For four years we have lived on a self built and retrofitted, mobile demonstration of sustainability.
A former mountain transit bus transformed into a live/work space powered with waste vegetable oil, solar energy, composting, rainwater harvesting
and space to implement an artistic practice, a homeschooling curriculum, and to rest and nourish tired bodies.
This is a slow protest, realistic demonstration of off grid living and is aimed to be a catalyst to inspire social change.
I feel that it has been so long since I have written a good in depth post and that time has passed so quickly that a good retrospective is in order. I have finally taken some steps back away from our lives on the road and considered the people we have met and the stories we have:
I’ll pick up from Flagstaff last November. We were running from L.A., deciding that relocating in that city was not a brilliant idea. We were chasing some WVO down for our bus. We called some numbers we saw on the collection tanks behind some restaurants and finally, somehow came across this man:
It was very cold, there was snow on the ground and he (Steve) told us some places he had not collected that we could fill up, however these places were empty. It is always a restaurant tour when looking for WVO. So, he invited us to come to his refinery and pick some oil up. It was very dark, Nando pumped about 10 or 15 gallons of WVO, which was all Steve had, then we had a long conversation about reclaiming life, living off the grid, away from corrupt lifestyles and politics. Then as a gesture he slipped Nando $100 to buy some diesel. How generous, how unexpected.
My general impression of the States on our way across was great poverty fueled by fear and repression of truth through cultural rituals of consumer culture and media indoctrination. The poverty was cultural, spiritual and lifestyle effect. It was if this country is living with a vision of wealth, a sort of American mythology, the typical Hollywood interpretation of this country, yet the reality is, you can not live that life, because you all have crippling debt, spend more money on material objects then the food you put in your body and pray for someone to fix it all for you.
But this guy in Flagstaff, traditional as an original settler, a sort of frontiersman, portrayed the real American values, a renegade blended in with the norm. His consciousness heighted with his own awareness and dislocation from popular culture. He had his WVO business and a real presence of engaging with truth and interpreting reality.
Our next stop was to visit our dear friend Marcus Abel in a little place called Carrizozo NM. Before we got there we decided to stop and visit the petrified National Forest, which was a bit strange. We had previously bought an annual National Park Pass for $80, when we got the law called on us for emergency “camping” at Rocky Mountain National Park. So we thought we would take advantage of the pass to enter the park. As you approach there were fields of petrified trees in pieces, layer out like tomb stones in folks’ yards and then there was a visitor center that we thought was the entrance of the park. Nando ran in, asked if it was the entrance and as he left, he was given a free piece of petrified wood stapled to a business card. As we approached the real National Park entrance we were stopped by a ranger to ask if we had any petrified wood, we said yes, before any explanation, the ranger asked in a monotonus tone of voice if it was the piece on a card from the Visitor Center, we said yes. Then he smiled and nodded and let us pass. This happened again in the same robotic fashion as we exited the park. The park was a little depressing, the museum was sort of neat with its taxidermy animals set in their mock environments, I love things like that, except maybe the animals should all be wearing suits and ties and playing with iPhones in a court room. My creative ideas aside, they had an incredibly intact pre dinosaur skeleton which captured Luciano, also they had a nice map of what the continents looked like when the forest was flooded with volcanic ash and then cooled by sea water to petrify the trees. I always find continental drift such an important part of understanding history and how things happened. I would love to see an entire evolution of the world timeline along side continental drift detailed. We walked the park; it was cold and semi unmemorable.
Yes, Carrizozo. As we drove through the flat arid dessert, I dreamed of a wild oceanic place with giant sea monsters, then giant lizards then the dinosaurs. I considered how land becomes desert, how little nutrients seem to be in the land, how course and dry the plants that manage to live here are, how rigid even the texture of the skin of the animals are. How remarkably hot in the day and extremely cool at night. The desert, so much like the vastness of my heart and spirituality, a mystery unto itself and completely rejecting contemporary culture and claiming its own by eliminating the opportunities for just any organism to survive, these organisms must be extraordinary to maintain a life here. And what better of a blank canvas to ask for to have your visions come to fruition, to dance naked, intoxicated with the fruits of the desert. As this was going through my mind the full moon rose as if it had been lit on fire by the sun. As if the sun shot it with a flare of light so strong that the moon, after so many long years of rejecting the sun’s kiss had finally allowed itself to indulge in its romance. If ever there was a night to howl at the moon, tonight was the night.
And Carrizozo? This place was not even a pin mark on our map; the town is surreal and full of eccentricities. We arrived late at night; we met Marcus and his daughter with visions of our breath against the stars. He invited us into his live workspace, which looks like an old storefront. The front part of his studio was small black and white tiled floors with paintings in progress against the walls, amongst pieces of aged wood and strange metal bits from various machines and functions. Beyond this space enter their live space, fitted with a nice wood burning stove, full bath, kitchen and organized simplicity. We sat and discussed our travels, as he and his daughter had also recently completed their travels in a VW van painted with the same energy as their free spirits. They had amazingly come across Carrizozo and decided to come back to it. His daughter had found a place for her to learn the things she wanted and he the solitude to concentrate and work. The filming of some film like the Book of Eli uplifted the façade of the town? The rest of the town was in disrepair with rusted corrugated metal coated with bright New Mexico colors. There were ceramic donkeys placed amongst the town, all individually created and different from each other. It was sort of the town theme, I suppose.
Surprisingly there were some cool, as in hip, as in alright, artists who have taken the town as their own and despite the cold and isolation, Carrizozo proved to be a sweet little hide away from the world. We met the locals, who all had incredible lives, Columbia graduates, successful artists, stage productions, writers, and beautiful artists. We got toured around their lives and wished we could have stayed longer to embrace the small growing community, but had a date with Miami film production. Our last day we walked over to a little café that was rated highly by the locals. As we walked in the tables, chairs and décor was from 1950’s and so was the waitress’s hairdo, except it was more feminist. As we waited for our organic lunches, I looked on their bookshelf to find a book called The Simian People or 7 dimensional light people and guide to …..I’m sure someone can research it, as I’m currently at the Florida Georgia boarder, sweating in a pine forest near the Okeefonokee Swamp with no Internet. That beside, the book was written by this woman who claimed to be able to channel these perhaps enlightened and transcended being from maybe a specific place in the cosmos and that you too could heed their advice. I found this very interesting and later found that more of this would fall on my lap or at least my research into some greater spirituality and cosmic usage ;) .
We did our laundry from the back door of dear Marcus’ studio and saw some real local culture, enjoyed a dinner with the artistic community and excused ourselves from exiting so soon. On the road we drove with great time and good rhythm, until we said, where is Gorda (our cat)? So back to Carrizozo. We joked about what everyone had constantly said, “you never leave Carrizozo” and so it was true. Back to Marcus’ and a whistle to Gorda and away we went. Finally.
When Nando and I had first met each other we traveled in a little Mazada across the country to Burning Man and a general romantic tour, I was about 4 months prego and we stopped to see my Dad who was at the moment living in Texas. We drove through Texas and got pulled over a few times for no reason other then Nando being of the complexion of a Mexican. And what was even more particular is that the cops would come to my side of the car and ask if everything was okay. I would shake my head in disappointment, get really boiled blood and want to become a civil rights attorney and bring those small minded, racist, hypocrites down. But then that would be my life and that would just be negativity daily, with little life time accomplishment as this is a deep corruption in the world. So, no tickets, no warnings, no speeding violations, each of these Caucasian cops would let us go and nothing more. Hmm?
Pyramid Lake is a sacred place for the natives, it is strictly for natives, but when we inquired to some natives as to the whereabouts of this mystery place, they led us right in. No one was there, we were so dusty we stripped and swam in the clear volcanic waters like a private ceremony just for us.
So while we were traveling in the bus we decided to avoid Texas at all costs. We swooped around to visit some of Nando’s forgotten relatives. Cousins that he grew up with in Colombia are now living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. We had a nice time visiting, ate some Colombian infused food, sang anti consumer culture songs and I found out that all of Nando’s relatives call him Chino. Which I thought was funny and must remember for future addresses. I was so surprised that after two nights of parking in Caligula's suburban neighborhood, that not one of his neighbors complained about the bus, at least not while we were there. On other occasions we had cops come within a few hours or neighbors complaining directly, which is always nicer then a secret call to the police. Another visit that we wished could have been a little longer, but Miami was calling, the season was cooking and production was in motion.
Singing our anti-consumer song in OK
Out of OK we ran into some bad traffic, we looked behind us and saw nothing but trucks for miles, we have noticed this on the road but never so compacted as this instance.
Nothing but trucks for miles!
The rest of the journey was so quick, soon we were in Miami, parked at the warehouse where Luciano was conceived, working away and beginning our winter meeting our new friends and life.
On the road I had coincidentally received a text from a midwife friend who had told me that there was a waldorf inspired school happening at the Farm in Little Haiti, I was gobsmacked, as this is exactly the thing that made us want to stay in Denver and Portland. This is what we were looking for in a community that we would want to grow our roots and raise our children.
The second day of being in Miami I approached who is now a dear friend, Anna Blash (see her article in MiamiZine at www.artofculturalevolution.org) . I offered my time, money, services, whatever to try to get Luciano involved and she rejected me initially, but soon she came around, called me and asked me to come volunteer. Which soon turned into a lovely intellectual relationship with lots of dialogue about child education and parenting. I felt so charmed and lucky to be apart of this little sprouting waldorf inspired co-op at Miami’s very own urban permaculture farm. It seems like the entire season Nando worked making commercials and hip hop music videos (See his Blog www.artofproduction.blogspot.com)
and I was attending the Farm school, getting to know intimately the children, parents, teachers and the inspired method of relating the three. I spent days and days getting into the rhythm of Waldorf
and Enki education at home. I wrote out an active curriculum for the school, drew patterns for felt crafts, cooked extensive impromptu vegan meals, edited fairy tales and got first hand views of the published Enki curriculum.
Baby Chick
Luciano celebrated his 3rd birthday with his Farm school friends.
The education given at the school might have been missing a little balance, but the experiences given are hard to come by and generally this school offered a great supplement to a real homeschooling curriculum. I have left the school and the parents that I have met eager and excited for my future of homeschooling Luciano and Imogen.
Field trip to Monkey Jungle
Everyone from the school at Monkey Jungle
Banana Spider at Glaser Farms
Glaser Farms
A Silver Back at Monkey Jungle who was a rescue from a circus who took all his teeth out :(
Circle Time
Friday Field Trip
Luciano's brother Felipe
But slowly, as anything else that is new , the school became conflicted with its operations, commitments, time invested. The underlying energy seemed to diffuse and now I believe the school might be closed for the new school year. However, Luciano made some good friends whom he loves and speaks about often even today.
Luciano's birthday at the Miami Zoo
When we returned it was so refreshing to see all of our friends and celebrate birthdays, holidays, general days and have conversations and a familiarity that is invaluable. To work and develop projects together. At the warehouse, our Italian friends had shipped over tons of white carrera marble from Itlay. They were making Art Basel preparations to exhibit a completed marble piece designed and fabricated by Tiziano, pictured below.
El Dia De Las Velitas
Salvidor
Buena Vista Birthday Treats for Heather and Sammy's 8th Birthday Flamingo Park Miami Beach
Thanksgiving Day nap, Imogen styled by Cinzia 100% Italia
Pedro's BBQs
Cinzia
Heather's T-Day Turkey
My choice for dinner
Valeria and Pedro get married
Scenes from Bus Living Miami
Four little Monkeys....
Full Moon over the Bay
playing post rain
Yes, I often feel like the She-wolf
Our garden at the Yard 261 Ne 73rd Street
His Worm Painting
Jayme @ any night at the warehouse
Fawn, Sammy, Karen, Meli and Lauren watching xmas trees burn on the tracks of Little Haiti.
Burning
Sunflowers coming
Lauren with nudist Buddhist Luci
Crafting
Composting
Team Zissou
Luciano's Third birthday
Sunflowers in our garden
Beach Day with tia Lauren
The start of the garden
Complete
Everyone was hyped for Art Basel, my dearest friend Lauren came from Portland, Nando was doing install jobs and the parties were being planned. It was the usual hype and temporary cultural inoculation that comes to Miami yearly. We got passes for a few shows, attended a few openings and Nando went out partying with the usual crowd.
Art Basel Install @ Emanuel Perrotin Miami
An Art Skeptic
Gallery Diet Basel Week
Wynwood Art Crowd Circus Vendor
A better idea is Sabor a Peru on Biscayne, the ceviche is amazing!
Meanwhile, acquaintances of bus living popped back into town and were being pushed around Miami by the law and we put our necks out to try to squeeze them into our parking situation at the Yard in Little Haiti. And after some technically sweet worded emails, Tom, Sam, Mateo and Harper parked up with us at 261 73rd Street.
Tom and Sam
I think we were all a little dubious, as we had both been burned from previous attempts at communal bus living ideals. But actually this led us to set our boundaries right away and develop a beautiful rhythm and relationship. Mealtimes were shared and alternated, and while one was cooking dinner the other bathed and prepared children for bed, and while one cleaned dishes the others read stories and readied children for sleep. It was a very sweet flow when it was on track, but otherwise it could tend to stress us out if the needs of every child were not met. Just as anything else in life. Sam initiated a coffee addiction for everyone as she took on a job at a very nice coffee shop in Wynwood (Panther). We experimented with dinner plans, schedules, art ideas, activities, zine making, kimchi, kombucha, sewing, wood tossing, fly breeding, composting, butterfly hatching, carpooling, car pushing and property acquisitions. Some of these experiments were successful and some not so. I must say after months of Farm school trails, that I had finally found a partner who helped shake it up for me and together we could support each other energetically, emotionally and independently.
Kids on the bus
The interior of the other bus, a MCI
Begin Easter
Easter Party at Shawnee's
Yummy Shawnie's Green Thumb Popcorn
Today Sam and Tom are in Britain visiting Tom’s folks and Nando and I both miss them and wished we could travel somewhere and have a vacation from the struggle against the Miami heat, jobs, money making and habitual chores.
Too much work!
Mateo
All the kids playing as usual
Butterfly World for Harper's big 3
Is that Nando?
A casino's rainwater collection system
Philathrofest pre-party at wynwood walls, asleep before the party began.
Tom's birthday speech with booby cakes.
Kite flying Orlando @ my dads
Some runaways
Panther has the best Popsicles, think this one was basel
Beach days
lauren impersonator
A quick trip to Nando's sisters (saltwater) pool for Mother's Day
MOCA opening
Dad's shoes already
We participated in many events during the last six months in Miami. The non-profit was invited for a community day in El Portal, where Nando and I served his famous Colombian beans, brown rice, tostones and mixed green salad. Post that event we produced a Zine for Philanthrofest that took place in the green space in Midtown. We also conducted a series of interviews that we have been collecting all over the country, trying to edit together a real taste of contemporary American Culture. We also put together a great project proposal for a Sustaibale Urban Arts Center and are pushing forward with the project and collaborating with the City of Miami. Which is very exciting.
Meanwhile, our friend, neighbor, fellow eco bus liver and temporary parenting partner runs Artlurker and launched his Knight Arts Foundation funded Miami's Writers Prize at Locust Projects. It's great to see things happening and growing. We will be partnering with Tom and Sam in our future initiatives.
Currently we have been visiting my family in North Florida near the Georgia boarder in a town called Macclenny, if anyone is interested I have posted about Macclenny in another post, which can be seen here: We arrived post my grandparents having some health issues that resulted in my grandmother having a few bypasses in her heart and my grandfather stressing out and being admitted to the ER. So our arrival was a little dubious and all of my immediate family seemed to be carrying a great deal of stress on their shoulders, including my mother. We considered leaving the day after we arrived, but didn't want to disappoint or offend and as Kurt Vonnegut mocked in his book Breakfast of Champions, we often accept bad ideas for the sake of being nice.
The problem is, that I always romanticize what our visits to my childhood home might be like. I imagine chickens running around, herbs and flowers, fresh vegetables, and a world of natural exploration for my children beaming with life and fertility. But the reality is that even in poverty no one utilizes the land any more. It is manicured and pest controlled, its feared and moaned at. Nando and I always dream of a piece of land like this one, with turtles and ducks in the ponds, food gardens, fruit trees, fowl, fresh eggs, a tree house for the kids with a bridge to a little fort where the kids could play out stories and bless the land with their enchantments.
But this will never happen here, something has been taken away, as I wrote in the introduction to the Zine we published in Miami this Spring, " Most people rarely enjoy life with a deep enthusiasm or joy for the ordinary day-today things. People seem to have lost a love for themselves or perhaps the world around them, No longer is pride found in the creation of a beautiful homemade meal, it is held much higher to buy." And from this quote I am reminded that the reason that most of America buys food if because they are constantly working and they are constantly working to pay off debt for the things they bought to make themselves feel better about working a job they hate, and they do these things because the TV and media said this was normal. It is a perpetuating spiral of creating the walking dead, or as Alison Gresik mentions in her writing Walking Depression.
I suppose when you live in real America who is so culturally undernourished it is hard to understand when you see someone who is attempting to liberate themselves and their children from these restraints. I now know that when impoverished minds see the unconventional they react with fear, run a few labels through their minds and for us it is usually one of the following: gypsies, hippies, deadheads, bums, on the other side when we meet some like minded contemporaries they understand us, get excited about meeting us and we recognize these people by the time they spend with us, the questions they ask and the hospitality they offer. Bus living is difficult and a real science. We built our home with our hands, totally from scratch, developed systems for our utilities and waste that would be sustainable, ecologically conscious and safe. We studied through trial and error, we have become experts on things like human waste, drinking water, household toxins, WVO collection, diesel engines, rigging among other topics and situational encounters that involve being solved with our own two hands.
Its funny that anyone would see our family and our adventures and feel sorry for us and say something like: “Well, I hope you can afford a house one day.” And in my mind I want to say, I hope you can too, as I imagine most of Americans don’t own their homes, they own mortgages with a lender who owns their home. I feel so adamant about this "real wealth" ideal, real wealth being time with your family, eating real non gmo, pesticide, hormone free foods, seeing the Earth and enjoying life with deep breaths and joy. My adamancy with this ideal has even prevented me from attending the MFA program in San Francisco. I refuse to get on board with any of these political financial institutions making everyone so poor and those deceptive politicians, corporate CEOs and lobbyists so rich. I rather take it into my own hands, keep our projects going and pursuing an authentic life. That is what gets me excited, pursuing the truth, rejecting the fear and going forward with a spiritual evolution. I wish I could share that energy with my family, I wish I could heal their wounds and make them feel love and joy again. But being here for such an extended period of time as we renovated the bus to build Luciano his own bedroom, has only reaffirmed who I am and reminded me that I have always been the black sheep in my family. I have always pushed the boundaries of their beliefs and see that acceptance, as an adult may be conditional.
This is the worst outcome I would expect for my relationship with my children. I feel so connected with them and I’m constantly trying to improve myself, my ideas, my emotions so as to show them something meaningful, so as to instill a real engagement and not a divide between adult world and child world. My vision is to slightly alter my life in ways to incorporate the children into my life that teaches them to be real people, and as they grow they have their own lives, their own interests with the passion to pursue their curiosities about the world as their parents had demonstrated. This is the real education. Of course at this stage my children are still very young and creative play is their number one job at the moment. But I have already learned so much from my parent friends who have already began to homeschool their children and I’ve seen their mistakes and their successes. Patience and persistence seem to be the key factors to many successes with homeschooling and parenting.
We have created a great space for Luciano in the bus. He has his own loft style room above our bed, where he engages endlessly in his creative play. Although I have noticed a quiet invasion of plastic toys, mostly robots and dinosaurs, which I am dubious about. So much plastic. Before I could simply make the toys disappear, but now there are emotional attachments, but not the mental capacity to understand the reasoning. So they linger with our secret resentment. Nonetheless, it is a nice space for him to operate, dress himself and take on new responsibilities.
Luciano's room complete
First playdate in his room
Two weeks ago Nando received news from Miami that his green card had arrived and that he can now begin the process of applying for citizenship, which means this bus might really become international. We have waited so long for some resolution for his immigration problem and it has finally begun to untangle itself and we have so much relief. Our plans for the immediate future are to head to Earthhaven to visit Patricia Allison, then up to NYC, maybe CT and Maine? We might also get married to aid in the citizenship application. It seems like an energetic hump that we are overcoming by soon will enjoy the other side.
Comment and let me know I have readers. It will power some writing momentum :)
Sunset over suburbia
The Bus emptied, racks down
Full Moon over the field
A tropical storm passed right over us, flooded the Glen Saint Mary River and left a lot of Macclenny near the river, underwater, here we are walking to access the damage near by.
Vero Beach Jacksonville
My aunt and I with our children hunting sharks teeth
The second day of being in Miami I approached who is now a dear friend, Anna Blash (see her article in MiamiZine at www.artofculturalevolution.org) . I offered my time, money, services, whatever to try to get Luciano involved and she rejected me initially, but soon she came around, called me and asked me to come volunteer. Which soon turned into a lovely intellectual relationship with lots of dialogue about child education and parenting. I felt so charmed and lucky to be apart of this little sprouting waldorf inspired co-op at Miami’s very own urban permaculture farm. It seems like the entire season Nando worked making commercials and hip hop music videos (See his Blog www.artofproduction.blogspot.com) 
and I was attending the Farm school, getting to know intimately the children, parents, teachers and the inspired method of relating the three. I spent days and days getting into the rhythm of Waldorf
The second day of being in Miami I approached who is now a dear friend, Anna Blash (see her article in MiamiZine at www.artofculturalevolution.org) . I offered my time, money, services, whatever to try to get Luciano involved and she rejected me initially, but soon she came around, called me and asked me to come volunteer. Which soon turned into a lovely intellectual relationship with lots of dialogue about child education and parenting. I felt so charmed and lucky to be apart of this little sprouting waldorf inspired co-op at Miami’s very own urban permaculture farm. It seems like the entire season Nando worked making commercials and hip hop music videos (See his Blog www.artofproduction.blogspot.com) 
and I was attending the Farm school, getting to know intimately the children, parents, teachers and the inspired method of relating the three. I spent days and days getting into the rhythm of Waldorf
