Via Iter Verba #4

When most people think of “Van Life”, there are certain ideas that come to mind. That the lifestyle consists of adventure, consists of capturing beautiful images and videos of brand-new places, creating a freeing experience of life itself.

What is my experience of Van Life? Well…

My adventure is made up of texts that are assigned to me in classrooms. I am a college student. When I am being taught, be it theory, or an ancient text, I intellectually go back and forth between being fascinated with these ideas and then disagreeing or not finding a point to them.

My beautiful images are presented to me as smiles in the children I work with. I work at a high school. I go back and forth between teaching these kids in the most engaging way I possibly can and then resigning myself to fill out reports. Whiplash back again to remind them of simple and helpful rules of the school.

My videos of brand-new places are actually the same place every time. It is my laptop screen, my phone screen, leeching its energy. Leeching from me, leeching from the places where I find an outlet, an opportunity, to charge. I recharge sitting in the same seat, under piercing suns and hovering streetlamps. And there, right there, enters another attempt to recharge – through poetry.

This has been my Van Life.