Dear Ruby

Do you remember the night when the coyotes circled? How we were just there in the dark, a slip of slivered moon gentling its way through your window onto my cheek? How, after realizing it was real, the yips and yowls so close their bodies were probably brushing against you, I pressed my nose to your glass and gasped. Those shadowy forms circling us took my breath.

It had been days since we’d made the climb—the questionable climb, I’ll admit—to this spot: Potholes so massive your tires could barely straddle them. The drop to your right often sheer and stunning. Four-wheelers zipping past where there seemed no room for both them and us. But I pushed, and your engine roared. I steered, and your tread maintained its purchase.

I felt terrible when I saw, once we’d found a flat spot to park, that, not only had all my belongings been dumped into your belly, but also an entire cabinet had ripped from its hinges. All was soon back in order, duct tape a temporary repair; you seemed only more lovely for yet another quirk. And later, our friend helped execute a rebuild that added an extra shelf. I adorned its cracks with those little bejeweled thrift store plates, stuffed it with books, and hung crystals below it to throw dancing rainbows across every bit of you.

Should I list some of our other favorites? There was the spot of the wild burros and the bats. Remember how I threw open every door as wide as possible to let the wind rip through you as we counted down the hours till evening? We couldn’t help but wonder if the sun might never bow out, instead baking us—my human softness, your metallic sleekness, the barren land—for eternity. And then came the moon cooling and the donkeys braying and the bats balleting, and I slipped into silvered velvet hot springs.

I thought we’d never get the sand out of your bits. Let’s be real. Some of it’s probably in there still, somewhere.

Oh, and remember the forest of the creepy doll and the bones?! I found them out on a bike ride, miles from where you waited. Still, that night, I shut your doors and flipped the lock switch and felt safe and cozy behind your curtains. 

The curtains! Peach facing in, blockout material facing out. My sweet mom sewed them, cutting them to fit your contours, inserting magnetic edges that work perfectly still five years later.

That wasn’t the first night I shuddered and felt sheltered in your womb.

Were you nervous when I stopped in the Yukon and the grizzly loped in our direction?

What did you think when I pulled out your passenger seat and built a swivel for it from a tractor part? And how about that time in the woods when I was fed up with your lack of clearance and dismantled your running board, borrowing a saw to cut it into pieces so I could dispose of it? And the 14-x-14"-inch hole I cut in your roof in the spitting rain with only a taut tarp we hoped would hold till I could get the fan in place?

I know I’ve apologized for pinning you like a butterfly. I was too intrigued by that scarlet forest road and too tired from hours of driving and too anxious to set up for the night before dusk to see the truth of the too-thin gate and its oddly angled-in post. I’m sorry, too, for high-centering you on the rock in that flowering wonderland with its roaring river.

We were reckless and wild and beautiful, weren’t we? We were one.

What I’m trying to say is you’ll have my heart forever. What I’m trying to say is I’ll find you a new adventure partner. What I’m trying to say is thank you. I’d have chosen no other to spend four years adventuring with. What I’m trying to say is I’m sorry for how still you’ve sat for so long recently while my body cried for my attention. What I’m trying to say, though it breaks me a little, is goodbye.

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Goodbye? you ask. An update is clearly warranted. I know. If you follow me on notes, you may know Ruby van Jangles recently had a bit of a, well, a hiccup. Smoke poured from her hood. I pulled over. Quite a trek to a friend’s garage some 150 miles north ensued. (Stay tuned for that story.) In the meantime, a couple of snippets—our new friend at the first rest stop and us waking up at another and waiting for a tow. Since then, my friend and I have replaced Ruby’s radiator, and she’s running like a champ once more. And also I met another van, Vinnie—tall and sturdy, with a little more head room, a little more luxury. I’ll introduce you soon. And also, we’ll have a live farewell to Ruby the van. I’ll send a save-the-date.

Thank you for reading, liking, and commenting! Sharing Ruby with you has been an absolute delight. And believe you me, stories yet untold from the Ruby years will be forthcoming, even as tales with Vinnie are woven in.

I’d love to share this love letter—to the wild, to thinking and living outside the box, to knowing when change is needed no matter how hard it may be, to Ruby van Jangles—far and wide. Pretty please, restack “Dear Ruby” (press the little recycle button) or share it with a link! Or, if you’re a Substack writer, please consider recommending the Rolling Desk.

Photo captions: (1) Ruby the van at dusk in the California Redwoods, (2) Ruby’s belly in her very early years (before the road that broke a cabinet) near a lake in Montana, (3) some remains next to a hollowed-out doll’s head in Arizona’s Coconino Forest, (4) a bison walking alongside Ruby in the no-man’s land between Alaska, US, and the Canadian Yukon, (and (5) a double rainbow over Ruby in an Idaho field.

For the comments, when have you known it was time to move on, make a change, let go even though it felt the end of an era you were loathe to let go?

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