Home is Where You Build It: From Van Life to Land Dreams

Samantha Jo Davis
Jan 15
2 min read

Updated: Feb 24

While he checked himself in at the desk,

I stared daggers at his back, spit nails under my breath, plopped down, dropped my book, leaned back with a huff, and crossed my arms.

Then I looked up and saw sweet Bob Ross on the television, painting a red house beside a pond, nestling it like a bird's nest down into a grassy valley beneath the barely snowy mountaintops and swooshy purple clouds.

By the time my husband sat beside me, my arms were still mad, but my eyes were waterfalls, watching the scratchy green brushstrokes on the water and thinking about the garden I almost had on the five acres we almost bought last month.

He offered me his hand and asked,

"What's up, babe?"

I took it with an attitude, gestured to the TV, and blubbered, "It's just so beautiful!"

"Okay, babe," he snickered.

"I want to be there."

"In the painting?"

"Yes!" I snickered too. "But also, in a home. I want a home!" I whined.

"We're gonna have a home, babe," he said, squeezing my hand tighter, ringing out two more tears.

"Oh, I know hon." I rubbed the top of his hand in the way that comforts me. He's still the asshole, not me, who started it in the parking lot, but he loves me right and does what he says he'll do.

Perhaps, that matters more.

One day we'll have land to care for and a home to house our projects. He'll have a great big shop, and I'll have an aerial studio. We'll travel and create passive income. We'll grow and raise food, build what needs building, and gather our loved ones, all on land that heals as we heal.

Today, though,

we're constructing the inside of a van to call home for a while.

Correction: HE'S constructing. I'm fetching tools.

It's funny, I used to dream of van life. I even bought into my brother's I'm-a-millionaire-story for a bit--like a sucker!--because I fantasized so longingly about the sunsets, the playlists, and the freedom. Back then, I dreamt of escape and little else.

Now I'm doing it, with a whole-ass husband, and it won't be the aimless, rootless, reckless kind of van life it would've been without him. Now, it's an adventurous first step toward the home of our dreams--somewhere as alive and serene as a Bob Ross painting,

where we can live longer and love harder.

Until then, I'll keep holding the hand that knows me and remember: home isn't just a place to live, or even a person to love. Home is the space inside that each must construct for themselves, the space art comes from.

So, while he hammers out a literal home, I'll dig out my own silly little digital world, a home for short stories, weird art, music recs, attempts at poetry, and of course, van life updates.

Follow along as we build, create, and redefine what it means to be "at home."