top of working for a job he didn't like, he had to start applying to new jobs at other coffee shops around town. It has been a mess.
My role in all this has been to just try and keep our lives afloat, which usually means a lot of cooking and cleaning. To keep my sanity, I have tried to do my art and hike as much as I can, which wasn't that much. But I am really hoping this is the start of things turning around for us.
The snow is melting and campgrounds are starting to open up, which means not only places for us to stay but also access to showers and other amenities. In addition, today is Patrick's last day of work at his old job and training for his new job starts in just two days. Hopefully in my life, things like planning where we are going to live and editing resumes will be replaced with painting and hiking and writing in the months to come.
I have a story I need to tell or I might fucking implode.
Let's be friends! How have the last few months been going for you? What is something you are hoping to have more space for in your life moving forward?
All photos in this blog were taken by me and my partner on an SX-70 Polaroid camera during our time this winter outside of Joshua Tree National Park in southern California.
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