the Hollands
I often joke about how I feel like a traveling minstrel who lives in his car, driving 40,000 miles a year for gigs.
The most difficult aspect of traveling is being away from Natalie. She joins me on the road a few times a year, but usually that’s not possible. We plan ahead and schedule our time together between our work schedules. We prioritize it.
When I told my friend Peyton Tochterman how traveling was difficult for me, he could relate, and said, “When Ellis Paul and I toured, we probably did 80-90K on the road that year.”
Close to 100,000 miles on the road? Yep, a musician can say the road is his home; but it’s hard to be away from your true home.
And here’s where the story of the Hollands stops you in your tracks and makes you dream of a new way to live.
The Hollands took on the challenge of life and work interfering with dreams. They literally live on the road, as a traveling, family band in a converted 1984 MCI-9 bus!
The bus serves as their home, with a working kitchen, bedrooms, and living space. It’s an incredible story to read, how a family decided the regular life of 9-5 jobs in a 2600 sq. ft home was stifling their desires to share music and treat life as an adventure.
The process of downsizing and transitioning their lives started in 2011. Now they are fully in the adventure, homeschooling their kids, touring the country year round, bringing their home where ever they go, and sharing their celtic, multi-instrumental music as a family.
The pessimists and skeptics might say, “There are too many challenges to living that way,” but I argue there are the same number of challenges to living a “normal” way too. It’s just different challenges.
What the Hollands inspire us to do is embrace these challenges fully, to find answers and solutions that fit our lives rather than feel trapped by our fears.
PS: The Hollands are playing tonight, Thursday, August 1, 2013 at the Avenue Cafe in Lansing, MI! 8 PM show.
Read more about the Holland’s life on the road here at Mama J’s blog.
Listen to their music at thehollands.org.
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