The waiting game

This morning I opened my Facebook account and as almost every day this past month I have to look at a picture or video of a friend riding powder. I guess this means they are all quite fortunate and/or have worked hard enough to get them into a place in life where they can afford to spend time in the soft beloved white gold. And of course that my circle of friends is quite snow minded. Am I jealous? Well, hard not to be when I see the smile on their faces and especially because I know the flow feeling all to well. On the other hand these posts do remind me of the good times I have spent with them doing the exact same thing. Unforgettable moments one by one and yep those memories also put a smile on my face, so can’t really complain about all those pictures, now can I?

 

Not so long after the smile has gone from my face, questions that have been haunting me for a while pop up into my head: ‘Why am I not hiking to top of all those beautiful white peaks?’ ‘Why in the bloody … are we still not in the mountains with our bus?’ ‘Is this still the right path for us?’ and so on… It is a never-ending loop, which quite frankly can get me quite depressed. Our bus is SO ready to go, everything is ready, we just need a way to get it legally on the road an that seems to be the final (and quite big) hurdle. FRUSTRATION is the word that comes to the mind A LOT these days.

 

Last year somewhere in December we got in touch with someone who imports American vehicles into the Netherlands for a living and we thought we were finally nearing the end of our long wait. In the beginning it looked quite promising; he told us he could probably import the bus via Germany and there was a good chance we could get through inspection by the end of January, but since a week or so, we know that this route will not work because we don’t have an official CO-emission data report of our Cummins engine in this specific bus. By chance I know someone who works at Cummins in Europe and I thought he might find the right certificate and a couple of days later he called me to tell me he had found the certificate with the CO-emissions on for our engine, so I jumped in the air, shouted hallelujah and mailed it to my contact. He replied that although this was the right certificate for this engine, it was not enough; it should be one that has data of our engine matched to our bus and not only of the engine itself. JEEZ! I know. So, we called Thomas Bus and asked if they might have such a certificate. They replied that such a document does not exist in the US, it is not a requirement over there.

 

Back to zero I guess. Luckily, our contact has more than one way to get things done and really wants to help to get our bus on the road. As we are speaking he is looking in to some other options: an inspection in the UK or Sweden, another path in Germany and even a possible alternative way in The Netherlands… The crazy thing is that we would probably have to get a German or Bulgarian temporary license plate to drive to the UK or Sweden. In any case, we are not there yet. He did say he is for 99% sure he can get us on the road, the only question that still remains is when?

 

Hopefully, soon, very soon.

 

In the mean while we have to settle with what the universe is offering us; luckily this includes a short trip to Avoriaz/Chamonix next week, something we are really looking forward to.

 

That’s it that’s all for now, I sincerely hope the next post will be the One!

Regards.

 

Neo.

 

Ps: For some of you, who might not know what the matrix is, just watch the movies

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The Let’s be Nomads manifesto

This The Let’s be Nomads manifesto is written on Let's be Nomads.

I was writing in my journal in the beautiful little garden of the authentic house we are renting in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico. Tim was sitting on a bench with his laptop on his lap and told me about an article describing the biggest regrets of dying people. The top three was:

1. I have not lived fully.

2. I have not loved well.

3. I have not made a difference.

When he told me this, I had just written in my journal about the flaws I had noticed about myself lately and really wanted to change. Small details that did not go according to the rules our society has put up for us, the ways of how we need to fit into the perfect picture.

But wait a minute. What had Tim just said? These people weren’t having regrets about the way they hadn’t fitted into the perfect picture. These people were having regrets about the way they way had not lived and loved well.

Earlier in my life, my dad once read me the biggest regrets of an old wise woman who had just celebrated her 99th birthday. The first one being ‘Not making enough mistakes.’ This woman actually wished she had flawed more.

And so I suddenly had found a new answer to the question I’ve often asked myself: ‘What is the purpose of life?’ We aren’t on this planet to worry about the little mistakes and the bad habits. We are here to live, love and contribute.

The thought made me happy; I was in the middle of the Mexican mountains, with amazing people around me from all over the world and an ambitious life-changing project in the making. I didn’t have to worry about what I was doing ‘wrong’ during the last week. I only had to ask myself if I had loved, if I had experienced joy and if I somehow had contributed to somebody else’s’ life or to our planet.

It felt like a puzzle piece falling in it’s place.

The Let’s be Nomads manifesto was born:

Live fully

Love well

Make a difference


Feel free to tag any of your related manifesto moments. #LbN

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