15: Snail Trail

July 3rd 2019

It’s hard to believe that I’m turning the page on this wild chapter of my life.

We’ve found ourselves in a strange lull between two worlds, as we move from being a fly on the wall of society, to re-entering it.

But we are returning as different people. Ironically, this period of stillness in our lives has taught us as much in 8 months than I suspect we learned in our first 8 months of life. In many ways, it’s as if we’re seeing the world anew in a child-like wonder.

I’ve decided to write this final blog as a reflection on how we’ve evolved from this ultimate road-trip. This piece will be a combination of snippets of thoughts in my journal throughout the journey, as well as reflections from the other side, looking back.

What we haven’t shared much throughout our journey until now is the third reason why Snail got her name. As well as her top speed being 50mph, and her carrying our home on her back, Snail’s spiralling shell symbolises a spiritual journey.

About two years ago I did a google search along the lines of ‘how to live outside of society’. I had just quit my ‘promising’ job in advertising, handing in my notice in the very meeting I was expected to accept a unique promotion.

I’d lasted a year. In that time I slowly felt my spirit dry up as I felt my mark upon the world like a mallet, encouraging people to buy what they didn’t need so they could fuel their false sense of self.

I’d realised the system in which I was brought up had watered the skills which it deemed valuable. Rational, logical, quantitative skills were cultivated - while my creative, qualitative qualities had been watered down.

I decided I needed to U-turn. I moved away from London, Simone, and the life I had built back to my Mum’s house for 5 months, where I focused on my creative projects.

But nothing I attempted in that time flowed. As if life was pulling up the handbrake.

Throughout the time it became clear what didn’t feel right to me, and those elements in my life began to fall away. I had already quit my job, but now I realised the band I’d put everything in for 5 years was no longer serving me, as well as the collective I’d just launched, and other projects, unreciprocated relationships. I let it all go.

20 December 2018

…But I’ve come to realise, in an ever-relieving hindsight, that I had to let go in order to make room for new spouts. Something which would have inevitably caught up with me as I became more overgrown. There is no way that, if I had continued down that road, that I’d have the freedom and space to be living in a freedom paradise with Simone now. Something I never would have imagined for myself at the beginning of this year. Something I never would have allowed myself in my persistent race to get ‘over there’. I’ve allowed myself to be comfortable with/actively choosing to have nothing and found in that, there is everything.

The world began to unravel as I began to see through it. I found myself at the doorstep of adulthood and realised I’d been led to the wrong house. I didn’t want to play the game, I didn’t want to run the race - but how do you escape the very system within which you exist?!

The google search was bleak. Amongst the reasons why you can’t live off the land in the UK, educational systems being enforced by law, there was an article with two answers. ‘Live off benefits, or win the lottery’.

F a c e p a l m.

Is this really what life is about? An endless cycle of ‘making a living’ month to month. Constantly sacrificing the present for the future, which is always at arms length? When will we wake up from that delusion and instead ‘make a life’?

Van life provided the loophole we needed. And we ran to it.

8th April 2019

Now I am sat on Barranco beach in the Algarve and just did a secret handshake with Simone congratulating ourselves on successfully breaking out of the system. We’ve been living on the road for 6 months in a permanent holiday. No work on Monday, no emails to reply to or rent to pay. We just exist in the world.

As soon as we made the decision, the handbrake came down and life flowed. Freelance jobs came to me at the perfect moments. We systematically sold all our belongings. As soon as we saved our budget for the van, Snail popped up online, coloured as a combination of our skin colours as if to say ‘here I am’. One thing after the other began to fall into place.

And since, we’ve spent the last 8 months on the road. It’s felt as if we’ve created our own world - at home nowhere, but simultaneously everywhere, as we only ever pass through, never staying long enough to root. As we jump back into the world in which we came, these lessons are what will merge the two together.

Letting Go

Letting go was the first challenge when we made the van life decision, and it’s been a multi-layered process to witness in ourselves.

I’ve felt the tearing at the seams between ‘things’ and personal identity. From the initial moments of selling all our possessions to fit into this 2x5 meter space - feeling the sting of saying goodbye to my guitars, pet gerbils, personal things for 20p at a car boot-sale, and giving away the rest. To eventually becoming comfortable with having next to ‘nothing’ - limited material things, a job title or status, recognition or acceleration.

We haven’t bought new clothes in 8 months. We’ve also existed the entire journey with a single A5-sized (broken) mirror which I’ve just become used to never looking in. (Thankfully Simone is always around to tell me if I have food on my face. Which is often.)

8th February 2019

I had an interesting realisation earlier after the first hot spring session, which was that I used to not feel comfortable going somewhere like a pool without packing make up to put on afterwards. Like I needed a veil between me and the outside world. I didn’t ever wear heavy make up, but putting it on felt I was adding to myself and my identity because I felt more comfortable with it. Did the society I lived within brainwash me into thinking that way? Because it was a coerced frame of mind that ultimately stood in the way with me being completely comfortable with myself. And that’s coming from me, someone who isn’t overly girly. I realised earlier that I’ve never been comfortable with the putting on of make up either, because being caught in the act putting it on instils a shame within me. Like the veil is being found out. Societal pressure is real and only on the other side do I recognise the hold it had. What a win to be comfortable in my skin.

We’ve broken away like a cell multiplying outwards from seeking our identity in anything exterior to ourselves. This has also catalysed the hugely liberating feeling of no longer caring what people think.

Van life has allowed us to stand back from ourselves and society without getting swept away and lost in it all. From afar, the bigger picture has seriously looked crazy to us sometimes. (And believe me I’ve spent lots of time wondering if I’m the crazy one as we road trip in our bi-tonal home on wheels with a googley-eyed snail on the back)

At times, consumerism has become alien for me. After spending a week or so exclusively in nature and reading a poignant book I remember feeling my world spiral into a blur of confusion and emotion in a supermarket aisle.

12th March

I just had a saddening moment of despair in the supermarket. Seeing most products wrapped in plastic so unnecessarily. Products taken from nature from which I’ve just come, and monetised. There was a slice of wood advertised as a chopping board being sold for €13. What gives us the right? It’s so easy to get lost in that world again, as I too were a shopper, picking up plastic bowls for the van. It feels overwhelmingly inescapable. It feels wrong. Some of these products have no use, hanging in front of their clones, to be replaced again. Walking across the shop looking for Simone, I passed the butchers section, covering my mouth from the stench of the corpses and sight of red hanging flesh. What was once a normal every-day experience became a scene from a horror movie. I actually feel the need to well up and cry at my realisation of this injustice. How have we all gotten so lost?

As well as letting go of material things, we’ve had to let go of conveniences once invisible to us in our old worlds. It became clear early on that we were going to have to do without a reliable internet connection, and consistent power. In the past month we’ve had to accept virtually not having phones either as both of ours have finally filled up to the brink of not working - no more taking photos, or internet entertainment - just taking it all in with our eyes. I watched as my urge to capture a moment has taken me away from it. It’s tough to realise how much we rely and come to expect conveniences like instantaneous information and content through the internet. It’s been refreshing to disconnect from it all, to unplug.

We’ve had to let go of an ‘easy life’. Running water, flushing toilet, fridge, electricity. The most painful thing to realise has been rubbish waste. Since we have to dispose of it all ourselves, we are more aware of how it accumulates. We spent 80% of our journey following coast lines across Europe, and it’s been a heart-dropping reminder of what’s really going on in the natural world. Inescapable plastic lined beaches, we’ve also come across two dead dolphins on the shore.

It’s not just slaps in the face like the dolphins which have wrenched on our souls; its the every day ignorance. Piles of peppers in supermarkets separated by a poignantly transparent film. It’s a representative metaphor for our culture. We are all wrapped in see-through plastic. Like the vegetables, we are shoulder to shoulder, but there is something in-between. Sometimes it’s so transparent, it’s hard to see the separation. Sometimes we become so used to it, that we don’t notice at all.

3rd February 2019

We went to one of the ‘top beaches in northern Spain’ to find it completely covered in plastic. I’ve never seen it to that extent before. It struck a chord in me of the plastic problem, but more so the power of ignorance. Out of sight out of mind? It’s certainly easy to ignore on nicely government maintained beaches. Ironically as soon as we get to a ‘natural’ beach, it couldn’t be more far from it. I’m sat high above a beach right now and can see bright coloured pieces of plastic littering the shores from here.

10th March 2019

What hurt most about the ocean, as with the dolphin and the beautiful landscapes we come across ruined by a discarded McDonalds meal months before, is the disregard for what is alive. It’s the same perspective I have on not eating meat - it’s a sacrifice of life for a fleeting moment of pleasure or convenience. And there are alternative choices.

And there lies the remains of your lunch forever, and you’re hungry again by dinner time. Life just wants to exist and we’re denying it of the ocean and the dolphin. We need to wake up and realise the ocean is as much a part of ourselves as our lungs, and we have a choice over whether we use or abuse it.

Then there’s letting go of trying to be in control. This is something which became clear during our nightmare breakdown in France over Christmas. Allowing plans to change as life flows as it will.

I’ve come to realise that sometimes holding on is the cruelest thing for the self. Frustration comes in resisting what is, so we might as well be kind to ourselves and let life drive sometimes. We’re currently in a mirrored situation to the breakdown as our ferry home has been cancelled, leaving us with no choice but to do an additional 1,000 miles of driving to get home instead of our easy sail to end the trip (through France again… the very thing we were trying to avoid). But we’ve found out the ferry broke down twice in two weeks and had a fire onboard, just like we found out the alps had a deadly avalanche where we were planning to be around the time we broke down. We trust in the course of things now.

Ultimately, all this letting go been a lesson in surrender. Accepting things just as they are and not searching for anything more. And therefore not needing anything else to feel good about ourselves.

The irony is, in letting go of everything - there’s no feeling of lack. All it took was to step aside from the world of ’not enough’. Money or success or progress or things.

We stepped off the accelerating conveyor belt of our twenties. And we found abundance - of time, of love, of beauty, of creativity. Recognising the gifts of the earth instead. I’ve never felt more satisfied with life, and all I have fits inside this rusty van.

Time

23th May 2019

I read a message written into the sand that felt scarily as if it was made just for me. Running along a wide beach, I stopped to read ‘The way to live a life that’s free, is take your time, go slowly’ - then a picture of a snail. I had to look around to see if Simone was hiding somewhere after writing it. I discovered later that she had no idea. The words have been resonating in my head ever since. It feels important. Within it signifies the gift this journey has provided me - patience and abolition of time pressure. Appreciation of right here and now, with no worry for a projected future.

When we chose van life we chose to opt out of the busy city life - always chasing the clock, having our time owned by someone else, squeezing the seconds.

I was always rushing. I have my entire life. Racing towards that finish line which only recedes further as I arrive, like a shimmering mirage. I began to wonder if a mirage was all it was ever going to be. Snail was my way of stepping out of the race, and watching from the side lines for a while.

Thanks to this journey, I have learned a breakthrough life skill for me: patience. Simple things take ten times as long when living in a van, if they work at all. We’ve travelled 9,000 miles never going above 50mph. We’ve been overtaken by tractors, trucks hauling tonnes of trees. One time we were overtaken by pedestrians!!

I have realised the pleasure in taking time in the process, not only focusing on the finishing line.

Taking time to notice beauty. To just watch the clouds swell and taking time to watch the sun rise and set. We’ve watched so many paintings form in the sky and it’s been such a privilege to be nature’s audience these past months.

5th April

We are living proof that it’s possible to be broke, title-less and happy. We have the whole world because we have our time. Time is life, time is everything.

Taking time to notice, to give, to love. That is the key to a peaceful and purposeful life.

To paraphrase Bob Marley, how can you ever be poor with the richness of spirit we have? Every moment of this journey is priceless.

The abundance of time we have had has allowed us to do things for the love, and nothing more. No pressure of time being necessary to ‘get ahead’ at any moment, no monetisation of time. Simone has started drawing since van life, and I, as I am right now, have started writing. This lack of pressure is what has made our experience feel so child-like.

12th May

I haven’t had this much freedom since childhood and it brings out the child in me. Imagine having no worries like a child - no financial anxieties and need to succeed? In my child eye I see the world naive - so simple. And the reality is that children are right. It’s the system which drains their truth.

It’s become ever clearer to us that the only time which ever exists, is right now. The future doesn’t exist yet, and when it comes - it will only ever be now. It’s incredible to experience the richness of the moment. Colours are brighter, food tastes better, life slows down in an incredible intimate intricacy. It helps to be now when there’s no where else we’d rather be, or no where we need to be - and that’s exactly where we’ve been living for the past 8 months.

29th April

There was a moment in the botanical garden which vibrated so high. The kind of feeling of a dream and de ja vu. ‘I’ve been here before’ Said Simone. Like it was a moment of destiny that existed in past, future and present. It’s resonant with timeliness. I don’t quite feel human. I feel I’m hovering above the moment. Time slows. Colours grow. It’s as if the world has stopped around us. The moment is mine.

Creative Flow

Throughout this trip, I’ve come to understand the nature of creativity in a life-changing way. I’ve understood how it’s not something we ‘have’ - that would imply it belongs to us. It is something we borrow for a while - or more accurately, it borrows us.

Our music has transformed unrecognisably since exploring creativity in this way during our trip.

Creative flow, for me, is ultimate joy. I’ve realised I need to flow daily for happiness. Van life has allowed me the time and space for this privilege. You know the feeling when your work is effotless and beautiful - time doesn’t seem to exist because you’re so into what you’re doing?

We’ve realised that in order to get in flow, we need to align ourselves with our ‘frequency’.

Imagine for a moment each person not as physical matter - no bones and skin and hair, but as a vibration of energy. Like a soundwave.

People can affect the shape of their soundwave in many ways - state of mind, thoughts - are an important influence. Feeling frustrated, upset, angry about a situation - produces a low vibration of the soundwave. Love, beauty, gratitude - increases it.

I also believe each person has their own individual frequency - like a particular bandwidth. When we enter this particular wavelength - unique to us - we are in perfect flow. Here is where creativity can most effectively channel through us, and here is where we feel joy because we feel ourselves.

We’ve learned to find this frequency - and when we do, it’s as if music writes itself. What comes out of us, is what wants to be born. It’s as if we are merely messengers. We just need to be still enough to listen to creativity’s whispers, and pass it on.

We’ve also learned that whatever ‘state of being’ we are in when we create or work will define how meaningful our offering is for whoever meets it later - in a kind of energy transference.

This energy transference is important at every level - from writing to recording to performing. But we must have courage to be there fully for it to succeed.

So we’ve made ourselves vulnerable in our writing process. Delving into feelings, and going there completely. It’s about the process of capturing an energy forever - the state of being in the time of creation. Why is it that some recordings and performances just radiate more than others? I believe this is the reason.

Here’s a quote from Charles Eisenstein, a writer I’ve been almost constantly reading throughout the trip:

We want our stuff to be part of building the World we want to live in, to inspire and to have profound impact on everyone. This depends on how much of ourselves we’re willing to show. We think, in our misguided, self-protecting way, that only presenting the safe parts of ourselves, the confident and ‘fine’ versions of ourselves, will attain victory for us in our endeavours, but the truth is that the projects and art that we all fall in love with are the ones where the creator has shown a bit more of themselves, taken a risk, walked to the edge. It’s those artists that we feel drawn to, and through which we get to experience our own edges vicariously. The bravest of creators give their audiences a safe version of places in themselves they are unable or unwilling to go to without the artist ushering them there with their courage. It takes vulnerability to offer ourselves up in this way and risk exposure or rejection but the treasure that is harvested with our quests into ourselves become illuminations for everyone else.

Looking through the lens of energy frequency has allowed me to see more than just the creative process in myself - but how my own energy flows.

26th May

The biggest gain to this journey is that I’ve become on top of my mind…

Over the past 8 months I’ve been able to witness the way my energy ebbs and flows. How I’m not always in control of what affects my frequencies - sometimes there are unavoidable influences from other people’s worlds. But also how I can control moving towards my own frequency.

The conclusion is - everything is energy - and during the trip Simone and I have delved completely into learning not just a new language - but a new sense. It’s transformed the way we see the world.

Ego Separation

If anything has been a consistent theme throughout the trip, it has been this.

In the past few years, I’ve begun to realise, in my opinion, that ego separation is a major cause of the world’s suffering.

When I speak about ego separation what I mean is - our false sense of self.

It’s our identification with our minds and our physical form - an external image we keep of ourselves - a confusion with who we really are. This confusion makes us feel as if we are separate shells in the world. It makes it easier to ‘other’ people. This protective shell acts like armour, cutting us off from the outside world. This shell is a sense of separation.

We are swept away in our thoughts like a raging river. In fact, we don't have thoughts; the thoughts have us. Our mind becomes a source of pain and conflict - we are constantly swimming up-steam against the river’s flow. We exist in our separate boxes, conceptualising and labelling all we see - never quite in the room when we’re sat three inches behind our face.

It was a pinnacle moment for Simone and I to recognise this in ourselves a few years ago, and since we’ve been on a journey of witnessing and mapping our minds. It’s a journey we have ascended on together - maybe the true journey of this trip rather than our route through Europe.

It’s allowed ourselves to learn the true versions of each other, and ourselves. It’s allowed us to dissolve a lot of past pain which had falsely attached itself to us. And as we progress further, it’s allowing us to be the truest versions of ourselves. It’s been an incredibly strengthening ongoing process for our relationship.

Throughout this trip, we’ve had the time and space to witness this tug-of-war within ourselves, and in the outside world.

As we’ve been standing back from society, it’s clear to see an intensification of separation seemingly to breaking point right now. In almost every country we passed through, there was civil unrest - the yellow jacket violence in France over Christmas, Catalonian protests in Barcelona. Then of course, we had the shadow of Brexit following us with our ‘GB’ sticker all throughout Europe.

We experienced first had the extremes of what the ego can do. The following situation is an example of something I’ve come to call being in ‘egos house’ - finding ourselves inescapably trapped in the very real grip of the phantom self. I wrote this journal entry as I sat in a police station in Faro waiting to give a statement after we were attacked.

20th April 2019

Last night we were attacked by a bouncer and spent the night in a hospital which was just as bad as the situation. We went to a gay club with Luke which had a card system where you pay at the end that was confusing. We tried buying our drinks at the bar unsuccessfully but it acted like a tab, which you pay at the end. We weren’t there long and bought 3 or 4 beers between us. At the end of the night, when we stood outside the club without being asked for money, we saw some scooters and just took the opportunity to leave - which was wrong. But then we were chased by the bouncer down the street like a dog, unknowingly until suddenly he kicked the scooter from under our feet and then started wrestling Simone, by the neck. Luke who was ahead of us stopped and saw what was happening so headed in our direction. As he calmly approached the bouncer, all I saw was him getting hit with a loud bang and dropping to the floor.

He was unconscious even before he hit the ground. As we tried to revive him our hands were covered in blood. It was so scary. For a moment we thought he was dead. He thankfully started to come around but was so confused and didn’t know he was in Portugal or what had happened. Simone went back to the bouncer to show him the blood on her hands and what he had done. She tried taking a video and he kicked the phone out of her hands and tried smashing it on the floor. He told people watching that they are to say they ‘didn’t see anything’.

An ambulance was called - who seemed to have a problem with Simone for no reason (a theme which developed throughout the night) and wouldn’t let her be the ‘one person in the ambulance’ so she had to walk to the hospital with a guy who witnessed the situation. The paramedic’s way to calm down Luke’s breathing was to aggressively cover his mouth with his hand. The hospital ‘care’ we received was unbelievable. It was one ego after the other. Everyone was so hostile and so unhelpful to Luke. No one gave us any information and got angry when we asked. A crazy security woman turned on Simone and then me meaning neither of us could be with Luke, as he sat alone in a hostile hospital room. She was saying ‘she said the bouncer hit her... I don’t believe her. She is so rude...’. We got the vibe all the doctors felt as if he deserved it. As if we were drunk tourists and had it coming. After 4 hours of lack of help, Luke aggressively having his head shaved and being given stitches with no warning or proper anaesthetic, Luke was shook from the bed he had to beg for and told ‘go.’

There were moments, especially for Simone, where all the problems in the world seemed to reveal themselves. ‘I love the earth but I hate this world’ Simone said in her silent rage. The apathetic receptionist, crazy security lady, clueless paramedics, rude doctors - all playing to their roles completely - just like the bouncer. Squeezing every ounce of authority - mirroring out every cell of their pain and letting it loose so quickly. All to the subtitled silent television screen showing how to put plastic coverings on sofas. What in the world?! Here lies our purpose and what we need to change. We got a taste of bitter unfairness fuelled by ego. And the extreme suffering it can create. We are still in Europe - and have now seen the corrupt elements of Portugal - but imagine what it’s like elsewhere in the world.

…Some good news, the police know the bouncer because he has done something similar before. Literally just showed me a picture of his face, so I think this f**ker is going down.

In all of this, I’ve been so impressed and proud of Luke and Simone. Luke never complained or got angry. He kept smiling the whole time. We are already laughing about it even though he’s bloody and stitched up and had his hair shaved - he’s still not letting it get to him. That kind of resilience and positivity in the face of hostility shows real strength and I am proud to call him my friend. Simone also did so well in containing her anger and retaining patience in the face of poisonous venom towards her. The egos are the weak ones.

After the above situation happened I made it clear in myself that ending ego separation is a mission for me, by shining a light on it.

Throughout our trip I have embarked on an almost constant ego-analysis (in people we meet, films we watch, our own interactions) and have come to believe it is the core cause of human hurt. Beneath the layers, it is always ego at the source of war - against nature, against others, against self. If you look deep enough, it is always there.

And It’s always the same possessor - regardless of language, situation, time and place - even within myself or Simone.

8th March

We were both in our egos today. At one point we both let it out at a moment when another woman’s ego was out. It so happened that she was in a position of authority and exerted that. It was a simple situation, we didn’t realise we needed a ticket to get into the castle, she imposed her authority rudely. ‘You need to respect us’. ‘No’. And we walked away.

It’s a bitter thing, ego. Recognising it is powerful but it doesn’t mean it stops being there. It’s ready to pounce at any moment of weakness.

It’s holding us back from feeling connected to the world around us, and therefore it’s holding us back from feeling truly alive.

All it takes is for us to recognise it in ourselves, and already it loses power. Eventually, as we catch it out more often, it becomes weaker under the strengthening of our true selves. We no longer live in a constant separation from each other, nature and ourselves. We reconnect and evolve. Van life provided Simone and I with an opportunity just to witness for a while.

26th May 2019

I am returning with a sense of life mission. It’s been an inescapable theme of my life, and significantly over the past two years: ego separation. The recognition of which sparked me to switch paths two years ago. It explained all the moments in my life when I couldn’t recognise who I was anymore: my childhood tantrums, arguments with Simone, the pain around music. As well as in myself, it explained the core problem of much pain in the world. I began to look out at the world through that lens and was able to find ego separation at the core of every problem. Poverty, inequality, mistreatment of animals and the earth. It’s all down to a disconnection from the real self. And in separation, an inability to see yourself in the other.

This recognition unravelled my world forever. The past two years I have been on a journey of delving into it. It’s been a constant theme of this trip: recognising ego in myself and in our relationship. In interactions with strangers and on TV programmes. In world events. In everything. I’ve been trying to understand how it works, and recognising the same face in everything. As if ego is one identity, and connectedness is another.

Love

It feels like a hippie stereotype, but it’s undeniably true. Since living in a van, the greatest evolution for us has been love. For each other, for ourselves and for the earth.

More than anything, this has been the ultimate loved-up road trip for me and Simone. We got engaged last year and our journey has acted as a pre-marriage honeymoon ever since.

Beyond the deep lessons we’ve gained, and the spiritual introspections, beyond the beautiful places we’ve seen and people we’ve met - we’ve just been in a bubble of love all this time.

11th February 2019

Spent this morning utterly in love with Simone. Like a warm fuzzy bath I feel wrapped up in love and affection almost all the time. It’s magical and I keep reminding myself that this love is the most important element of our van life. Our first year being engaged in the most wonderful way.

26th February 2019

I just witnessed the most amazing sunset I think I’ve ever seen. Firstly I was getting my haircut on the edge of a cliff (which Simone did very well!!!) and it was a sunset where, after the sun had gone, the sky was on fire, burning evermore intensely. I had a moment of realising, that here I have true happiness. Ultimate freedom. I have the best life in the world.

The slow mornings with breakfast in bed, swinging the door open on the top of a cliff overlooking white sandy beaches and talking about our dreams while sipping coffee. The deep late night chats, and some of the crazy situations we’ve found ourselves in – and always got ourselves out of together. We knew we were signing ourselves up for a risky road when we bought Snail and bet all our money and life choices on her, despite her previous owners calling her ‘Rusty’.

23rd May 2019

We are just about to leave what I would say is one of my favourite park up spots. We are surrounded by small blue butterflies which keep landing on us. I can hear the river, sparking in the bright sun, still with bubbles on its surface from the beautiful waterfall it just travelled down. To charge the water even more, there are hundreds or thousands of dandelion wishes floating down the river. We watched them fall to the surface as we just showered in the water. It felt so cool to be naked and shaving our legs completely alone as the birds sang the most beautiful song, eagles circled overhead and mountains stood proudly surrounding us. The white /grey ground beneath snails wheels is reminiscent of an old river bed, rich with minerals which shimmer like glitter. What a magical place. The river was lush green as it reflected the crowd of trees lining it, dipping in their branches where they could, and reflecting back the water, just the way I love. Beautiful small birds are swooping across the rivers breadth, catching flies. One flew directly towards Simone and I for a moment. There are also fish, but we only ever see the ripples where they have just been. For the first time, we watched as the rivers flow carried the ripple downstream with it.

But in hindsight, those crazy moments are my highlights, and it just makes me fall in love with us - me and Simone and Snail.

Some highlight situations:

• There was the time we locked ourselves out of Snail, WITH our key. Sometimes Snail likes to keep herself locked. From the inside, we can burst the door open with a few good kicks in the right spot. But one time we returned from a run to a stubborn Snail. The sight of Snail wobbling side to side as we tried to wrench her open attracted the attention of the other van people in the car park, a group of 6 French men came to the rescue, armed with their tool boxes. After 20 minutes of scratching heads, we eventually managed to remove the side of a front window.

• Then there was the first time I realised Snail decided she didn’t need a key to have her engine running. I remember holding the key in front of my face as my jaw hit the floor while Snail’s engine was still chugging along. We’ve then had to learn the process of how Snail likes to operate - which she likes to change often just to keep us on our toes. We’ve learned in times the key doesn’t turn the ignition off, she has to be in reverse, and sometimes even then needs her lights to be turned off for the engine to stop. Snail really has a mind of her own.

• The minor crash we had when Snail lost her ear – then of course the three-week breakdown over Christmas. Then there have been multiple interactions with police, trying to find a middle ground with wild gestures due to lack of shared language.

• Times we’ve had Snail swerving off road, almost flipping over – to the every day duties of Simone swinging her head out of the window as we tried changing lanes on the wrong side of the road.

12th May 2019

We found ourselves in another ridiculous off-road situation with Snail today. As we near the end of the journey, I promised Snail this really is the last time we put her through this. We drove into the Sierra Nevada national park, with a wake of beige dust following us. We’d just been at the hot springs party the night before. It was so hot and we were so hungover. And to make things worse we were confronted with an ultimate canyon road. There easily was a meter drop, or more in places running through the centre of the road. The only way to make it through was to get it between Snail’s wheels. So there we were, Simone walking ahead and guiding the wheels as I anxiously turned the wheel. We were over taken by pedestrians. Yep, pedestrians. But to our defence, they said ‘well done’ when we passed us the second time, as they watched our bumpy decent for much of the road, because of the speed we were going. Just as we thought it was over, there was a grand finale pot hole explosion. With no way back, the only way was through (…the olive trees, Snail was NOT going to make it down that road). So off road we went, with a few branches to the face through the window as I swerved the trees, we made it through.

The night before we were in an equally as bad situation where we had to abandon going up a road as the night descended (and our lack of lights quite literally left us in the dark) because we thought Snail might topple over. Not the first time this has happened. But this time it was worse because the slant was on my side - and my seat isn’t connected to the floor completely on one side so it feels as if my face is pressed to the side window. And then there’s our leaking fuel tank which at one point, as I tried to do a three point turn on the slanted dusty road, accidentally leaving Snail’s handbrake on as I fearfully tried to ensure she doesn’t loose balance, amongst the smell of burning, the passing car who after asking if we were okay, then asked for directions at CLEARLY the best time… Simone was shouting ‘the fuel is SPRAYING out’. My arms were burning from the weight of constant turning of the steering wheel, only for us to park at the bottom of the hill to look up at the silhouettes of other vans who had successfully made it and hear the music diffuse through the air from the top feeling a little defeated.

Looking back it’s hard to believe the places Snail has taken us. Through snowstorms in the Pyrenees mountains, to insanely steep, swerving mountain roads.

7th May 2019

We just had a scary moment going up a small but extremely steep and curving road where there was a few seconds at the crest of the peak where we were either going to roll backwards, or make it through. I felt a flash of fire rush through my blood. I think its adrenaline but also fear. We made it.

4th May 2019

A bus just backed into us and woke us up. Snail is fine.

I like to take a moment to show my love for Snail.

19th May 2019

When I look at Snail I am proud. Proud to call this rusty box which so many judge our home. She represents freedom, courage and love. An ode to the slow, simple things. Our first home and forever a part of our lives. In a few weeks she will belong to someone new. In the grand scheme, it’s likely we’ve actually owned snail the shortest time of them all. But Snail will always be Snail to us.

Then there’s love for ourselves. It’s an unusual concept, self-love. But probably the most healing and transformational practice to do. We spend so much time giving love outwards, without channelling it back in. Throughout the journey, we’ve learned to boomerang love - and felt ourselves blossom.

5th April 2019

We had a life defining happy moment on the beach where I likened Simone to a tree growing out of a mountain. Life spurting against all odds. Showing what is possible when life is given love — it blossoms and comes into itself.

But the most important love we’ve found, is for the earth. Since hitting the road, we’ve been paying all our attention to nature as it’s been our doorstep these past 8 months - and we’ve fallen head over heels - and it’s impossible to un-fall. Here I have found a mission - the ultimate souvenir I will be taking away from van life.

28th March 2019

We watched a beautiful wild bunny from bed today. We swung open the doors to a deep blue ocean on the top of a cliff. It didn’t know we were watching. Then there was the stalk nest where I watched a perfect sunset yesterday, where she still sat today on our run. It represented the freedom and connection with nature I so cherish on this journey.

Here’s my souvenir: I’ve come to understand that we’ve been existing in a state of ‘mother earth’ for too long, from whom we naively expect attention, care and resources - as if it’s owed to us.

It’s time to transition to ‘lover earth’. We cannot hurt what we love. When we care, we can do no harm.

It’s the way to heal ego separation, the consumerism problem, the ecological crisis - everything we have learned from this journey - is love. The revolution is love.

28th May

As I stare across a grey ocean, where just across the water is England, I am trying to go into the weird feeling I have right now. This is the end of the trip. But not only that, the end of an era of living in the beautiful world Simone and I have created for ourselves and have been existing in for the past 8 months.

I feel emotional about the discrepancy between this world, and the ‘real world’ I am about to return to. But I’m also so thankful to feel this ache, because it represents an unshakeable purpose which I will carry with me for my life - to strive for the world we have glimpsed at to be the ‘real world’. Where time is valued over money, nature is part of us, not separate and exploitable, material things aren’t needed to strengthen identity, and the earth is so, so alive and sacred, as are we - we only need the eyes to see it. If this mission is not an ultimate souvenir to be taking back from this, I don’t know what is

LOVE,

Becky and Simone.