Back

Everything Stops | Day 119 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Apr 29, 2023· 2 minutes

When the motor stops, everything stops. Vanlife is awesome. Everything is always ready, all we need where ever we go, total peace.

Except for when the motor stops.

Or does not start.

The fact neither my husband nor I have any clue as to how even to begin to address it did stress me out quite a bit in the beginning.

Now, five years down the road of living in vehicles, I have learned my lesson. A fantastic life lesson. 

There is always a friend. It seems like no problem is ever larger than the opportunities to solve it, emerging right around us. The key is not to panic. I will admit everything stops. But as long as we do not panic, it seems to resolve itself quite easily.

This time, we called the wonderful David, whom we first met at the Worldschool Summit 2019, and who has helped us many times. It is always great to have a friend to call. Then some of the guys living at the castle came to help, and after an hour, my van could start again. After two, there was a fairly clear diagnosis.

The next day, we spent the day with David, and he helped fix the problem. Most of it was cleaned, and there was one tiny broken plastic part he fixed with duct tape.

I get to learn over and over to trust the process. Live unfolds beautifully. And that there is no need to panic. Any panic works against the unfolding of things. To be fair, it is not that bad when everything stops for a while. It is a pause—a pause to remember how blessed we are and how much love there is in this universe.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

# 119 of my 2023 writing challenge - Read them all here


Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our life like this, and we get very happy when we get feedback from you. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 
It is funny how walking from Dorsodura, where we live, to the Saint Mark Basilica is a journey from a good tourist experience to something like hell.…Read more
Ten years ago, we visited Venice for the first time. Our youngest son was just a little one, my hair was still short after cancer, and I still had m…Read more
It is not all beach, UNESCO site, amazing nature, and repeat. Some days, we are just practical. These days are not to be taken lightly. They are impo…Read more
Some days on our journey are so packed that it is simply impossible to reflect on them the next morning as my 365 challenge asks for. Sometimes, I ha…Read more
Ravenna showed up on our travel itinerary because of a Donald Duck story. It is funny how things are connected. Read more
We have crossed the mountains from the coast and sunshine to the coast, crossing a landscape of snow. And we lived in Sant’Oleo for three days lookin…Read more
We are grateful to have a life from which we do not need a pause. We have created and allowed ourselves a life with freedom enough to decide how we w…Read more
Traveling from Sicily to Copenhagen between the beginning of March and late May will give us three months of spring. Being Danish, escaping six month…Read more
As anarchists, we are not much for rules. As self-directed, we don’t do rules. The structure of a rule is not flexible and can never take into accoun…Read more