The caravan and ourselves have been on a break. We have been overseas and visiting family and the caravan has been parked in my brother’s backyard.
When we left the caravan I did wonder if I would want to come back to it. I worried that I would not feel like returning to our mobile home after our foray into hotels and houses.
While visiting friends and family there were questions from them too about how I would feel on returning to the smaller environment. There is still much wonderment about our lifestyle choice. Friends and family understand that travelling long term in a caravan must feel like a perpetual holiday but they also question our future desires. My brother, at the same stage of life as ourselves, loves pottering around his house, making and fixing things. He wonders what he would do with his day. I couldn’t talk about our days to him, as I couldn’t remember myself, how our days had filled.
I began to think that this break was possibly fortuitous and not just an extension of our holiday life. Maybe this break was meant to be so that our true feelings about how we were filling our days would surface. And although the caravan was patiently waiting, maybe it’s ‘time was up.’
But no. When I opened the caravan door, after six weeks away, there was all our stuff. Not stuffed in a suitcase. Not strewn around a hotel room. Everything was in its place and I knew the places. I thanked the caravan for its guardianship of our possessions and I proceeded to fiddle with them.
It has taken a few days, but like a motherbird, we are back in the nest. I have sifted through my summer clothes and hauled out some winter garments. Peter has acquainted himself with the necessary caravan appendages and our daily routines have kicked in.
The break was fortuitous. We have learnt what makes us happy. That is our own stuff in its own spaces and us having the time to muck around with it. It feels permanent. It is our home for the foreseeable future.