Nov07
Posted on Nov 7 by Ruth Davis
I’ve been living in the RV for more than three months now, and have been here at the Bella Vista Mobile Lodge since mid-September. I am settling in. I wave to my neighbors and engage in conversations about the weather. The woman in the bakery section of Spencer’s Market and I are on a first name basis. And Mark, my neighbor across the street, even helped me when my new mattress arrived. I am calling this place home. In some ways it is exactly what I imagined—clean air, cool breezes and much less stress. But in other ways it is nothing like my dreams. I don’t live in a house with a yard and a laundry room. I am not going to clients’ homes every day. I’m not even trying to build up a local Mac training clientele. The other day as I was walking with Laddy, I noticed that one of the mobile homes is for rent. I peeked through the windows, looked around at the outdoor patio space and thought maybe a little more space might...
Oct31
Posted on Oct 31 by Ruth Davis
When Marika was visiting, we bought a new shower head for the RV bathroom. After 18 years of using the original one, it was getting too hard to switch it on and off to conserve water while showering. And it was, admittedly, leaking a little bit beyond the actual holes. O. M. G! I can’t believe we waited so long. The new shower head has five settings and a much wider surface area, which means a more luxurious shower on many levels. And it was only $15.00! What were we thinking to not do this sooner?? This seems to be a common behavior with lots of people I know. We tend to settle for what is, what we already have because, hey, it’s working. So what if it’s harder to use, a little uncomfortable, maybe not even working 100%. It’s easier to just keep on keeping on, status quo. But this small investment has made my morning shower ritual a true delight! So what one thing, one small thing could you upgrade or change or improve without much effort...
Oct24
Posted on Oct 24 by Ruth Davis
Sometimes our best work happens when we simply show up, open up and connect with our heart. I am not a mother and I don’t, for a minute, pretend to understand what it must be like to have a child love you unconditionally, then challenge you, then love you, then hate you, constantly changing the rules of the relationship. A client recently called in a panic. She was on her way to dinner with her daughter who wanted to talk more about her upcoming wedding plans. She was expecting a large wedding, fully funded by her parents, even though my client, recently divorced from the daughter’s father, was not in a position to pay. Recent conversations between mother and daughter had been ugly, insensitive and undercutting, and my client was not looking forward to another battle. “She brings out the worst in me,” my client said. “And she sounds just like her father, putting me down, even suggesting I get a second job to pay for this.” Through tears she said, “I don’t even like her right now.”...
Oct17
Posted on Oct 17 by Ruth Davis
I’ve been living in my 24 foot RV since August 1st. Yet, when people asked me where I lived, I had a very long explanation: “Right now I’m in my motorhome. I packed up my life in Arizona, thinking that I’d come here and stay in my RV while I looked for a house to rent. I found one, it was really cute, but I realized I didn’t want to just move my life from AZ to here. So I’m still living in my RV and I’m really enjoying the simple life and the freedom of living small. Right now I’m staying in a mobile home park in Cayucos, across the street from the beach.” Not only is that too much information for a simple question, but the story is full of old news, uncertainty and even a little drama. The real story, simplified, is “I live in my RV full-time. Right now I’m staying in a mobile home park in Cayucos, across the street from the beach.” There is no drama, no complication, no unnecessary details to follow....
Oct03
Posted on Oct 3 by Ruth Davis
When I posted on FaceBook that I was writing about how yoga is like pizza, several friends left me some very funny comments; “because even when it’s bad it’s good…because it’s stretchy…because you can bend it into interesting shapes.” One friend wrote, “I think I’d be saying Yummmmmmm instead of Ommmmmm.” For me, the similarity is about the ingredients. Whenever I’m trying a new pizza place, I order a simple cheese pizza. I may peruse the menu to see what other ingredients and combinations they serve, but my first pizza is always their most basic offering. This way I can focus on the foundation of any good pizza- the crust, the sauce and the cheese. If a cheese pizza isn’t good, there’s no point in adding extra toppings. I’m using this same philosophy as I choose my new yoga studio. Now that I have a car, I’m checking out two different places that offer a variety of classes. There’s gentle yoga, yin yoga, morning yoga and yoga flow. But I chose to begin with a gentle/basic class last Friday...
Sep25
Posted on Sep 25 by Ruth Davis
I have a friend who juggles her writing job with her own fiction writing, being a wife and mom, homeschooling her daughter and a hundred other things that come up in her day. She recently starting taking swimming lessons and commented that “she can do nice, efficient strokes or remember how to breathe properly, but doing them both at the same time was going to take practice.” I love when an experience shines as a larger metaphor for something else going on in our life. When I was in Phoenix earlier this month, I spent an afternoon with Marika at the Phoenix Art Museum. My favorite piece was Yayoi Kusama’s interactive installation, You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies. To experience the piece, we entered a dark room that had thousands of fiber optic lights suspended at different heights from the mirrored ceiling to the mirrored floor. The walls were also mirrors, so the lines of reflecting lights extended forever, like a big city skyline, like the solar system, like an ocean of fireflies. I went in...
