UNSETTLING AND RESETTLING

Note: We are working hard on writing up the details of our bus conversion process so far, but we have to squeeze that in between everything else we are doing. Please don’t give up on us, though, we promise we will post exhaustive information about our bus before it is finished! 


Eric was abruptly laid off from his job at the Moosomin hospital complex in February, due to a lack of work. We thought his job was guaranteed until June or later, but all good things apparently do come to an end. And so we entered the month of March, flitting like spring birds from one possibility to another. 

Eric picked up three weeks of contract work at the hospital, which padded our bank account enough for the next two income-less months (we had to fix our truck AGAIN). Actually, we wouldn’t have made it that far without an unexpected inheritance from Eric’s Grandpa and parents – thank you, thank you, and thank you again! 


To move or not to move

Despite the lack of money, getting cut loose from this tie to small-town Saskatchewan freed us, at least for a few weeks, to once again explore our options. We discussed going North, finding high-paying jobs, and storing up cash for the bus. We discussed borrowing money from the bank to blitz the bus project and drive away by mid-summer. We discussed, debated, deliberated. 

One option we pursued was moving to Brandon, Manitoba’s second largest city, population about 40,000, where Eric could easily get another job. Brandon is about a 75-minute drive from the farm, so we could still work on the bus on certain weekends. We imagined ourselves finally enjoying the advantages of city living – cheaper groceries, no more driving hours to find certain goods or services, improved likelihood of finding like-minded groups. 

On a whim, Eric e-mailed a Brandon contractor who had posted a job opening online and on Friday, March 14, we drove into the city for his interview. The meeting went well, but a job wasn’t guaranteed. We would have to wait until they checked his references. However, we were warned that the housing market in Brandon was pretty tight – apartments would be rented the day after they were listed. So, anticipating a job offer, we grabbed a newspaper and started phoning. We didn’t have much luck that evening and realized we would have to return to Brandon on Saturday if we wanted to secure a place for April 1. 

Saturday was a whirlwind of house hunting. We looked at ten places (if our memories are reliable) and two other places we planned on seeing ended up being rented before we got to them. Prices ranged from $450 plus utilities to $700 including utilities for one- and two-bedroom suites. Many places were serious botched renos. 


Hmmm, do we really want to live here?

One house in particular looked like a beautiful two-storey character home on the outside. But the inside wasn’t impressive. I peeked around the curtain of the bathroom window only to see boards slapped over the outside of the window, which originally looked onto an attached sunroom/porch. This porch was now the entrance for the person living in the upstairs suite. 

A window in the kitchen was also boarded up, apparently because it looked at a fence. The bottom half of a living room window was blocked up with a massive air conditioning unit. And did we mention the flooring? Lino/vinyl covered the kitchen floor, which led to the probably original hardwood of the living room, which led to a random strip of carpet, which led to another type of lino/vinyl in the bathroom. 

After touring this main floor, we began to wonder where the two bedrooms were located. And so the owner walked us back down the stairs to the entrance (at ground level), then down another flight of stairs, which melted away into a dark cavern. The basement ceiling was a good five feet and eight inches from the floor. Only one of the “bedrooms” had a window, and this was a teeny rectangle looking out onto that fence mentioned previously. Even the owner realized that Eric, at almost six feet and four inches, wouldn’t be able to live down there. Quite frankly, I can’t imagine anyone living down there, even super short people. Besides the basement’s dungeon-like feel, can you imagine having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night by crouching out into the hallway, running up the stairs, passing the entrance door and making a right-hand turn to go up the other stairs, zipping through the kitchen, rounding the corner into the living room, speeding across the random carpet, and finally reaching the toilet? No, me neither. 

A separate encounter that day confirmed our toothless landlord theory. We developed this theory in our search for a place in St. Paul, Alberta, but looking back realized it applied to our previous house hunts in southern Alberta as well. We feel that the landlord’s teeth have a direct link to the state of the apartment. Not that one causes the other, no. Just that a gappy grin often signals a deficiency in the flat. The more spaces in the smile, the less desirable the room will be. 

This particular place was a massive house that seemed to have been partitioned into at least six suites. A woman (minus one or two teeth) met us outside the building and walked us through a foyer marked with a series of black mailboxes spilling their postal guts. A bearded man followed us inside – we suspected he was a tenant. The woman unlocked a door and we followed her straight up a steep unlit staircase. Had light not been coming through the doorway at the bottom of the stairs as the silent bearded man held it open long enough for himself to somewhat creepily follow us, we may not have seen the narrow steps making a left-hand turn. This suite also had a low ceiling – Eric’s hair brushed against it as he walked. At some point, the woman offhandedly commented that the man behind us was her husband (his facial hair hid his toothiness). Whew – not some guy randomly following us into the claustrophobic suite. A light dangling in the middle of the kitchen bumped against Eric’s head before he noticed it. In the living room, the ceiling dropped down toward the windows, so even I, at 5’6”, could just barely see out the top edge of the window without bending my neck. Oddly, the bathroom was two steps higher than the rest of the suite. We crumpled up the rental agreement the moment we were back in our truck. 

We finally found a place that had more positives than negatives. The outside had a beautiful brick finish and a front veranda extending the width of the house. Inside, the house did not live up to its exterior character persona, but not because of a bad reno, more because of bad decorating. It had two bedrooms, a generous living room, and a backdoor that opened onto a yard, which, we were told, none of the other renters used. However, the kitchen had carpeting (!), the second bedroom had hideous blue and purple flowery wallpaper, and the living room was covered in ‘70s veneer wood wall panelling (you know, that stuff in your parents’ basement) topped with a stick-on border of some pink design. But it had a coin laundry in the basement and the rent was only $625 plus electricity. Without meeting the landlady, we signed over a cheque for the damage deposit. If we were going to live in Brandon, this was definitely the best place we could find. 


Still not feeling it

Over the next week, we continued to feel rushed in our decision to move to Brandon. Eric did get a sort of job offer from the contractors he had met with, but they didn’t want him to start until May 1. What would we do for the month of April? And how would we afford this move? I couldn’t bring myself to start packing. Something didn’t feel right. While the idea of living in Brandon was attractive, the reality of packing/moving/connecting utilities/changing our address/being further away from the bus was not so appealing. I kept telling myself that logically, moving to Brandon made sense. Eric would start at $25/hour with the potential for making more if he became a foreman. But he would be working 10-12 hour days, six days a week. Not only did that leave little time for the bus (our REASON for being here), it left little time for me! However, I would be more likely to find writer’s groups, or yoga classes, or casual work related to writing/editing, or interesting courses at the university. But despite all the logic, I didn’t feel good about the move. Perhaps my HSP senses were finally kicking in. 

After a lengthy discussion on Easter Sunday, in between Eric tearing our truck apart and putting it back together, we decided to stay in Moosomin. We realized that not moving would save us a lot of money and a lot of time (we’ve found that the hassle of packing and unpacking and setting up house can cost us two to three weeks of feeling unsettled and disorganized). We both preferred the flexibility, freedom, and much greater earning power that would come with Eric being his own boss by running a contracting business. And we knew that staying in Moosomin would keep us connected to our bus – our sole purpose for being in this place and time. 

A quick phone call to our current landlord got us our apartment back (if we ever lost it in the first place). An unpleasant phone call with our no-longer-future landlady reassured us that we made the right choice in not moving. 



Setting up shop 

With our commitment to the bus firmly renewed, Eric started jumping the hoops necessary to establish his business Waalnut Construction – name registration, business cards, phone, insurance, vehicle, tools, networking, job quoting, creating a bank account, organizing paperwork, and so on. He, or rather his business, spent about $4,000 on a three-day whirlwind trip to Winnipeg for some specialized tools and a work van. 

Now this G-20 Chevy van wasn’t designed to be a work van. It was one of those travellin’ mobiles; a converted full-size van that was popular in the ‘80s before the minivan came along. And this ride came with all the trimmings, like shades, mood lighting, a bench seat that folded into a bed, a TV, two cassette decks, and, the sweetest of all, two hardly used bucket seats that swiveled, reclined, and came with seatbelts. Before our trip into Winnipeg, we researched the feasibility of picking up a pair of matching seats for our bus from a wrecker. We knew the company Flexsteel specifically made furniture for RVs, but buying direct from them would cost a fortune. Seats from a wrecker, however, were also pricey at $600 or more a pair. So when I opened the side door of this van and saw “FLEXSTEEL” imprinted on the armrests of the bucket seats, I knew Eric had to buy this van. 

It did seem unfortunate that Eric took out the rear seats and ripped out the carpet of this traveller-mobile and filled it with dirty, dusty tools, but it was all done in the name of the bus. 

Eric found a few days in April to work on that somewhat disfigured (at the moment) vehicle. With the hours he cobbled together between business stuff, Eric managed to tackle some little things, like organizing the bird’s-nest of wiring in the front compartment, and moving the dining room window frame, and bracing the bus frame for the living room slideout. We also made up a tentative priority list of tasks to accomplish on the bus. Although we were somewhat daunted to see the reality of the massive workload in front of us, we were also encouraged to see the individual steps we needed to take to create that reality. 

With my random attempts at freelancing for magazines not having a high success rate, I decided to hit on the local newspaper. Knowing how swamped community newspapers can get, I decided to offer my services on a contract basis so I would be able to pick and choose when and if I wanted to work. The editor of the Moosomin World Spectator was very open to my proposal and immediately offered me a couple of stories to work on. 


Winter leaps into summer

Toward the end of April, we acquired a cat. That is, we are taking care of Dinah indefinitely while circumstances make it difficult for her transient owners to give her a home. Despite the fine black hair that now floats around our apartment and collects in random places, we are savouring the happiness Dinah brings us with her quirky rituals, cute behaviours, and gentle personality. 

With spring finally showing itself, our apartment has decided to be a sauna. As soon as the thermometer outside breached 12 C, our apartment, with one opening window on the northeast side of the house and no other air ventilation, became a sweltering furnace of 25 C and hotter. I never thought an air conditioner was a necessity here on the prairies, where a combination of the wind outside and a few fans inside is enough to get you through the summer, with only one week or so crossing the unbearable threshold of 32 C or so. Well, not in this place. We need to either buy an air conditioner or line our walls and drape our ceiling with fans. 

Now that we expect to be in the same place for the next six to 12 months (or whenever our bus is done) we hope to have more visitors. OK, who really knows how long we will be here. We, of all people, know how fast plans can change. But in the meantime, come and visit! We live right along the Trans Canada Highway, a convenient route for anyone travelling east or west across this country. We welcome anyone with similar interests in a travelling life, along with old friends. The way people here stare at Eric’s dreads sometimes makes us feel rather alienated. 

We realize that our refusal to lead a typical life has made it difficult for people to pursue relationships with us in the usual way – chatting on the phone for hours, going to parties, hanging out. But we believe that good relationships can exist through less-popular means of interaction as well, such as e-mail or old-fashioned letter writing. We encourage people to e-mail us (see profile page) or comment on this site or send us snail mail or phone us. We know we aren’t perfect communicators, but we are interested in relationships, regardless of the medium through which they are transmitted.