After a year and a half of trying and failing to sell our farm, we finally did it. We found a buyer and signed the contract. We lost two-thirds of our savings, but in this economy, we're grateful we escaped with anything at all.
For four years, we've been waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks, calculating grocery money against mortgage payments and winter goat feed. After five years married to a bank and ten years without a vacation or a weekend off, we are finally free.
The Next Chapter
In October, we're leaving the island for a year (or more?) of adventure, exploration, art, and stories. Three humans, one large puppy, one cat, and absolutely no plan.
And we're taking you along for the ride! It's going to be so much fun. Magnus is the photographer and printmaker. I'll tell the stories. Miss Crazy Pup, the cat, and the Daughter Unit will create chaos.
The Unravelogue (this thing right here) is where we'll share our artistic adventure story. First step: pack what remains of our former life into our old VW Caddy, shut down our farming and cheesemaking business, launch my sole proprietorship writing company, and clean out the farm.
We have five weeks to get it all done.
Good thing we haven't had money for clothes in the past five years! All our clothes – mine, my husband's, and our daughter's – fit into one suitcase. That leaves plenty of room for art supplies.
Our Adventure Wish List:
We have a long wish list for the coming year: the Pyrenees, Massif Central, Paris, Ireland, Iceland, Svalbard, Lofoten, and much of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. We're even thinking about making it to Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan. And maybe Mongolia?
YES, we are a crazy bunch.
My Fictional Chaos
Remember, I told you I'm working on a concept for a new Kronberg & Holmes series? Before that can happen, I first have to perform open-heart surgery on the first four books, as they represent the core of my back catalogue and used to be bestsellers. But the series didn't age well and is mediocre at best. The Lion's Courtship is a structural disaster that reads as if my cat stomped across the keyboard. The other three books aren't much better. Holmes needs to evolve from Anna's sidekick into an equal who challenges her at every turn. Their dialogue needs subtlety, not exposition masquerading as conversation. My list of complaints is long...
Beyond that, I'm working on several other projects:
- Finish The Silence Architect
- Plot the next Micka & Katvar adventure
- Turn all of my Victorian books into English and German audiobooks
- Continue working on The Girl Who Ran With Monsters, hopefully with lots of hand-drawn illustrations
Two Last Crazy Ideas
NUMBER ONE: For the past few months, I've been thinking about physical letters – monthly drawings, prints, and stories from our trip delivered via snail mail. I already made a notebook from thick fine art paper that I'll use to record our adventures in words and drawings. Fortunately, postal services still deliver letters to the US. For now...
NUMBER TWO: When we're leaving this island, I want to take you along.
I'm launching an interactive community space where we figure out survival together in real-time.
What this actually is: Daily field notes from wherever we land. The unfiltered reality of adaptation, what works, what breaks, how people in different places handle the difficulties most of us are navigating. Plus virtual hugs when nothing else works.
Who this is for: This is for you if you're watching costs rise faster than your income. If you're trying to create art, or just hanging on by your frayed suspenders while everything gets harder, or you're wondering if you're the only one whose life feels increasingly impossible to sustain.
This isn't travel inspiration, let alone a "look, we're living the dream" docu series. It's real-time documentation of finding and carving out a place to live when everything becomes uncertain – shared by people like us, for people like us.
If you'd like to come along, I'll share the link to the interactive community space in the next few weeks. If you prefer to stay right here with the more polished travel essays and photos, absolutely nothing changes for you.
Why I'm doing this: Because maybe sharing what we do to figure out how to keep going when shit seems to be falling apart makes all of us feel less alone.
What do you think? Interactive community survival space, yay or nay?
