NOWHERE ELSE TO GO

NOWHERE ELSE TO GO

In 2019 I made a life changing decision to give up my home in the USA and travel the world volunteering. I did not own a home in the US. At the time I had been in a long term relationship with a wonderful friend, who, through great effort and perseverance owned some property on a hill side in New Mexico. Together, with that same great effort and perseverance we decided to move up onto that property and create a home. We had been renting a small inexpensive run down adobe for some years and it had been put on the market.

When we moved up there we started out by living in my 8ft x 10ft tuff shed I had used for an art studio, and slowly, with some help when we could afford it, we built another small building that contained a kitchen and shower and enough room for another bed. I called it the 4 step house. You could get from the bed to the kitchen, or the shower, or the front door in just 4 steps. My partner also built a small shed for our solar batteries, plus some fun touches like a an outdoor area complete with a bathtub, and an arbor. Over 16 years, we enjoyed these 20 acres. The views were amazing and the sky would call me to me to come out for a show when it was exceptionally exquisite! There was a 180 degree view and you could see for 100 miles and the silence as well as the sounds of nature very nurturing. All of these magical touches including interactions with the birds, coyotes, and of course rattlesnakes and tarantulas made for a very rich life.

The most challenges came in the winters. The road to get there was rough so it was continuously hard on our old vehicles. There was also a lot of time (20 minutes down the mountain and another 30 to get to town) plus gas expense driving to our jobs, and of course the expenses of continuously paying for car repairs or replacements. Unfortunately the jobs I had did not pay enough to support the automobile upkeep on top of other expenses, also the jobs and the amount of time I spent driving to and from jobs was not allowing for the amount of creative time I longed for.

I was 62 years old and even though my friend had kindly offered to let me live out my life on his property that his daughter would eventually own I did not see a way that I could continue living like this financially. I had spent most of my life working on my artistic skills and staying away from the "work your way to the top" employment practices so I worked for what was needed to get by, for just the basics, with my focus on art, and this perspective contributed to social security benefits being in the small category.

When I discovered Workaway I saw that perhaps there was a way for me to live a quality life where I could be supportive of others and myself with reasonable expenses that would fit my income. Workaway allows you to live with folks all over the world and help them out a few hours a week and for that you receive free rent as well as some food. The months of not paying rent would allow me to save some of my Social Security income for flying to the next destination when my visa expired.

I can not say that it was easy to leave a long term relationship that had been full of love, adventure, and amazing growth. It was incredibly painful in so many ways. I worked for several years trying to come up with solutions for ways to make it work both artistically and financially. Finally, feeling like a caterpillar in a cocoon that had nowhere else to go but out…I gave away most of my belongings and gently, with much love and support from understanding friends, flowed into this new way of life of which I have no home, no debt, no partner, no kids.

It has been just over 3 years since I began my journey and it has been 3 years of amazing amounts of creativity, the wonderful kindness of strangers, and a huge embrace of what has turned out to be a very friendly unknown. There is a magic and richness of living so simply on so little and being committed to caring for ones self as well as others through volunteering. I am feeling grateful. My "nowhere" has become "now here".