Our Ethos

In the Fall of 2023, nearly a year ago as I write this, Jesse and I knew we needed a change. We were coming up on 3 and 4 years out of school, settled near Boston and did the things everyone said we should do. We had a clear answer to the question "what do you do?" and could expect a reasonable head nod and "nice" in response. 
Jesse's grant-funded research contract was up in April, and I grew tired of my desk job routine. Neither of us felt particularly inspired by the next rung on our current professional ladders and, honestly, we weren't even sure which other ladder we'd jump to if we had the choice. 

We had recently been to Japan and I was feeling inspired to do some "we have boots and a backpack, let's experience something drastically new every day" type of travel in Europe. It wasn't meant to be an escape from the US, per se, but I felt the need to explore other cultures while we had the economic, social and youthful freedom to do so. For better or for worse, that idea never really stuck with Jesse. She knew she wanted to stay closer to home but didn't yet have the words for why. She craved slightly more stability, more connection to our own culture and more connection to the people we love. 

A few years back, I had made the questionable decision to buy an old 1985 Volkswagen Vanagon Wesfalia, intended to be a fun weekend project with a friend. That's a whole other story, which I hope to link here some day, but suffice it to say there was a very broken van in a garage 3 hours away with my name on the title. 

For unknown reasons we'd later conjure, we settled on traveling the USA by fixed-up Vanagon for an undetermined amount of time (tentatively 2-3 years). 

Over the next few months (and for what may be the rest of our lives) we really honed in on our ethos. 
If we up-and-left our current lives, why? What would we be pursuing?

So without further ado, here is a not-so-full, ever-evolving, definitely-not-decidely-correct, list of reasons we decided to ditch our 40hr/wk lifestyles to fix up an old van and travel the US:

• To "find ourselves"
  Cliché, I know, but it's true. 
  In the path we were on, it's customary to have a formal, well-thought-out answer to the questions "What do you do?" and "What do you want to do?". So we both had our stories and we would recite them when asked.
  
  But those stories became less clear and less true. We leaned in to saying "I don't know." We don't have a "plan" for when we're done, but we have faith that the answer will find us when we're ready. Often we sit in the discomfort of uncertainty, but we know it'll come.
  
  Jesse spoke this poem amidst a wonderful moment in reflection of the lifestyle so far:
  
  
  Exist 
  In a state of need.
  Ask not
  And you shall receive.
  
  
• My affinity for the role of "apprentice"
  
  I've worked a solid 10-15 jobs in my life and always enjoyed something about the apprentice role. Something about the process of learning something quickly, proving myself, outperforming expectations... it just clicked for me. I enjoyed the challenge of being the underdog.
  Almost all working industries have some structure in place for managing the role of apprentice, from commercial plumbing to medical residency. There's this notion that wisdom, experience and authority must be earned with time. 
  Recently I'm realizing that philosophy applies to my approach to life as well. In order to appreciate a stable life later, we're putting in time being unstable now. To be the best "givers" later, we're spending time as "takers" now. And that's uncomfortable. 
  So we're apprenticing life, going back to experience this side of things while we can. 
  
  
• To explore being vulnerable
  
  
• To strengthen our relationships and cultivate our community
  
  [Early 2025 addition] In late 2023, we started sharing our plans to travel the US by van. To our slight surprise, others were very excited about hosting us and we quickly built a list of friends and family to visit. We created an itinerary and it would be up to us to execute it
  So here I am in early 2025 about a month from finishing our "itinerary" before we head West out of Florida and I'm happy to report we have very much strengthened our relationships and cultivated community. 
  
  

• To "do it while we're young"

Here's an image mostly for the title, but it's relevant; hear me out.
This photo was taken about 30 seconds before we walked out of our Maynard, MA apartment for the last time. 
I'll write a separate story about this experience, but to me it represents a huge transition in our lives. We went from stable apartment and sleeping in the same bed every night to having many more unknowns. 

It represents commitment to instability, and we're becoming more familiar with that place every day now.