This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Hello moon

Posted by Miro

I don’t know where we are right now. We’re some where over a mountain, down a long and very windy road, past a fork, parked in a turn off near a farm. The night here is as dark as I’ve ever seen it. There’s no moon, but many, many stars. We started in Napa Valley and went up the valleyside to flee the fuzz. They kicked us out of our roomy parking spot in St. Helena’s version of an industrial district (it even had Internet access).

Being lost, getting hounded by police, seeing stars: I’m resettling into our routine of perpetual change. It’s a transition from perhaps the strangest month of my life: April 2005. April was a month of exception that interrupted an exceptional year. I spent most of April without Ehren a good chunk of it far away from the bus.

Ehren left for the East coast near the beginning of the month. I spent nearly two weeks, in the Bay area on my own. I visited old friends, made a few new ones, and even had some friends visit me. Despite the busy social calendar, I probably spent the most time alone since starting the trip. Certainly it was the first time I lived on the bus alone. In that time, I’m convinced that the early twinges of the reality warping aspects of bus living began to accelerate. A friend told me that her brother had a child and bought a van. For about 5 seconds, I thought she meant that he bought a Chevy Astro to convert. I had just long enough for “Sweet” to escape my mouth before I realized she meant that he bought a minivan. I also found myself inadvertently insulting people over email through misinterpreted sarcasm, something I usually police myself vigorously to prevent.

That period served as my turn to understand why bus life must only be a temporary part of my life. I knew the bus trip had to come to an end, but I thought I would slouch back to stationary life grudgingly at best. No longer.

The kicker was on my plane ride back to the East. Next to me sat the projection of this lifestyle into the long term. About 15 years older than me, my flightmate had dreds to mid back, a two year beard and an Mac Powerbook. He was chewing a tempeh and whole grain bread sandwich. I, inexplicably, chose this flight to pack and snack on whole unpeeled carrots.

He broke the ice with me. We talked about our lifestyles. He keeps two homes. About fours months of the year he’s in California, four months he’s in North Carolina and the rest of the year he travel outside the US. He’s compiling books on the various major healing cultures of the world (Chinese, Indian, Caribbean, etc) and the plants they use.

We talked about how traveling takes you out of society. It gives you both perspective, but extended travel can rob you of your community. Your perspective becomes to different and removed from those you left behind. Eventually it’s hard to communicate with them. He explained that his community is anchored in his family and his sisters that maintain his two homes. If I understand correctly, these are spiritual sisters, rather than biological ones.

We talked for nearly an hour. He said was leaving a difficult situation in California. His eyes teared up as he explained that his sister was going through some tough times. She felt that he wasn’t there for her in the way she needed. He traveled too much, and he was too rigid in his worldview. He supposed she was right, but he wasn’t going to, couldn’t change.

Ehren has already said this, but my plane-riding bus hippie friend really hit it home for me. Permanent traveling is a blessing and curse. It expands your perspective and horizons, reminding us that each one of us can only understand a small part of the range of lifestyles, experiences and worldviews that are out there at any one time. But it also makes you rigidly self-reliant in the way that doesn’t allow for the accommodations required by family, community and life partners. Oh yeah, you also go a little nuts in the eyes of others (see Ehren’s posting from the Phoenix Walmart).

So now I’m back on the bus. I’m excited about the summer, but I’m ready to return to stationary life.