Artist Sam Rueter gives insight into traveling as a woman, mental health, self reflection, confronting our realities, healing through wide open spaces, and remaining present, all through the lens of van life.
In April we sent our friends Sam Rueter and Bri Wenke out in one of our rental vans to travel, create art, and recharge. We loved watching them use the van to explore new places and paint, and we loved giving you guys a glimpse into their trip on our Instagram. They created some amazing pieces, captured beautiful content, and documented their experience to share with you all. Below is the first of a handful of blog posts they have created to give us all a behind the scenes look at their experience. Sam gives insight into her experiences traveling in the van and offers advice to empower other travelers. She touches on traveling as a woman, mental health, self reflection, confronting our realities, healing through wide open spaces, and remaining present, all through the lens of van life. Keep an eye on our blog and YouTube for more of their content!
One month ago, Bri and I landed in Gypsum, Colorado to start our van life adventure for the next thirty days. Though both of us consider ourselves to be avid campers and travelers, neither of us had ever traveled through this medium. Staying in tents, hostels, car camping or even hotels can all hold such different encounters, and the van is no exception. We underestimated how lovely it would be to have both the magnificence of the world at your door each morning, alongside the mobility and ease of heading to a new location so swiftly. We had the freedom of the open night sky above our heads for evening campfires and day hike exploration, and the comfort of crawling into a warm, secure bed when our bodies grew eager for rest.
As two women who enjoy a vacation of investigation, we want to encourage others to find ways of travel that empower, challenge and excite them. While both Bri and I feel pretty comfortable traveling at this point in our lives, we are also not naive to the fact that women should be aware and work towards preventive safety measures while entering any new environment. One of the most common questions other women asked us during the trip was, “Aren’t you ever scared out there all alone?” Empowering women to take up their space in this world is something we are both passionate about, and it goes for travel as well. The more you push yourself into discomfort, the more you begin to trust your ability to keep yourself safe. The more you educate yourself on measures of independence, the more confident you will feel. To be ignorant about the dangers women face would be naive, but to live our lives in bubbles of comfort in support of this fear is, to us, even more harmful. There are valid things to fear out in the world, and trust me, I do feel them often. But at the start of this trip, it wasn’t the fear of safety that was most prevalent for me…but fear of my own mind.
The last two years of my life have been dedicated to taking control of my mental and emotional health. Many of us ignore our mind-health for many reasons; the stigma surrounding it, shame, fear, lack of support or resources. When quarantine began, I was at a breaking point. I recognized that I needed to finally come face to face with my challenges and seek the support I so deeply needed. I no longer wanted to be defined by the anxiety and depression that seemed to rule my life. Self examination and investigation came to the forefront. This van trip was a remarkable opportunity for my career and time adventuring with someone I cherish, but also a bit more. Time to step away, peel back the layers, and put all of my healing work to the test. This would be the first time out of my heavy lockdown environment in nearly a year and a half…with my routines off, challenges thrown in, and others to consider. How will I show up each day?
Here’s the thing about wide open spaces; they’ll always welcome you, but you have to be willing to take it. Chronic anxiety will accompany you everywhere; whether you’re on a road trip of a lifetime with your best friend, or home alone in your bed. Acceptance is first, working through it comes next. One of the most liberating realizations of this trip was observing my healing growth play out in real-time. Meeting the new parts of myself I hadn’t quite recognized yet.
Have you ever read, ‘The Power of Now’? It emphasizes the mind being a survival machine which obsessively stores, gathers and analyzes information. This becomes a problem when we are spending time waiting, analyzing, worrying, and anxiously obsessing over the past or future. It robs us of the one and only important experience of our lifetime: the Now. Travel is essentially the ideal experiment for this.
Traveling, especially camping, can be a great check-in that forces us to consider how we are operating in our daily lives. How capable are we with rooting through discomfort? Of new patterns, experiences, people and thought processes? How adaptable are we when things arise and plans change? Where do our thoughts go when we are immersed with no distraction? And perhaps most of all, I believe travel brings to the surface all that we struggle with in terms of being one with the present. Are you here in your body paying attention? Or are you somewhere else?
When dropping into this trip, I quickly noticed that remaining present was a very arduous adjustment. Scattered thoughts from home and work, adjusting to new environments, guilt of time away, worrying about my dog back home: all things that clouded my current moment through the first several days.
On day ten, I felt a very intense shift. One where I was able to leave the stressors to the wayside and be fully there. Settling in to the ‘right now.’ We are waking up for sunrise, making coffee, planning our hike. We are hiking through the desert and drinking wine at sunset and cooking delicious meals from scratch. We are enjoying company around the campfire and we are ignoring emails. This is here, now. And I deserve to be in it.
This, in turn, allowed us both to wake up each day with a fresh start. Some days we hiked 13 miles and sketched until we couldn’t anymore– others we slept in and allowed our bodies to rest from the day before. We witnessed the diversity in landscape with each new place we drove, and were given the gift of time to process it. We took time to journal, to reflect, to paint. We had life realizations on cliffsides and held each other’s hands when we needed reassurance. We laughed when getting a bit lost rather than uptight. We communicated when we felt uneasy or frustrated. We committed to being aware…of both one another and ourselves.
For me, I found that healing and progression can happen when you consciously find moments of choice each day. I had many moments of intentional ‘choosing’ during this trip. It’s incredible how much more we can enjoy and absorb when we are finally able to quiet the mind. Hiking those strenuous climbs allowed me to focus on nothing more than the intensity of bodily movement; one foot in front of the other. Cooking allowed me to focus on the senses; the aromas pulling me back to earth. Driving to a new campsite nearly each day allowed me to have moments of deep curiosity, awe and excitement. This trip is one where I recognized myself. To remember I am not defined by my mental health, but the ways in which I regulate and grow from it. All things I had been working into my daily life at home — all following me onto the road.
The daily encounters of the van allowed me to practice what I preach. To live what I already know. My need for control began to thin the more space I had. I worked incredibly hard to absorb; to not let this trip become just another task on a list.
I will never forget feeling the cool air rushing to my face as I open the sliding door at sunrise, the way the world welcomes my arrival. I re-learned the beauty of surrender within my anxiety. To be one with it all and not constantly search for a way out, even when it is excruciating. With anxiety, most of your life can be spent plotting escape routes. The fastest and safest way out the door. Who am I without them? Who am I when I’m finally able to plant my feet firmly on the ground rather than run? Space. I meet myself there.
When was the last time you climbed a tree? During the start of COVID-19 lockdown, I was walking one day in the woods behind my apartment when I had this overwhelming urge — insisting I climb a tree. Just do it Sam. Climb the damn tree. My legs swinging from the branches was a special kind of weightlessness I hadn’t felt in years. How much of my life has been spent ruminating on the next step, or even the obsession of self-excavation? I want to make peace with it all. I want to occupy my own life.
This trip was very similar, in an extended sense. Being immersed into childhood for a month where I am able to strip back all of the roles I’ve taken in my life; all of the expectations and responsibilities— and trade them in for childlike curiosities. Wandering staring up at the sky, wide-eyed, bare feet in the soil, dirty hair wrapped in braids for days, no mirror reflections with the exceptions of streams, curling up with a book to nap when I’m exhausted, and not need to justify it. Soul medicine. We’re all deserving of that.
My anxiety has always told me, ‘You can’t fix this’. My depression has always told me, ‘There is no meaning in you’. Both have kept me closed off and depleted from expectation. I know now that what they really mean is that I’m always paying attention. My attentiveness towards the world around me can be utilized for good, if I know how properly access rather than allow it to consume.
Life is not perfect, but it can still be good. We are not perfect, but we are still worthy. We do not need to operate in a constant squeeze state. Sometimes it’s time to open our arms on the cliffside. Lay down and look up at the sky. Overwhelm of the impossible and unending. It’s there we can remember we’ve been a part of it this entire time.
Sitting on the edge of Bryce Canyon at sunrise, I want to remember the understanding of impermanence. I want to remember the way the canyon winds sound like a roaring ocean- how they were once filled with miles of endless water and how the change still leaves remnants of it’s ghosts. How the Earth’s systems welcome the shift of plates and pattern of the winds; to know its meant for it. The way the tree clings to the canyon edge; roots clinging to life. Standing tall just the same.
The resilience and surrender in nature can be found in us all. The ability to lean into change holds us through the weight of loneliness, grief, and all that comes after. The world is always teaching. It’s our job to actually listen.
So, what is my main takeaway from this trip?
Open Spaces.
Take wide open spaces back into your structured life. You are fluid, like water. Not everything has to be so controlled. Take wide open spaces back into the studio with you. You are allowed to play, like a child. Not everything has to be taken so seriously. Take wide open spaces back to your relationships and the way you walk through the world. You are worthy of receiving, like the love that you give. You’ve forgotten that you are that love. Take wide open spaces back into your mind’s eye. You are not ill, but attentive. You are a reminder of a human collectiveness.
Like many, my mental health journey is non-linear — much like the sun that rises above me and the weather passing through — one where we learn to honor and appreciate each cycle through self love, rest, and radical acceptance. I wish it hadn’t taken a decade of suffering in silence to figure it out. To show up for my younger self and tell her about the sunrises she’ll see and the people she’ll love… that the temporary nature of life is often the greatest gift.
But I feel a smile appear on the edge of the Grand Canyon, amazed, but not surprised by the colors dancing on the earth below. No tightness in my chest, Bri at my side–smiling, because she knows it too. That for the first time in a long time; I truly believe that every moment of my life is worth living.
And that will always be enough.
