TRAVEL// Slow travel

Living in a van takes time.

There are constant reminders to slow down.

I take comfort in the daily ritual of making a tea. Filling a saucepan from the pump inside my van, connecting the butane gas, lighting a flame, watching the bubbles emerge from the base of the saucepan as the water begins to boil. Daydreaming about nothing in particular. Awaiting that first mouthful of hot, calming tea and then filling my thermos for more cups throughout the day.

Even doing the washing takes time.

Locating the nearest laundry facilities, measuring out how many clothes/sheets/towels you can fit in the washers, dealing out payment in $1 coins, reading the trashy magazines and Mills and Boon books left in the laundromat while you wait an inevitable amount of time for you clothes to finish washing…and hoping there is a free dryer when they have been released from the rattling hulk of a washing machine.

All of it – little daily reminders to slow down. To breathe. To pause.