Austin to Mesa

It’s been a little over a week since Carrie and I left Austin unceremoniously, in a mad rush to empty our house, divide stuff between donation drop-offs, storage, and the truck/camper set-up we’ll be calling home for the next year (++?).

We didn’t say goodbye to the city. I said, “Goodbye, house” as I stood in the empty living room after a final sweep and took a quick photo from the curb, including the “for sale” sign indicating the inevitable tear-down/rebuild our home of two years would be facing. We said goodbye to very few people, even those close to us. The idea of leaving Austin for nowhere in particular, however exciting, made it hard to believe it was happening, which — as a terrible excuse — I blame for not being better about telling friends and loved ones we were leaving. I’ve been doing the Irish goodbye years before I knew the term. Plus, we’ll be back in Texas, and definitely through Austin, in the not-too-distant future.

But here we are in Mesa, AZ, parked in a nice, shady spot at Carrie’s parents’ place, backed in courtesy of a recently installed wide gate, powered and cool courtesy of a 30-amp power outlet, both installed for visiting RVers and conveniently in time for our month-long visit. Her parents are so good to us. We’re getting to know and slowly but steadily organizing our small home. The smaller the space, the more time and work it takes to organize. Sounds ridiculous but it’s true.

I’m making music plans and figuring out what this year will mean for shows and songwriting (good things, I feel). I’m thinking about how much of the country Carrie and I will see in the next year; all the family and friends we’ll visit (We’re visiting! This is happening right now!); the bizarre and beautiful WaterFire event in Providence, RI; fall in the south and visiting Asheville, NC, Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s stomping grounds; reuniting with Arkansas Black apples, the best apple in the world.

After the incredible pace of the previous weeks, the exciting, anxiety-inducing uncertainty of completely changing the geography of my life, I think I’m finally getting to the point where I’m thinking straight and seeing clearly, with my mind going at a normal-ish pace and my footing steadier than it’s been in years. Instead of planning for this, I’m living it. This is what’s next. Next is here.

Take a deep breath, buddy.

Big news, people

Carrie, the dogs and I are leaving Texas for Arizona. Then Arizona for New Mexico. Then, after a string of states along a route we haven’t quite mapped out, New Mexico for Rhode Island. We’re hitting the road and going full-time mobile in an Airstream travel trailer. We’ve been talking about it and planning for years and we’re finally in a position where we’ve happily accepted that the reasons to do it outweigh the reasons not to.

We love calling Texas home, but we want to see our families more and we want to see more of the country. Our families are spread out from Arizona to Rhode Island; although that makes getting us all together in one place kinda tricky, it gives us extra incentive to take to the road and visit them and the places they’ve all chosen to live.

Professionally, Carrie and I are extremely fortunate in that we can work from anywhere in the world as long as we have an internet connection. The fact that we both landed remote jobs when we left Las Vegas helped our decision to go full-time digital nomad (although we discussed it long before that), and my move to more in-depth web development helps expand those options. Carrie is highly valued at her company (and rightly so, because she is ridiculously talented), and her boss has a lot of well-placed trust that she’ll continue to prove that wherever she is.

RBK is still mostly a solo project, and my sometime bandmates all live in places we plan to spend some time. Maybe this also means I can constantly be on tour, although with us staying in one place from one to three months it’ll be a very slow-paced tour. In addition to shrinking down our possessions in general (it’s so easy to accumulate stuff; I’m so, so tired of moving hundreds of pounds of books around), I’m working on shrinking my instrument collection down — and in some cases (like my parlour guitar, mini drum set, and microKorg+) shrinking my actual instruments.

So, come the end of April/early May we’ll be pulling up stakes and hitting the road toward smaller living and bigger driving. Hopefully we’ll see you out on the road, or at least on the internet.