Van Life Kinda Suckssss
After living in a 1981 Ford Econoline with my boyfriend for one year, I learned to seek comfort in the small, boxy space. My boyfriend had lined the walls with cedar planks, installed a raised platform for a bed with storage underneath, and built out a countertop complete with a manual pump sink and a stove. I had my own cubby by the back door for my clothes, and a Yeti cooler sat behind the driver’s seat.
We had a small fan in the roof, which pumped in cool air efficiently when the wind was blowing in the right direction. But summer nights were uncomfortably hot. Days were worse; the van turned into an oven as soon as the sun hit the metal walls. We’d scurry out like cockroaches and spend the day drinking cold brew in a boutique coffee shop, wondering if we blended in with the well-dressed inhabitants of the Abbott Kinney neighborhood.
Van Life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
We saved money, but I developed a bad coffee habit and bad posture, as we couldn’t stand or sit up straight in the van. Worse, I became a curmudgeon. Living in Los Angeles, I couldn’t get away from people. Everywhere swarmed with honking cars, belligerent drunks, and loud conversations. I was subjected to obscure parking rules and street cleaning schedules, and I had to move the van every few hours to comply with such.
I showered at 24 Hour Fitness, where hair clogged the drains and mold lined the ceiling vent. I used public bathrooms where the failed aims of past patrons littered the floor. Sometimes I’d park at the beach and watch life through my tinted windows. Electric scooters speeding down the bike path in the wrong lane, a photo shoot next to a homeless man sleeping in the sand, the building of sand castles and the throwing of cigarettes. On Monday mornings, the beach thick with the weekend’s trash.
Every day, I was exposed to incessant chaos and stimulation. I came to see humans as squalid, stupid parasites that leeched off the earth and each other. Bitter and disgusted, I sought to minimize my interactions with other people. I’d find a parking spot, put up the window covers, and imagine the van as my protective bubble while I seethed over the sad state of the world. I was more aware of the world than ever, and wanted nothing to do with it at all.
But this phase of my life passed. When we moved out of the van, I slowly opened up to the world again. Removed from the chaos, I didn’t have such sordid feelings for my fellow species. It’s amazing how distance can make us forget. With more personal space and more of my own reality, I don’t think about the squalor that we humans have created.
In sight, but out of mind.
The problems facing other humans are inconsequential to those of use who are fortunate enough to have our own space. To make a comfortable home. To remove ourselves from the ugly, grimy side of the world.
Although many people care about the miserable state of the world, apathy is an easy switch to flip. Most people are good hearted enough to think about the problems that don’t directly affect themselves, but few take action. Heroes are those that leave their own space to battle the beast of inequality that we have created. By my own definition, I am not a hero.
Squalor and discomfort is home to so many people. It’s a home built from bad luck or bad decisions, a home subjugated to the greed, mistakes, and apathy of others. Everybody wants to live in their own reality, but not everybody can. Some people live in our collective filth.
Van life was a two-way door that allowed me to enter the homes of both the lucky and the unlucky. At night I parked on the derelict streets of industrial zones where the latter could sleep undisturbed along the sidewalk. By day, I could walk among the bourgeois who promoted and reveled in their privilege.
For as long as us lucky people can remove ourselves from reality, there will be inequality. But as soon as the next economic crisis hits and we all have to move into our cars, we may realize that the world is our home, and we have neglected to take care of most of the rooms.
