Natasha Fondren

Even though I live in a camper, I feel like I’m living outside. I love that it’s permeable, most of the time. It’s a pop-up with hard sides, so it’s just like a regular trailer, but it folds down and is towable by my Jeep.

Because of that, air seeps through. They say that indoor air is unhealthy, but there are so many cracks for air to get in, that even if I have all the windows closed, I still have fresh air.

Sunshine also seeps in. The walls are an off-white (very hard) plastic material, and even if the windows were covered with black curtains, light comes through the walls. So now that it’s spring, the sun wakes me up at 5:30ish. And it being Arizona sun, it is BRIGHT. It’s like trying to sleep while laying out in a beach with no shade.

It’s not long after the sun sets that I start to fall asleep. Last night, I didn’t make it past 9:30. I am not a morning person, but I think when you’re practically living outside, nature takes over.

The other nice thing about this lifestyle is that you have neighbors, the old-fashioned kind—the kind that jump to and offer you a helping hand.

Yesterday, I went on a hike and Glenn ran errands, and wind gusts lifted my back wall (a pop-up likes to pop-down with any wind gusts over 40mph) and blew in my side wall. One neighbor moved their truck to block the wind, another duck-taped my back wall down, and a third rescued Caesar.

Living mostly outside is pretty cool. Even the bad parts, like walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night (getting to see the stars) and the camper rocking wildly in the wind (learning one has neighbors) are pretty darn awesome.

What not-so-great thing has happened to you, lately, that had a great upside?

Our camper has no potty. I’ve grown to love this, even though it involves several nighttime trips. If you weren’t aware, there is a law of the universe that states that if your bathroom is five feet away, you’ll sleep soundly through the night, but if it’s a fifty-yard trek, you will have to go two or three times a night.

But I love these nighttime treks. I can’t keep my eyes off the stars. I’m fascinated by them. The constellations tell the stories of the Greek myths. Isn’t that the coolest? Sometimes I just imagine laying on my back with my (thus far imaginary) children and telling them all the stories.

And I can see how astrology developed. You stare up at the nighttime sky, and it sometimes feel like they’re twinkling just for you, like they know what’s ahead and they’ve got everything planned out.

When I was living in a house, I hardly ever looked at the stars. Usually I was inside at night. Even when I sought them out, it definitely wasn’t a three-times-a-night occurrence for ten minutes apiece.

So I feel sad that we’re going to upgrade our camper in the next year. I like having to trek through the open air to get to the potty. Okay, I hate it when I push myself out of bed, put my shoes on, put my jacket on, and step out into the cold.

Then I’m outside and I look up at the huge, cloudless, twinkling Arizona sky, and everything is okay. The future feels full of good things. I believe in magic.

And all the stars seem to reassure me that I’m on the right path, that I’m doing exactly what I should be doing.

Have you studied the stars lately? What do they tell you?