Welcome to another week of life on the road. I’m Genie Leslie, a freelance writer working remotely and traveling the country with my husband.
This week, we’re near Mercersburg, PA, enjoying greenery and a swimming pool.
I’m sitting in the sunroom of our Airbnb, a nice little spot at the back of our condo that faces the woods, and watching birds fly by. There’s one particular bird that jumps off a tree branch, hovers in the air for a moment, and then drops to the ground. Not dives, just drops. If I hadn’t seen several of them do it in quick succession, I would’ve thought I’d just witnessed one bird having a heart attack or something. But it seems to serve a purpose that I can’t see yet.
Sitting in this room, staring out the window at birds or learning to crochet thanks to my new Woobles obsession or reading a book, is all I plan to do here for the next month.
When we first started looking around for a place to stay for this month, we were checking out New England: Boston; Bar Harbor; Portland, Maine. And it was all out of our price range, by quite a lot.
We were bummed, but we started expanding our search. And Aaron found a couple of homes that looked really lovely; they had a lot of space for us to set up work spaces, find comfy reading nooks, and cook good meals.
“Aaron,” I said as I looked at one of the listings he’d saved, “you realize that this house is in the middle of nowhere, right?”
“Well, yeah, but if we can’t afford the cities anyway, why not just go to wherever the best house is?”
(It feels important to note that we were doing this search, on the tiny couch in our tiny and dark Airbnb in Charlotte that we hated so much.)
And so that’s what we did. We picked a house (more of a condo really) in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, right by a ski resort in the middle of summer. At the time, I thought it was a good idea because we wanted the space. We’d felt so cramped, unable to get comfortable, and it was time to spread out again.
But now that we’re here, I don’t think it’s just the space—it’s the being in the middle of nowhere that’s a relief.
Philadelphia was a tough city for me. It was a city that took me by surprise; I liked it a lot more than I’d expected to. But I didn’t have the energy to get out and do much there. The weeks-long heat wave didn’t help.
We still enjoyed our time there—we walked around, we wandered through one of the big parks, we saw a comedian we loved. We met a friend of a friend and went with her and her husband to our first ever Moth StorySLAM event. We drove to New Jersey to see a good friend, her husband, and her 10-week old baby. We did do a lot, I guess, but it still felt like we barely scratched the surface of the city. And I felt guilty about that.
And there are other, more personal reasons that we need a break. Going this long without regular healthcare sucks. You can’t do therapy, even online video appointments, with a therapist who’s not licensed in the state you’re physically in, so I had to say goodbye to my therapist back in February (I was actually really lucky that I could stay with her that long, because she was licensed in WA, OR, CA, and AZ). We’ve also been managing some family things from afar that take a toll on our mental and emotional energy.
I didn’t realize, until we got here, how much of a relief it would be to stay in a place that no one’s heard of, where no one’s telling us “we just have to see” this or that thing. Where we have access to a swimming pool and can float in the water before work starts for the day. Where staring out the window at the birds is the most exciting part of my day, and I’m happy about it.
The traveling lifestyle has so many advantages, but it still has its drawbacks. Have I written that sentence before? Maybe, because I keep having to remind myself, especially in the second half of this year, that being tired is okay. Needing breaks is okay. Not seeing all the coolest things in every city is okay.
Rest is necessary.
I wrote about it in November and I’m writing it again now, because it’s true and for some reason, it’s so easy to forget.
What else is going on?
On the drive from Philadelphia, we got our first-ever flat tire. We lost about 2.5 hours, and a lot of money (apparently we have asymmetrical all-wheel drive, which means when you replace one tire you have to replace two), but we still made it to our destination before sunset. And considering we’ve been on the road for a full year and this was our first car issue, I think we’re doing pretty well.
As I mentioned before, I bought a Woobles kit to learn to crochet (they really know their audience, because all the ads I saw were focused on learning a soothing activity that’s good for your mental health). I’m obsessed now.
I like you little bird!