Hey mom, I met a guy. He lives in a bus in the woods.
The beginning of Bus House, to me and my son. It wasn’t the beginning, but that story isn’t mine to tell. My beginning with this beast is in the woods of a Washington state campground, pulling in behind my boyfriend of mere weeks. And thinking, oh, that makes perfect sense.
And thus, my adventures with this home began. Our family met and merged and fought and cried and fell in love in this bus. We moved along side Bus House, with sneaky paths through woods and fields of dandelions between us. We moved in. We sought to call Bus House our home, and I would like to think we helped to make it what it was, and is. Home. With a capital H.
My son, seven now, has known this as his home for most of his life. Perfect it wasn’t, small it was. Too cramped, always a bit messy, not enough seating and too much sharing. But it was home, and safe beyond words. Nothing could get through, get to us, hurt us. It saw us through so many storms, inside and out. We travelled across the country, watched Home come driving over hills towards us and we would shout Bus House! dancing on a picnic table in Wyoming and I would cry relieved tears to see he followed me after I had to detour in a desolate Oklahoma.
Bus House arrived here, we arrived here, to Tennessee knowing full well that this was the last big move with it, the last hurrah for us and it. For this Home, before home morphed hugely. It was a hilarious in retrospect, scary at the time, awkward as hell climb up to our little hill, unsure if we could even make it. I bit back tears at the end of a long long journey, wondering if we were wrong and this was a mistake and why are we doing this. And then, as always, my husband and Bus House made sure we were Home that night. And every night after, we were safe.
Here, I learned in this Home. The memories made here make me chuckle, a thought to never tell next owners (hi!) just how many animals were butchered and processed in it. How we roasted coffee in a home built coffee roaster over the drivers seat. How we came home from getting married in the local courthouse and ground a cow on the tiny kitchen table for a honeymoon. How we cried together over our pigs, raised by our loving hands, before and after we took their lives – a lesson ingrained deeply into our souls now. How sausages hung from the ceiling over my sleeping son, or how he learned to read and write and divide here. How, later, he pulled up every bit of carpet and tack strip all by himself to make Bus House ‘sparkly and clean’. How, my heart, he cried sobbing heavy tears when Bus House drove away to it’s new home.
I cannot begin to express in mere words how important this Home has been to me, to us, to my family in all its iterations. My eyes were not dry, either. But my heart feels so overjoyed that we found a good next for our home. Somewhere special, unique, worthy of this piece of us. Peace, of us, if you will.
This bus, this house on wheels, this funky little scrap of a home, saw the beginnings of our love story, the blending of our family, the highest highs and lowest lows. It saw mad love, marriage, a million kisses, piles of silly love. It also saw heartbreak, struggle, pain, discontent, the near breaking of us all. We were made in that home, all of us together. I don’t know my husband without his Bus House, our Home. It’s bizarre, difficult, sad, and a breath of air both fresh and scary.
We are really doing this, really on the next adventure, a huge and important chapter closing. We are now moving onward with speed and tenacity, remembering that now that we have Us, Home is wherever we are together. And that’s pretty fucking sweet.
