The end of this week will mark almost one month on the road of my remote work van life tour. It stops me in my tracks to remember how I was counting down the days, impatiently in 110 degree heat, to leave Phoenix, frustrated by how behind schedule Tommy Camper Vans was. But here I am, almost 30 sleeps and 3,000 miles later.

Life, even when you are anticipating a big event, speeds on faster every year.

To review, my mission has been to reflect on whether it may be time to leave Arizona, or at least Phoenix.

I have no conclusions yet. But I’ve had some amazing conversations that have given me time to reflect on coincidence, on privilege and on nihilism.

On Coincidence

Two days in to the trip, in Durango, I had a most amazing experience, which gave me the feeling that the universe was talking to me. See this video about that.

I spent the first two days of the week struggling to get a good Internet signal so I could be on my work calls, Ellie got diarrhea, I had to find a veterinarian, I was trying to fix little things in the van and I was getting used to the new reality of living in this small space. I was deeply frustrated and despondent, despite knowing that this too would pass.

Yet, as if a message from a higher power, on my second evening in Durango I ran in to two comfortably familiar people that I know from the Phoenix political and sustainability communities. Not only did I see friendly faces, but they invited me to come visit their 22-acre property the next day, just outside of town. There I used the office they had built in the attic of their old barn to host my calls for the day, to catch up on work with full Internet signal and to just get a breath. I had a chance to visit with their sheep and llamas, to see the Animas River along their property and to give Ellie a break from the van.

This couple had moved to Durango part time a few years ago. Currently, they are renting out the larger home on the property to tourists and they are living in their Airstream while they build a smaller, downsized home for themselves. Meanwhile, their son and his partner built a tiny home on the property, and they are all working busily to create a shared vision for a place to live.

The husband had run for the Corporation Commission some years prior, and the wife used to own a business in Phoenix. I could not have asked for a better connection, not only at a time when I was in need of friendly faces, but also to fit so perfectly in to the theme of this entire series.

They both considered the same questions I had: Is it wise to stay in Phoenix? How can one contribute to one’s community without all of the hubbub of the political scene? Are they trading one set of climate change problems for another?

After we all finished our work for the day, we enjoyed salmon, a mixed green salad and dinner in front of the airstream, surrounded by the detritus of construction and the red-green mesas staring in to the setting sun across the Animas River from us.

I’m a naturally skeptical person, both of religion and vague spiritualism, both of which too often are about selling something.

Yet I’ve seldom in my life had such a strong feeling that I was meant to run in to these folks. They gave me a break, gave me insight and sent me off on my journey feeling renewed.

You couldn’t write a better script.

As I was in Durango, my video editor and I published an installment that I shot prior to leaving Phoenix. It was a reflection on my own privilege and where it came from. In making the video, I dug in to learn how the red-lining in Long Beach and Paramount California trickled down through three generations to give me the privilege I have, while depriving so many others of my age. You can see that video here.

Red-lining is not new. But I don’t know that many of us who have benefited generations later from it’s misguided and racist aims have taken the time to see how real it is; that it is not just an academic historical footnote. This project made it feel so much more real to me.

In the video, I scanned over red-lining maps from the Los Angeles area and found were my maternal and paternal grandparents bought homes in the 1950s. They became very real as I could see how the home purchased by both sets of grandparents gained value, which was passed down to my parents, and which was then compounded and passed down to me.

Less than a few miles from these homes were nearly identical neighborhoods where families could not get a loan to invest in a home, the wealth of which could then never be passed down to their children and grandchildren.

It is not lost on me that I am able to afford this little van live novelty because my parents, who both passed away unfairly young last year, left me the modest but meaningful wealth they accumulated, in part, because of these racist policies.

And, before we veer wildly off in to political tit-for-tats, I want to say that two things can be true at once. Yes, my grandparents and my parents made wise and frugal choices in order to leave me this humble nest egg. But also, they gained a boost that allowed their wealth to be compounded in ways that were crucially deprived other equally deserving non-white people.

Had it been explained to them, I am certain that at least one of those sets of grandparents would have argued for the end of the practice.

And here I sat, driving away from the very expensive Durango, toward Gunnison and then Crested Butte. While the rural spaces between them still suffer their own economic disparities, it felt that these more populous tourist towns –filled with far too many empty homes of part-time residents, short term rentals or investment properties backed by hedge funds– were in their own way depriving a whole new generation of their ability to create and pass down wealth to their children and grandchildren.

The stories whispered from the forests lining the winding roads as thick as curtains as I past old mining towns like Silverton or Ouray Colorado told of similar disparities between the laws written for the haves and the burdens carried by the have nots.

We are in a never-ending struggle to balance the power for justice. As I drove this little van excursion, I was aware that there was certainly more I could have done in my life. As much as I thought I was dedicating my career to this, I certainly had blind spots.

But what would I be doing if I were to stop trying. What would any of us be doing?