Marion: What did your friends think?

Zoe: That was a definite negative. Our friends knew we

 

were insane. They did not understand. None of them,

not one of them, understood. They couldn’t relate to

it; they couldn’t relate to us.

Marion: But what was that response about? You traveled a lot. 

 

It wasn’t about the traveling then. It must have been the RV?

Zoe: It was because we didn’t have a home. We went off

 

and sold everything we owned, and went off into

the wild blue yonder. They couldn’t deal with this

notion because we didn’t have any roots. We didn’t

even try to convince them otherwise. That’s what

spawned the RV travel club. We needed connections

who didn’t think we were crazy.

I felt, Lovern didn’t care—she was having a good

time—but I felt I needed connections while I was on

the road. I needed to be able to see people and visit

people and have something in common.

 

Marion: I want to come back to your friends’ reactions.

Zoe: It wasn’t discussed. Everybody was very polite about

 

it. You just knew they didn’t know what was going on.

Now, the very same people understand completely.

We’re all good friends again. I don’t know what

to tell you.

Now this sounds easy. But any time you move

to another community, or move out of a community,

there’s a lot of emotional stuff going on. Some

people give up at that point. They say, “Well, there’s

this little thing to overcome and that little thing to

overcome, and I guess it wasn’t meant to be.” And

they give it up.

When you set a goal, you can’t let little things

get in the way. You can’t use them as an excuse not

to meet your goal. You just set a goal and you deal

with all the obstacles that get in the way until you

get there. But you don’t say, “Oh well, I guess it

wasn’t meant to be,” and give it up. You do it. Then

 

if it isn’t right, you can always quit. Nothing’s cast

in concrete.

If you look at it like, ‘this is the end, it’s all over, I

can’t change,’ you’re going to believe it’s impossible.

The truth is, you can change anything in the world

you’re doing.

Once you don’t have to work, then this philosophy

can be actualized. When you’re working, things are

different. Or when you’re raising kids, things are different.

You just do what you have to do. Once you’re

free, you haven’t got an excuse.

 
icon for podpress  Zoe Swanagon - Part II of III [2:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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Zoe: I never thought that I’d be interested in RVing again

 
because I’d done every conceivable kind of RV and

tent-travel back and forth across the United States

with my kids. After that, I decided I never wanted

to pack or unpack another rig as long as I lived.

But while Lovern was in France on sabbatical, I

had a compulsion to buy an RV. I shopped for weeks

for an RV, not really wanting one—knowing that I

didn’t even like RVing.

So I finally found an RV I didn’t want. I ordered

it custom-made, and I got it as small as I could. I got

a 23-foot Born Free and wrote to Lovern and told

her that I had bought an RV and I had no idea why.

 
Marion: Where did you think this was all going to wind up?

Zoe: I had no idea. I was going to park it in the driveway

 
and go on weekend trips with it. That’s what I thought

I was going to do.

Marion: You get home to Seattle, where Lovern has her work in 

 
Olympia as a college professor and you have your own

business. She decides to go out and stay overnight in the

rig in the driveway.

Zoe: We did take one overnight trip, and then after that she

 
said, “I’d like to sleep out in the rig in the driveway.”

I said, “If you’re going to do that, let’s move the rig to

an RV park and sleep there.” I didn’t want to sleep

in the driveway.

We kept the house, until Lovern said, “We could

go full-time RVing if you didn’t have to work.” So

that’s what we did. I sold my business and we began

RVing in the mid-1980s.

I was a psychologist by profession. Somebody

asked me once if I thought certain behavior modification

used with kids could work with dogs. I thought

that was the funniest thing I’d ever heard in my

life. Then I started looking at it. There was such a

market for it that I started taking care of issues on

the side.

Marion: What did your family think when you made the commitment 

 
to not just travel, but to do so full-time in a 23-foot

Born Free?

Zoe: I didn’t ask them at that time. I just told them and

they didn’t offer any opinions about it. They were

just glad I was out of Los Angeles. They didn’t care

what I did.

 Heads up: Notice the sound quality variation from

Zoe’s opening comments and the grainy variation

from then on…a microphone computer connected

quality versus a long distance cel phone connection.

 
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Sally: What might be interesting for folks to know, Marion, is the

 
fact that you have had your own RVing experience. What

about that?

Marion: In 1993, we bought a ’93 Bounder motorhome. What

 
did we know? We were first-time RVers. I know, let’s

go into the video business. Someone who was doing

that in Denver trained us to do it. Within six months,

we learned from first-hand experience that Arizona

is the sixth largest state in the union. We were averaging

about six to eight miles to the gallon and we

were out on the road weekly. There were places we

couldn’t get that 34-foot Bounder into small video

store parking lots.

We had to find some alternatives. We had to buy

a van; we had to move into a park model; a small and

very nice trailer. I now know I can live simply.

It was a struggle for us because there’s a lot of

risk in starting your own business. We had started

a business before but not like that. So the RVing for

us didn’t last very long.

Sally: You meet some people who do RVing, some really amazing

 
women, and now you want to tell their stories. Besides the

telling of their story, what is your fascination with these

women who live this lifestyle—the RVing lifestyle?

Marion: I’ve always been a big fan of the WPA (Work Projects

 
Administration) from the Depression. I’m a part-time

student at Phoenix College and they built most of

the buildings there. I go over often and admire the

plaque with President Roosevelt’s name on it and say,

“Here’s the buildings those guys built.”

I met women who did work in that era. I found

that connection fascinating. I met Ruth Silver and

talked to her and heard her story. I began to realize,

while I may not be RVing anymore, I’m around

women who are and their stories are important. Then

 
the connection with To Give Voice and to be heard

just kind of all came together.

 
icon for podpress  Marion Orem- Part I (end) [2:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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Sally: So here you are with a big Web site, www.togivevoice. com,

all of your own. But the big question is: Are you still   

the biggest fear you face?

 
Marion: Yes, and I face that fear every day.

Sally: And what gets you beyond that? Because clearly, you’re 

 
functional and you’re doing a heck of a bang-up job with

this stuff. Where does your love of the storytelling business

come in, in terms of telling other people’s stories that are

not fictional, for example?

Marion: One of the things Mom said about me as a kid is

 
that people would come up and just start talking to

me—to the point where she’d have to keep an eye on

me. And to me, that was just another story you hear

from your mom.

Someone I know said, “No, it’s something about

you personally.” So that was the first time I was aware

that people singled me out for a reason.

 
There’s something about me and I can’t see it

from in here. I don’t know if it’s a sense of empathy

or friendliness because I’ll tend to say “Hey” before

someone else does. I finally realized that’s my gift

and people don’t get heard, but they need to be heard

and that led to To Give Voice in terms of realizing

that’s my remaining life’s work.

Sally: People need to be heard. Can you say more about that? I 

 
mean how that idea gelled in your mind to become what

this is. I think this is really important—the whole “people

need to be heard” thing.

Marion: There are far more stories out there than I’ll ever have

 
time to tell. But I’m going to make a dent, and 100 years

from now, I think that effort will matter to someone.

My intent was to capture stories in a way that

would be put in a time capsule and buried somewhere

symbolically.

The challenge is that if people don’t keep up with

technology we won’t be able to hear these voices in

the future. The book becomes important because we

can still read it.

So the multimedia is important because it allows

me to afford people an opportunity to speak for

themselves. The only reason I’m being interviewed

is because others want to know, “Why are you doing

this?” Some people think I’m absolutely out of my

mind, and they’re probably right.

 Remember…audio may not always match the text

due to book editing decisions…two different mediums. 

 
 
icon for podpress  Marion Orem - Part I of I [4:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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Meeting with my audio “Guru” shortly.

 
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I have always been fascinated by who people are, where they

 

come from and why they live on one side of the street instead

of the other. Imagine my surprise when I met a group of

women who chose to live on no street at all.

The following five interviews come from women who made

the decision to RV full-time. Each comes to her story from a

 

different perspective but they all share a strength I just had

to explore.

Who drives away from the American   

 

Dream and into a nomadic life?

How do you build community

 

with other nomadic travelers?

 

And when you can no longer travel …

 

What happens then?

 

These interviews are not about buying an RV and they are

not RVing travelogues. Rather, they reveal the courage it takes

for a woman to RV. These women are unique. There’s a strength

within them—a strength they may not see themselves.

And THAT is the core of my passion for these stories.

I want to know what other women think, even if you don’t

RV, but you do see yourself reflected in their strength. Or you

would like to.

The interviews occur in an order that resonates as the stories

progress:

Marion Orem opens with this brief introduction and

 

Part I of my own RV interview, conducted by Sally.

Zoe Swanagon follows with her compulsion to buy

 

an RV and the legacy impact that compulsion would have on

1000s of women.

Lovern King shares a decision to RV full-time that led

 

her and Zoe to found RVW, a travel club for women who RV,

in the early 1990s.

Sally Exworthy & Jan Scott follow with what

 

they had to keep and what they had to let go when they began

RVing for a second time.

Ruth Silver reveals a story in her monologue that

 

begins with an RV focus but ends with her thoughts about

community.

Marion Orem closes with Part II of her interview by

 

exploring why these stories are important to any woman,

regardless of her RV experience.

 

Now, I‘ve been warned on occasion, “Senior women won’t

visit your Web site. They won’t care about a blog or even know

how to listen to a podcast. They won’t have a clue how to download

mp3 files. Who’s interested in these stories anyway?”

I’m interested, and as a member of the Arizona Book

 

Publishing Association I’ve been assured, “We all have an insatiable

need to read and to hear stories about ourselves ….” I’m

hangin’ with the authors and publishers on this one because if

we don’t get our own stories, no one else is going to.

This interview process has been a humbling experience. It

has challenged my own thoughts about community and how

each of us can benefit from these women, their strength … and

their wisdom.

Note: Episodes content may vary from the book and audio   

due to reader and listener editing choices.

 
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It takes courage to go off and live full-time in your RV, even

 

more so for a woman, I believe. Thoughts that can occur:

 

Can I drive an RV?

 

Is it safe?

How will I meet people and experience a sense of

 

community?

What do I do if I have a problem? Can I really sell everything,

 

give up my home and live in an RV?

Having a mentor, another woman who is living on the road

and who loves the RV lifestyle, can make the difference. She

provides you with a role model, someone to whom you can go

if you have questions. Think of her as a friend who has already

figured out the ropes.

Women who choose this lifestyle are strong and courageous.

They have bravely stepped into the unknown. They push forward

in spite of their fears, possessing the self-confidence to

know they will be able to figure things out as they go along

and deal with any problems as they arise.

 

The joy of the open road and their own personal freedom

are what matters most to these women.

Women Who RV and Their Kindred Spirits gives voice to women

 

who had the courage to follow their dreams and take the path

less traveled. These women are special and can be mentors to

other women who have thought of the RV lifestyle as an attractive

option but have not yet taken that step toward living it.

They are also role models for living your dream, whatever

that dream may be. It takes courage to step out of your old life

and try something new. These women did it in spite of questions

and fears. They found new adventures, new abilities, and—in

some cases—new lives as a result.

So can you.

—Jaimie Hall Bruzenak

Author of RV Traveling Tales: Women’s Journeys on the Open

 

Road, The Woman’s Guide to Solo RVing and other RV books.

 

—RVLifestyleExperts.com

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WWRV: Women Who RV – NAOPB: Noble Art of Printed Book – Reply: Click on Subject Line

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Meeting with my WWRV audio ”Guru” shortly.

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I’ll be adding SmartDraw and other jpeg visuals to the July through September WWRV blogs and podcasts series. I was so focused on my first audio CD and book that I had little time for anything else.

Wordpress makes it very easy to add media once you learn how to do each option. Not only that, there are a lot of Wordpress resources around so you can minimize your learning curve’s impact on any one helpful soul.

ABPA members told me ”Your second book will be easier…” 

While that’s true, there’s now a whole SmartDraw learning curve ahead. Social media’s influence and demands actually strengthened my NAOPB process.

Patience will be a key as I move through this podcast and blogs series. Mine not your’s…

I met with WWRV resource Media Mike (as I call him) today to get a brief but thorough overview of Wordpress. My Wordpress web site was recently revised by NAOPB resource Dave Barnhart – more on Dave shortly.

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