Moving, traveling, roaming, relocating, advance, change, shift, shove, transfer, drift, meander, straggle, & vagabond a nice finishing touch. My first encounter with a gypsy (before I had a definition) was in Modesto, California. My family met a young couple from India at the local mission. They had a small baby and were living in a tiny travel trailer, which they parked at various places around town and moved when residents reported them. I had no knowledge of their view of life. We took them in to our driveway and hooked their trailer up to our electricity. Comments like, "Why do you pay for rent when you could live like us and save?" Later I learned that in their culture they live in fear of growing old and not having what they need to survive. They live in gypsy style saving what they do earn hidden under a mattress for that day.
When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money
~ Susan Heller
My second encounter with the gypsy culture was in Southern Italy. They parked their caravans in the unused fields of local farmers. Again they would stay until the farmer shooed them away to find another field. Each day were trips to the city to beg for money. The mom would position herself on one corner and set her small child on a blanket on the corner across the street. From morning to late afternoon they would ask people passing by for money always ending with a "God Bless You".
Adventure is a path. Real adventure - self-determined, self-motivated, often risky - forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind - and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will every again be black-and-white. ~ Mark Jenkins
From the moment I left home I have lived from here to there and back again. I keep thinking that I will settle down someday. It doesn't look like that is going to happen anytime soon. At the moment I have my belongings scattered between 3 different locations in 2 states & I am currently residing in one of the offices of my son's plant nursery. I shower at a local RV park & do not make any plans beyond what I can make when I wake each day. Doo-rags are my friend. They cover my bed head in the mornings when I don't have the opportunity to shower. My youngest son says I look gangsta - but I feel like a gypsy & by definition other than ethnicity I am.
The Real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust
Life is all in how you see it :-)
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